C.J. Stroud was sacked eight times in the Texans' AFC divisional round loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. The Drive's Clint Stoerner and Ron Hughley discuss how these pass protection issues continue for the Texans.
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00:00Clint, I know for you, you grew very frustrated on some of the issues that are still issues
00:09that the Texans are dealing with, and they showed up big time in the game on Saturday.
00:13Yeah, Ronnie, and this all goes back, by the way, it's married to kind of what D'Amico
00:18Ryan's has allowed all year long, by the way. I mean, this is, it blows my mind that a lot of
00:24what we're talking about, and we're going to talk about, not all of it, but a lot of it,
00:28is stuff that we saw as early as the Minnesota Vikings game in the regular season, which,
00:34what was that, week four, week five, something like that, maybe even earlier?
00:36Week three, I think, yeah.
00:37Week three? I mean, like, there's, to then see the same exact thing in the playoffs,
00:43I don't even care if the other option is something that it seems, it's less appealing,
00:48it may not work, makes less sense. Give me something other than the same old, same old
00:52that we saw not work all year long. I'll start with this. I'm going to clean it up a little
00:56bit because I actually got the F word in this one, but how in the hell, thank you,
01:00how in the hell are we still seeing a full slide protection towards Laramie Tunsell
01:10away from Dalton Schultz in critical moments? We saw it, everybody saw it, Dalton Schultz trying
01:15to block Carl Loftus in critical moments down the stretch, right? We talked about the penalties a
01:21little earlier, you want to talk about something that's just as damning as a penalty that gets a
01:25first down instead of a punt with Pat Mahomes, right? Again, trying to block defensive ends
01:32with Dalton Schultz. And I'm talking about the scheme of it, we'll get into Dalton later on,
01:36just the scheme of it, Ron, is for that to rear its head again after the Minnesota Vikings game
01:48is criminal in itself, for it to rear its head in the most critical moment
01:56of the divisional round against Kansas City Chiefs when you've played your ass off during
02:00this game and you've got a shot, maybe a long shot, but you've got a shot to get back in the
02:05game and you've got Dalton Schultz blocking Carl Loftus, how is that in the playbook?
02:12How is that allowed to happen?
02:14That's some of the blitz stuff where they had so many guys walked up there and-
02:18Absolutely, absolutely. And I need Big Smitty, I need some of my offensive line guys that are
02:24out there, I need y'all to help me out. That 4th and 10, that was-
02:27I need, bro, it was all three of those plays in a row, Ron. They're all three. I need y'all
02:31to help me out. Because the- What was the Meco thing?
02:34The full slide, oh, you're talking about on defense.
02:36I was talking about the 4th and 10, you waited so late to go for it,
02:41we ran down time and you saw it, it was Carl Loftus versus him, no help, and they didn't have
02:47a chance. The full slide, literally, I don't care if it's
02:51Tunstall on the other side, but you typically slide towards the person you're trying to protect,
02:56which would be Blake Fisher in this situation, right? But the way that they're doing it,
03:01I need, again, I need some of my O-line pass pro masters out there to go look at this.
03:08It appears to me in every one of those situations, if I were the quarterback,
03:14I would have gotten the slide direction correct. If you just look at the defense, right? And it's
03:22as simple as this for the radio listeners out there. I know this is deep for radio,
03:25but if I've got trips to my left and my running back, if I got four receivers to my left,
03:32it's damn near impossible for them to blitz from that side of the field because somebody's
03:36got to have them in man. Unless they blow a coverage and they're playing super risky football,
03:45they cannot blitz those guys. So just by the simple rule of football 101,
03:52I'm sliding the other direction, and if they do blow the coverage, I've got answers because my
03:57receivers are right in my face. I have no idea what Bobby Slowick and CJ Stroud and the offensive line
04:03were doing in those moments. Have no idea. How every slide protection in this offense, Ron,
04:10every slide protection in this offense should be guard in. Like a full slide protection,
04:15again, for everybody out there, listen, you got five offensive linemen. If we're going to slide
04:19left, you take Blake Fisher and every offensive lineman and they slide hard left towards Laramie
04:23Tunsell, the tight end of the running back has the defensive end off the edge. That should have
04:28been thrown in the garbage months ago. And you leave the tackle on the defensive end and you
04:32slide from guard that direction. That's it. The full slide should not be in this offense because
04:39you don't have Daria Guboale can't do it. Cade Stover couldn't do it. Dalton Schultz damn sure
04:46can't do it. And the guy that I would trust the most to do it is Joe Mixon. And for some reason,
04:50you got his ass on the sideline in two minute and third down situation.
04:56You know, I hate to be so simplistic with this because we've been watching this all year.
05:04Clint, I understand where you're coming from and you got to do something. Is there any kind
05:11of protection that would help these dudes? They just, I mean, you got Shaq, you got Shaq Mason
05:16out there just get, I mean, it feels like you just, I mean, it's just not like you guys getting
05:21their ass. Like the first, the first, third and eighth Clint. I mean, like we can talk about all
05:25the stuff we're looking at the first, third and eighth, third and eighth. Chris Jones is one-on-one
05:30with Blake Fisher with no health. That, that, that, that, no, if, if, if alignments is getting
05:35his ass whooped like that or like Shaq did, I mean, that's part of it. When you come to this
05:38game and you expect Bobby, like, like we're looking at that, that's on Bobby and CJ cause CJ
05:43had a Guboale should have switched him sides to help on the other side. That's something that you
05:48and I can, can talk about. Like, Hey man, you even said it last week when we were talking about
05:51it. Right. You pushed back. Hell and Andy leaves his tackles on an Island sometimes versus the
05:55best. Like I get mad at Bobby Ford, but I don't, I don't just go, what the hell? Right. This is all
06:00like, what in the hell are we doing? Cause yeah, you asked me what's, what's the answer. I'll tell
06:04you what, what the answer is. Slide Dalton Schultz in the backfield to the right of the quarterback.
06:08Get Joe mixing to the left of the quarterback, get Daria Guboale out of the way. Right.
06:13Block big on big upfront. If they walk up the linebackers or the safeties in the a gap,
06:18move Dalton Schultz and Joe mixing up in the a gap to where they can pick them up before they
06:21get ahead of steam. That's it. And at that point in time, if, if, if Reed and the linebacker bail
06:26out, then Dalton Schultz and Joe mixing scan for any other problems, anybody they can help.
06:32And then they get out. Bronco protection is what we used to call it. It should, it should be
06:36like this year with the Texans by about mid year, that should have been their two minute offense.
06:41Nothing but Bronco protection, seven man protect. And if you want to play zone, we'll get our,
06:47we'll get two great check down guys out in the flats and you're in trouble,
06:50right? That crap we saw yesterday late in the game. Shouldn't even been in a playbook.