From C.J. Stroud using his legs more, to the Texans' ability to run the ball with Joe Mixon behind this offensive line. These are the storylines to follow, plus a prediction from Sean Pendergast ahead of Texans-Chiefs.
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00:00The six-pack. Let's get to the reasons, the storylines, the people that are going to be
00:06important in this game. And can the Texans pull off a victory in this game on Saturday,
00:11tomorrow? 3.30, you can hear it here on Sports Radio 610. Texans countdown at 12.30.
00:16All right, the number one, you mentioned it in the open, we'll mention it again,
00:21I think is one of the biggest storylines of the game, the return of Aziz Al-Shayer.
00:26Here is D'Amico Ryans on Tuesday this week talking about how important
00:30Aziz Al-Shayer's leadership is. Aziz has been a great vocal leader. He always shares a great
00:35message. He's great at articulating those messages to the players and the players are
00:40very attentive when Aziz is talking. When Aziz talks to the team, it always comes from the heart.
00:45It's heartfelt, it's sincere, and you can tell how much he cares about the guys just with his
00:51messages. So I know it resonates with the guys. And that's what a team is about, right? When your
00:56team leaders are standing up giving the messages, they go a lot further than what I have to say,
01:01because they know my message don't change. It's the same thing from when we started at training
01:06camp to now. We're going to be consistent in messaging from me and what I expect of our guys,
01:12because I believe in winning. It takes a certain way to win games, and that doesn't change
01:17right from day one to where we are now. So really thankful for Aziz and his leadership,
01:22thankful for CJ, Will, the guys who step up and lead when it comes to being vocal leaders.
01:27You need guys to do it the right way, but at times players need to hear from each other,
01:33and it means a lot more when they do that. So we have a lot of guys who aren't afraid to speak up
01:37and speak their mind to each other and pour out their hearts to each other. Yeah, veteran leadership
01:42is always a tricky thing, and you never know exactly what it's going to look like or who your
01:46good leaders are going to be. In the playoffs especially, it's really good to have a lot of
01:51older guys who have a kind of maturity about them, and Aziz isn't actually that old, but he's one of
01:57those guys that's way mature beyond his years, and he's had some life experiences that make him
02:02really unique. The biggest thing is, for me, his leadership on the field. Like we saw with D'Amico
02:08in that Mike Duff segment, where D'Amico asks him where he's going to be a defensive coordinator.
02:13He doesn't want to lose him to being a defensive coordinator. That has come up huge so many times.
02:19Going back to that goal line stand against the Jaguars, Aziz told the D-line exactly
02:24what was coming, changed their alignments a little bit. There was a play in the game last
02:30week where Aziz adjusted to an offensive adjustment, then the offense adjusted again,
02:36and Aziz adjusted again, and they stuffed the run because of it. That kind of stuff,
02:41that on-field leadership in the playoffs, that's huge. The other guy, the guy who is a different
02:48personality than Aziz, but I think just by virtue of his play, who shows up in the playoffs we've
02:54seen now is Nico Collins. I think the fact that Nico has put in some of his best performances
03:02in the playoffs, and last week, on that 99-yard touchdown drive, there was three receptions by
03:09Nico on that drive, including the touchdown play. There's a certain strength in Nico in the
03:17playoffs that I think is just going to ... It's a rock-solid foundation. I think that's who he is.
03:23I would count that Week 18 game against the Colts last year, which was his biggest game,
03:28that to me counts as a playoff game.
03:30The play-in game.
03:30The play-in game, yeah, absolutely. Aziz Alshire, the return of him, that's a big one. Number two,
03:36CJ's newly found magic legs. This whole wrinkle that was unlocked in the late second quarter of
03:44Saturday's game, and was used a few times in the second half. CJ running the football,
03:50and needing to be accounted for at least in some way. Here was Steve Spagnuolo,
03:55the defensive coordinator for the Chiefs, talking about CJ's running ability.
03:59I was very impressed with him. I told him that after the game last time we played him,
04:03for a young guy, he's so talented. We all saw what he did last week with his feet. I think
04:08when the importance of these games keep amping up, you can expect quarterbacks to say,
04:13hey, I might have to run it here. We've talked extensively about trying to bottle this quarterback
04:19up, because we saw last week what he can do when he decides to run it. It's like all these
04:23quarterbacks playing this league now. It brings a whole other dimension, and you've got to figure
04:26out ways to ... Whether you commit one guy to the quarterback, turn three loose, however you do it,
04:31you've got to have ways to do it. That being said, we've got to get him in those situations.
04:35His first and second down, and they're on schedule, that makes it really tough. When
04:38a quarterback takes off on a first and second down run-pass call, and it ends up passing,
04:43he's going. That's challenging. CJ's name getting dropped in with
04:46all the athletic quarterbacks. I didn't see that coming.
04:47I know, yeah. It's kind of cool.
04:50We were wondering if maybe CJ is more athletic than we want to give him credit for, mostly just
04:54because he's duck-footed. A lot of times when guys are duck-footed, when you watch them walking
04:59around and everything, you're like, ah, I don't know about this guy. But he does. When he pulls
05:03it down and runs, he only needs to be as athletic as Pat Mahomes. It's as much about his choice of
05:11when to run and in which situations matters more than anything else. Pat Mahomes ran a 4.840.
05:20He's athletic enough. With CJ, that's all it is. He's athletic enough.
05:25The one thing I found really interesting this week when CJ talked about it was that he had said,
05:34I'll paraphrase, he said, I feel like I am a really good pocket passer. I want to be an elite
05:39pocket passer. And yes, that's true. But in the modern NFL, man, nobody is going to mark you down
05:47for running like Pat Mahomes. Nobody's second guess is whether or not Pat Mahomes is a good
05:52pocket quarterback. He just takes the easy opportunities. And then because you take those
05:57easy opportunities, yes, they help in the moment, but it really does open up the passing game for
06:01a couple reasons. One is that if they have to commit a guy on defense to keep an eye on you
06:07and stay in the center of the field, that opens everything up over the outside. It helps. It
06:12keeps guys in coverage a little further back. So you've got more openings over the middle in the
06:18quick game. And then the nature in the way in which you run the ball, Pat Mahomes does it
06:25perfectly. He just runs straight ahead. And CJ did that a couple of times in the game because
06:31that's what really stresses out a defense. If you're rolling to the sideline, you can make
06:35some things happen, but in some ways it makes it easier for the coverage. When the quarterback
06:39escapes up the middle, he's got 50 yards of space with which to work. And in coverage,
06:46if he's moving towards the line of scrimmage, the guys in coverage have to make that decision.
06:50They're like, all right, do I come up and meet the quarterback at the line of scrimmage or do
06:53I stay in coverage? So it wasn't just the fact that he ran. It was the nature of his runs where
06:59he threatens the defense. Yeah. And I think the big thing too on that, Seth, is third down. Like
07:04this team, they're lacking weapons right now. They've had trouble on third down in the second
07:07half of the season. If CJ is more willing on a third and seven to tuck it and go, that's one
07:13more way they can keep the chains moving in this game. Real quick. Another reason to hate the
07:18Chiefs. I think we're up to nine or 10 now. Spags was obviously tampering there. I feel like if any
07:25other team, if any team other than the Chiefs were to do that, they would have been hit with a tap.
07:30The way I understand it, it seems like anytime a head coach compliments a player from another team,
07:35it's tampering. So he goes up to CJ, says, I admire your work. Not just laying the groundwork
07:41for his spags, gets a head coach job. So tampering, tampering, tampering called that
07:46a legal timeout earlier in the year. That wasn't flagged. Greasy mitts off our quarterback.
07:51I send that over to, uh, send that to Ron, uh, Hugh, Hughley. Yeah. Hughley. Yeah.
07:57Uh, evidence of their cheating. Number three, uh, Chris Jones, uh, Chris Jones,
08:03I'm assuming fully healthy. He got hurt in the Texans game. Hasn't played since then. Um, he,
08:10Chris Jones versus the interior. This offensive line Seth is, uh, kind of a big deal. Okay.
08:14Here's the thing though, Sean, it's not just Chris Jones versus the interior offensive line.
08:19Chris Jones had his way with Blake Fisher a couple of times. Chris Jones, bull rushed
08:24Laramie Tunsil. Like Laramie was a prepubescent seventh grader, uh, right down there at the end
08:30of the game. I believe that was on the third down that pretty much sealed the game for the,
08:34for the chiefs. Um, because Chris Jones can line up all over the place, the Texans have to
08:40sometimes alter their protection to address it. And then Spagnuolo is really good at, at calling
08:47blitzes to the other side, changing things up to screw. So in a way they use Chris Jones to
08:54dictate pass protection. And that's the big cat and mouse game. That's tricky for Bobby, because
09:00if he can't just do what he was doing early in the year, which is like do a full slide protection
09:05to wherever the biggest threat is, because they're going to get duped with something like that.
09:10That's the chess match between Spagnuolo and Bobby Sloat this week. That's really interesting.
09:15Yep. Uh, number four, got to run the football and I'm, you know, we'll see what this Joe
09:20Mixon ankle injury is. Hopefully it's the team just be cautious. He didn't seem to be acting
09:25like a guy with an ankle injury in the locker room after the game, he was smoking a gigantic
09:30cigar and screaming at Rex Ryan. Um, but so, so we don't know what this is called.
09:35Rex Ryan, that boy, that boy said it was a bi-week Ryan bi-week path. Um, but they're
09:42going to have to run the football in this game. They, the, the, the weapons in the past game,
09:46Seth, it's Nico Collins, as you pointed out, who's outstanding. And then it's a bunch of
09:50guys who I don't know that they'd get on the field for the Kansas city chiefs after that,
09:54like that's the drop off. Um, you know, the way you're going to get some of these guys open,
09:58I think is to, to, is to be able to line up and run the football. They were able to do that at
10:02the end of the chargers game. That's the one thing I feel okay about with the offense is
10:07that we're, we're not asking them to do anything that we haven't at least seen glimpses of
10:11recently here, either, you know, in week 18 or in the charger game, like, yeah, do that again.
10:15You know, like that, that last drive where they ran at 13 straight times,
10:19um, they don't have to run the ball great, but they have to be credible running the football.
10:23So just saying that's where, again, it's, it helps if, if there's any more respect or
10:30thought this week on the chief's behalf of, okay, well, you know what, they're probably going to
10:34really, uh, they're going to take advantage of opportunities that when CJ runs, we gotta
10:39be cognizant of that, that if that's part of the run game, then so be it. That's nice. Yeah. All,
10:45all use all your available resources, Joe Mixon, Damian Pierce, perhaps. I mean, I,
10:51I that's if Joe Mixon's ankle is a little banged up or really banged up the, that Damian Pierce
10:58Titans game is looming large in my mind as a factor for how you manage this. Great.
11:04And I, uh, fifth one, the, the battle between what's worse being off for 24 days and the
11:10rust that accumulates or being a dome team that's playing in what's probably a kickoff
11:16going to be closer to like temperatures in the mid twenties or low twenties kicking off late in
11:20the day. The high tomorrow in Kansas city is in the low thirties. I mean, it's going to be dark
11:25outside by the time the second half rolls around. Oh yeah. It will be a night game. Yeah. The second
11:30half of this game. So which of those, which of those, uh, you know, sort of non X's and O's
11:36themes shows itself more in this game. Uh, there's a, uh, Pat Holmes will have set a record
11:42if he starts this game, if he starts, if he starts for longest layoff by a starting quarterback
11:48before the playoffs, he'll break Warren moon's record. We'll get to a little bit more on that
11:52later. Um, but so, uh, it's there, the chiefs are very good after bi-weeks or with extra rest.
12:00Uh, but this is a long one and Chris Jones and pretty much all the rest of the notable starters
12:05didn't haven't played in a long, long time. So yeah, we'll see. We'll see. Hopefully it does
12:10make it and you got to spring it on them in the first quarter. If it takes those guys a couple,
12:14a couple series to kind of get their reaction time back and to get into the rhythm of the game,
12:18spring it all in the front, put, put stress on their brains and on their nervous system.
12:23And then the reaction time in that very first couple of series, do you, if you win the toss,
12:28do you take the ball or do you defer to the second half? I say yes. Okay. Either one. Oh,
12:35you gave me an either or, and I said, yes, I would say you, uh, yeah, yeah. I say take the
12:40ball, take the ball, take the fight to him immediately. Yeah. Yeah. Analytics don't do
12:44that, but like what you're talking about, you know, the Texans are a good offensive team in
12:48the first quarter. The chiefs are a rusty team. I think there's a case to be made to take the
12:52ball in this game. Sean, part of, uh, my math learning disability that we talked about earlier
12:56is that, uh, I selectively choose to pay attention to the analytics. Okay. I, uh,
13:02depending on how my gut feel is, I either agree with it because I'm smart, you know,
13:06or I disagree with it because I know football, you didn't play the game.
13:10That's good for radio. You're not an engineer. If you were an engineer and you were doing that,
13:13I'd be really worried like building bridges and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. That's really,
13:19that's really lean into. You didn't play the game. We pick the engineer that uses math. Some
13:24of the time I want to be the engineer that says you didn't play the game.
13:28Yeah. All right. Hey, you've never driven over that bridge that goes over the ship channel.
13:33You don't know what it's like, right? Hey, real quick. My prediction,
13:36Seth will give his in the nine o'clock hour effort. Texans 24, 23. Oh, I can't believe
13:43the chiefs blew this game. When am I going to get a chance to do this again? Anytime soon? Texas
13:49chiefs 23. Come at me. Uh, all right. That's your six pack for the game.