The Texans are making major shakeups on their offensive line. They've traded Laremy Tunsil to the Washington Commanders, Kenyon Green to the Philadelphia Eagles and earlier released Shaq Mason. All justified moves, but where's this thing headed exactly?
In The Loop's John P. Lopez likes what he sees so far.
In The Loop's John P. Lopez likes what he sees so far.
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00:00I'm not trying to overstate it. I'm being completely sincere as I always try to do.
00:04This wasn't a good trade. This was a great trade. And I'm dumbfounded by some of the
00:10things I've seen from a national perspective. Some of the things I've seen from a local perspective
00:16as well in terms of, well, I don't know. Look, the thing you have to remember about this is
00:24we've talked about it since the end of the season when it became increasingly apparent.
00:28These guys don't fit Bobby Slowick's system. There was a disconnect. We used that word a lot.
00:35These guys being Kenyon Green, Shaq Mason, Titus Howard, Laramie Tunsil.
00:42How'd you put that emphasis on?
00:44Titus Howard, Laramie Tunsil, they don't fit. They don't fit D'Amico Ryan's is what we should
00:49have been saying. They don't fit what D'Amico Ryan wants in players on both sides of the ball.
00:54We know what they've got. This was a great trade. You can be, no matter how good you are,
01:00and Laramie Tunsil's good, obviously very, very good. If it's not a culture fit, it won't work.
01:05It won't fit. Laramie Tunsil did not and won't in every position room. And this idea of him being a
01:13leader that's been thrown out there is garbage. It's hogwash. You can be a great dude. Somebody
01:21put it out there on Twitter. I forget exactly who it was because there were some locals doing
01:25this as well. The players love rocking with Laramie Tunsil. Yes, they do. There's a lot of
01:31guys I love rocking with that I would never consider a leader, that I would never consider
01:35a swarm type player, that I would never consider a guy that I want in that offensive line room
01:41as an example of how to be. So those two things can happen at the same time.
01:47Yeah, they were rocking with him. He's a fun guy. He's a captivating personality. We've had him on
01:53this show multiple times. Laramie Tunsil is a good dude. He's not a leader. He's just not.
02:00To compare those two things, to say those two things, it's just you're not being sincere.
02:05And so this was a great trade for the room. There are a lot of things to consider,
02:10but the main thing you should consider when you go, okay, what now? And we'll get to that later,
02:15is you don't think Nick Casario has a plan already in place, if not in motion,
02:20on how to fix this, how to get the offensive line going? I would sure hope so. And the way
02:24that he has been wheeling and dealing, it does seem like at the very least, he's got contingencies
02:29in place, right? That is something that seems very evident. Again, we were talking in various
02:34ways about the level of belief that you have in this front office to get things done. And oh boy,
02:40they have continued to give you reasons to believe that. And I guess I owe a mea culpa
02:44to the listeners because there's been various ones over the offseason and maybe even football
02:50season that have said, can we trade Laramie Tunsel? And I hadn't been able to see it. I did
02:54not have the vision to be able to see this likely happening, right? He cost a lot of money, but mind
03:00you, and this is where the disconnect between the local response to Laramie Tunsel being traded
03:06kind of also pops in with the ways that national perspectives, guys, even folks that you would
03:12look at and you'd say, hey man, you seem like you were tapped in and that you really watched
03:15tape and everything. They all were so perplexed that Laramie Tunsel, the best pass protector on
03:20the offensive line on an already bad offensive line being traded, you look up and I figured
03:26that you look at it as you're trying to fix it. And yes, there is false start issues, continual
03:32false start issues. Yes, he was not good enough in the run blocking aspect of it. And sometimes
03:37you wondered how committed he was to the idea of run blocking. But it's still, I was like,
03:42that still feels somewhat foundational. It still feels like, are you willing to give up
03:48what you know in the pass blocking for the uncertainty of trying to figure out something
03:52beyond that? And what's apparent is that the standard is the standard. That's a direct quote
03:57from Namiko Ryan. And it's one of those things that you wonder if it's kind of one of those
04:02coach things where, or one of those things that just in general life, right? Somebody in a position
04:06of power has standards. However, it goes to a point, right? Standards up to a certain point.
04:11We can talk about this in an entirely different way. When we say, when we see, you know,
04:15players get in trouble with the law or what have you, or if they're, they're hassles to some degree,
04:21you look up and you go, yeah, but he is so good, right? I look there, there seems to be no,
04:29no cavern here with D'Amico Ryan. The standard is the standard. You need to be swarmy. You need
04:33to be able to like, you know, fully exhibit all the things that is necessary for us to get this
04:38done. Otherwise we will try and find a way to get somebody who will. And they, they moved off of a
04:43really hefty contract, but they also moved off of something that a player that did not seem to like
04:48fit culturally with what. Here's the best way I can put it. And, and, and, and, and this is,
04:53this to me says everything you need to know, set the false start stuff aside. Just forget that it
04:58happened. How could you just, but I'm getting somewhere with this, set the false start stuff
05:03aside, set the run blocking stuff aside. Their stated goal is that their number one priority
05:11is to protect CJ Stroud. And they got rid of their best pass blocker. That's all you need
05:17to know about his fit here. Well, unless you think that the dudes running this are idiots,
05:22because that is something they're not, but I imagine from an outside perspective, that is
05:26something that you cannot assume in the NFL. Sometimes we give everybody the benefit of the
05:29doubt saying that they are competent at their job. These dudes we know are, they're more than
05:33competent at their job. So you can't go to the place that they're just idiots, which I think
05:36that's the national perspective. They were like, what are you idiots doing? Sending away one of the
05:40best offensive linemen on the team. If you think he's a leader, they just got rid of their best
05:46pass blocker. Those two things don't fit. If he was a leader, they would not have gotten rid of
05:52their best pass blocker when their stated goal is, is to number one, more than anything,
05:57protect CJ Stroud. That's why it's a great trade. It's, it, D'Amico Ryan's one thing I've picked up
06:03on him, uh, here in the, in two plus years here is his, you're either this or you're not. And,
06:13and, and there's no like, well, maybe this, maybe that you're either swarm or you're not,
06:19you're either a culture fit or you're not. And Laramie Tunsell was not to, again, you,
06:26you can't comprehend him or think of him as a leader and then get rid of your best pass
06:31blocker. You can't do those two things. Don't jibe. They just don't fit.
06:35Well, and here's the thing, right? Even, even with the cons, you know, the concept of leadership,
06:39right? Which I think is strong, but we don't even have to go there. I think that if you just look
06:43at the cap considerations of this by itself, this deal makes sense, which is why I was kind of
06:47surprised that people had all these issues. What is, what is one of the things that we learned?
06:52Hell, even in pre-agency before we got to like the actual actuality of free agency,
06:56you saw not one, but two leading pass rushers in this league get exponentially higher money.
07:02You talk about the 35 thereabouts million that Max Crosby got on average annual value. And then
07:07after that, the 40 million on average annual value that Max, uh, Max, that Miles Garrett got,
07:12that makes you know that, Hey, my, uh, this will Anderson jr extension that's coming up
07:16here relatively soon. Yeah. Going to be big. Uh, we saw JC horn pick up a four-year a hundred
07:22million dollar deal, which is literally the largest, uh, for a defensive back in NFL history,
07:28Derek Stingley deal going to be massive. And then we saw, uh, Josh Allen get a huge deal where they
07:35ripped up a previous little, the previous deal to give him big money. We all know that CJ Stroud
07:40is going to get big time money. If you are looking at all those, I don't know. I think
07:45that you want to one, look at the fact that how long you want to try and align your window with
07:52all these guys. And that doesn't really work when you're paying 25, $28 million for a left tackle,
07:58who is 31, who's a little bit ahead of this. Like you can make it as simple as the money does not
08:03really seem to make sense. Go ahead and get you some caps, cap relief, and see if you can get
08:07younger at that position, uh, younger and cheaper as you go forward. The only thing that kind of,
08:12then you have a question about is how do you do that in the immediate future? Cause that,
08:16that works for two years and three years in the immediate future. You also want to be a contender.
08:21And that's when you come back to the idea of he didn't do all of the things that were necessary.
08:25He didn't do all the things that were necessary. Uh, the, the, the money clearly is, is angling and,
08:31uh, strategizing for those three big contracts. But again, coming into this season,
08:37this is a team that wants to win. Now look at the moves that they've made elsewhere,
08:41defensively, this defense, and we're going to get into it has gotten a lot better or certainly
08:45has gotten better. Uh, and we're going to talk about that in just a few minutes in terms of
08:49at the safety position, which is another position that I've been planning for,
08:52uh, for a long time. And I'm glad they finally got somebody in there. That's definite swarm.
08:57Uh, and we'll get to that. But when you look at Laramie Tunsil, uh, and you talk about Laramie
09:02Tunsil, it is a loss in terms of the here and now clearly, even no matter the lack of leadership,
09:08lack of swarm or whatever, but you don't think Nick Casario already has the next two,
09:11three moves planned. Of course he does. And it's going to make for some very big, uh,
09:16decisions now and in the draft for sure. I like that you have Nick Casario as Batman,
09:21right? Who just on his tool belt has plans for all the other superheroes in case they get out
09:26of line. Like, you know what I mean? Like Batman tonight, just in case Superman gets out of line.
09:32You were like, you, you, you have it to where Nick Casario is like, should we need to move
09:36off from this left tackle? I got this step in that step. Should we, should Eric Murray get an
09:42exorbitant deal to the Jacksonville Jaguars? We will trade, uh, this, this offensive guard that
09:46we probably can't play. Right. And in the last year of his deal, should we not extend or pick
09:51up that fifth year option for a safety who won a Superbowl this past year, led his team, his
09:57Superbowl winning team in interceptions and is swarmy as hell. If you didn't hear that, uh,
10:02we'll talk more about that here coming up. Kenyon green is on his way to the Eagles,
10:06uh, as CJ Gardner Johnson, uh, previously of the Superbowl champion Eagles will make his way
10:12to Houston. But yeah, man, I, it does seem like dude, even if he does not already have those,
10:17those things in play, it feels like he has, he, he, he's moved nicely, you know, responding to
10:24the, the stimuli responding to what has happened out there. And as of right now, this has been a,
10:29I think all of the logic in the moves have made sense. You just got to stick to landing
10:33because I think the big question that I still got the bodies you got to get. Yeah. The big
10:36question I have is, Oh man, the defense looks like it's going to be tough. We'll talk more
10:40about that. Right. It looks like you're setting yourself up to be able to answer some questions
10:43at wide receiver. I still need to figure out what the offensive line is.