Speaker 1: What's going on? Everybody. Welcome to your Wednesday edition the
Speaker 1: Texans All Access. I am your host, John Harris, football
Speaker 1: and a sideline reporter, and we got a great show
Speaker 1: for you this evening. Boy, we got a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1: We got Cherry Hughes on the show today. Mark's gonna
Speaker 1: join me in just a little bit for a number
Speaker 1: of things. Today. We've got Bob Poppa play by play
Speaker 1: voice of the New York Giants on the show today.
Speaker 1: And we got a little funky on in the Lab today.
Speaker 1: You have to stick around for that one because that
Speaker 1: got all kinds of funky and it's a it's a
Speaker 1: typical in the Lab podcast you're gonna absolutely love. We'll
Speaker 1: have that later in the show with myself and Drew Doherty.
Speaker 1: But we kick off each and every Wednesday show with
Speaker 1: the visit from the general manager of your Houston Texans,
Speaker 1: Nick Cassario. Let's go joining us now the Hounday Texans
Speaker 1: Radio Studio. It's Texans general manager Nick Casserio. Nick, great
Speaker 1: to see you. How was the mini buy the little break?
Speaker 1: I don't know if you took any time off, how'd
Speaker 1: you spend it? Yes, it was good. It's fairly productive.
Speaker 1: I got a chance to see some football on Saturday
Speaker 1: on a scouting front, and then Sunday had an opportunity
Speaker 1: to spend the day with my daughter, so I kind
Speaker 1: of the best of both worlds. So worked out well.
Speaker 1: So as you're spending your day with your daughter and
Speaker 1: just asking are you able to completely shut off football?
Speaker 1: It is I'm spending with my daughter, whatever's going on
Speaker 1: in football, it just can't even focus on red zone
Speaker 1: on in the background. Nick, No, it's not. I actually
Speaker 1: was able to kind of finish up some things on
Speaker 1: the Giants on Sunday, So it takes some time in
Speaker 1: the morning, get some time with the family, and in
Speaker 1: the afternoon while they're doing some things, try to work
Speaker 1: on the Giants and just try to stay on par
Speaker 1: with on track with the preparation. So that's what I
Speaker 1: try to do. But this is a good question, how
Speaker 1: do you keep up with the league? Now? How do
Speaker 1: you digest information that transpired over the course of a
Speaker 1: Sunday after do? Yeah, you're trying not to worry necessarily
Speaker 1: about what happened one particular weekend or one particular game.
Speaker 1: A coincidentally, the Giants are on their by so it
Speaker 1: wasn't as if we had the opportunity to watch them.
Speaker 1: So there are other teams that we're playing. We're kind
Speaker 1: of working our way here through kind of the NFC's
Speaker 1: a little bit, you know, Philly last Thursday, Giants this weekend,
Speaker 1: Washington next weekend. So I'd say the biggest thing is
Speaker 1: just familiarizing yourself with opponents that you don't see other
Speaker 1: than maybe you know, once every four years. So from
Speaker 1: that standpoint, you try to work on the Giants, finished
Speaker 1: up the Giants and then starting to turn the page
Speaker 1: a little bit and start to prepare a little bit
Speaker 1: for Washington this week so we can kind of stay
Speaker 1: on track. Nicolas seg one final look back at the
Speaker 1: game against the Eagles, because there were some bright moments
Speaker 1: in that particular game. You get ten rookies ended up
Speaker 1: playing a game, and a lot of them did some
Speaker 1: really good things. Where are your overall thoughts looking back
Speaker 1: to Thursday against the Eagles. Yeah, it's today. Games kind
Speaker 1: of emblematic a kind of some of the things that
Speaker 1: happened this season, did some good things, kind of put
Speaker 1: ourselves into position in the end, just you know, on't enough.
Speaker 1: It's say, in the end situationally, they had the advantage
Speaker 1: third down, redder and the turnovers. So those are the
Speaker 1: areas and the plays that whoever has the advantage, there's
Speaker 1: a good chance at the end of the game they're
Speaker 1: probably going to be on top of the scoreboard. So
Speaker 1: they're a good team. You know, we did some decent
Speaker 1: things offense of Lee random ball fairly well, I mean,
Speaker 1: DP had a good night, you know, defensively, he did
Speaker 1: a good job. Actually made the quarterback a little bit
Speaker 1: uncomfortable at times, so you know, run game kind of
Speaker 1: gave up, you know, a little bit some yards there.
Speaker 1: So but in the end of situational things to turn
Speaker 1: over the third down in the radio or they had
Speaker 1: the advantage and as a result, they had the advantage
Speaker 1: on the scoreboard. We had Tavira Thomas on The Players
Speaker 1: Show and asked him about the rookie class that he said,
Speaker 1: in so many words, they don't seem like rookies. They
Speaker 1: seem like they're really taking to things pretty well. How
Speaker 1: would you assess the class midway through the season. May Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're trying not to take a snapshot, but I'd say overall,
Speaker 1: making progress a little bit up and down. It points
Speaker 1: there are certain things that each player can do individually
Speaker 1: to improve, whether it's their technique, whether it's a skill,
Speaker 1: whether it's their preparation, whatever that is. So from that perspective,
Speaker 1: i'd say the overall approach and attitude has been good.
Speaker 1: It's really more about just trying to improve some things
Speaker 1: and clean up some things so you don't have sort
Speaker 1: of let's say, repeat airs or repeat mistakes. So a
Speaker 1: lot of that is is growing pains and you're gonna have.
Speaker 1: The only way you learn is by doing it and
Speaker 1: then doing it on film, and then seeing it and
Speaker 1: correcting it and trying to make sure that it doesn't
Speaker 1: happen again moving forward. So it's all part of the process.
Speaker 1: So i'd say overall, the attitude and the effort has
Speaker 1: been pretty consistent from the beginning. I can't believe you
Speaker 1: stole my rookie question. Sorry, it's my question. Okay rookie questions,
Speaker 1: and you have more. I'm sure you have more rookie questions. No,
Speaker 1: I'm not taking that question. I'm not gonna ask I'm
Speaker 1: gonna ask you about the Giants Nick two part or A.
Speaker 1: Let's dive into the Giants to see what we have
Speaker 1: to say. About them, and b did you squats this morning?
Speaker 1: So you can match sea Quon Barkley's legs when you
Speaker 1: see him on us on the My squat day is Friday.
Speaker 1: And I'd probably do a little bit less than say Quon,
Speaker 1: but I'd say overall, I'd say Joe and Brian have
Speaker 1: done a great job of sort of implementing their program
Speaker 1: from the beginning. I think they're familiarity with each other
Speaker 1: and their time in Buffalo certainly is sort of ease
Speaker 1: that transition. I'd say start at the top. You know,
Speaker 1: Brian's a really i would say one of the better
Speaker 1: coaches in the league, very smart, has a background on
Speaker 1: the defensive side of the ball that's kind of always
Speaker 1: trained and then kind of transition to off, has a
Speaker 1: lot of experience, has been a number of different system
Speaker 1: I'd say some of the things that he believes in
Speaker 1: their representative of kind of how they play. You see
Speaker 1: that in their team, and he and Joe have a
Speaker 1: really good working relationship. They done a good job. So
Speaker 1: you know, Brian is the head coach, and then you
Speaker 1: know hired Mike Kafka, who Mike play in the league.
Speaker 1: Mike's very smart, has a lot of experience, very good coach,
Speaker 1: been in a good system in Kansas City, and then
Speaker 1: Wink has been as good a defensive coordinators who's been
Speaker 1: here for a number of years, had an opportunity, you know,
Speaker 1: face their teams in Baltimore and say they play with
Speaker 1: a very aggressive mindset, of very aggressive mentality, probably more
Speaker 1: than any other in the league. And what they've done,
Speaker 1: they've actually combined, They've gotten good production from their rookies
Speaker 1: in addition to some of the veteran players. Let's say,
Speaker 1: starting defensively, they're really good in a running game, They're
Speaker 1: really good in the red area. And because kind of
Speaker 1: seems like each week we talk about the interior of
Speaker 1: the defensive line and Lawrence Dexter, Lawrence has played as
Speaker 1: good as any defensive line in the league. You know,
Speaker 1: put them up there with Simmons Hargrave, some of the
Speaker 1: players that we've seen here. I mean, he's big, he's strong,
Speaker 1: he's long, he's very disruptive. He's really had his best
Speaker 1: year this season. So they've done a good job of
Speaker 1: kind of maximizing him. I'd say Leonard's a good player.
Speaker 1: He's kind of been bothered a little bit by the
Speaker 1: knee injury, so but he's still a disruptive player. Kate
Speaker 1: has done a good job for them since he's kind
Speaker 1: of in Benison or the line of miss a little
Speaker 1: bit in a preseason, missed the first couple of games,
Speaker 1: but he's done a good job on the edge of
Speaker 1: the defense. And they've gotten some play out of some
Speaker 1: veterans who maybe weren't with the team. But if they've
Speaker 1: brought in Jalen Smith has done a nice job for
Speaker 1: them on the inside part. And then McFadden has kind
Speaker 1: of started to rotate in an inside linebacker in the secondary.
Speaker 1: I mean, Fabian Moreau has done a good, really good
Speaker 1: job for him. So they brought him in kind of
Speaker 1: at a in a training camp, put him on a
Speaker 1: practice squad, and he's kind of emerging their best corner.
Speaker 1: Jackson's having a good year. They've kind of rotated some
Speaker 1: players inside the formation there a little bit. McKinney's going
Speaker 1: to be out obviously with the situation that took place
Speaker 1: here yesterday. He'll be out for four games, but he's
Speaker 1: done a good job. And then Julian Love his role
Speaker 1: is kind of increased relative to last season. Very versatile, smart,
Speaker 1: instinctive player. So defensively they've done a good job. I
Speaker 1: would say situationally, Um, they're at the top. I want
Speaker 1: to say, actually they were like we're tied with the
Speaker 1: tied for ninth in the league in turnover margin. Um.
Speaker 1: So they've forced i want to say, nine fumbles, which
Speaker 1: puts them at the top of the league. They don't
Speaker 1: have as many interceptions. Um. Then offensively that kind of
Speaker 1: played with their strength. So they've taken some of the
Speaker 1: things that Daniel does really well, which is run um,
Speaker 1: and he's made good decisions, he's mitigated sort of the
Speaker 1: some of the bad plays. He doesn't have a lot
Speaker 1: of interceptions. Sae Quon's a very skilled, versatile player, does
Speaker 1: a lot of things well. I think he has combined
Speaker 1: over a thousand yards between rushing and receiving. So everything
Speaker 1: kind of starts with those two players. And and Andrew
Speaker 1: Thomas has played really really well for them at left tackle.
Speaker 1: Their offensive line as a whole, I would say has
Speaker 1: played pretty good for them. Um. Evan is you know,
Speaker 1: he's been hurt here Neil past you know, three to
Speaker 1: four games. But Feliciano is a player that you know
Speaker 1: has experience with day Ball and Buffalo with Joe, and
Speaker 1: he's done a really good job sot up find the
Speaker 1: interior of the of the offensive line. They've gotten really
Speaker 1: good play at a bellinger as well at tight end.
Speaker 1: I know, we got hurt against Jacksonville kind of poked
Speaker 1: desire or did whatever he did. And then they've kind
Speaker 1: of incorporated one Dale Robinson a little bit. So it's
Speaker 1: a combination of young, old, kind of veteran new and
Speaker 1: then they've really in the end been able to execute
Speaker 1: in the fourth quarter. They're six and one and one
Speaker 1: score games, and a number of those games they've trailed
Speaker 1: in the fourth quarter, So I'd say they've handled a
Speaker 1: lot of the situational elements as a team. It's a
Speaker 1: very tough minded team. They have a certain play style,
Speaker 1: certain way they want to play, so we have to
Speaker 1: be able to match how they're going to play. Is
Speaker 1: Daniel Jones the latest good example of Hey, you never
Speaker 1: know how it's going to work out for a player
Speaker 1: over the course of a few years. It might take
Speaker 1: a few seasons for the light to really go on
Speaker 1: in a situation too, with new staff and new new elements. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, what's happened in the past really doesn't have
Speaker 1: as much relevance. I think what they've done is kind
Speaker 1: of looked at Daniel and said, oh, what are the
Speaker 1: things that he does well, try to accentuate his strengths,
Speaker 1: which he's just very deceptively athletic. He's faster than you
Speaker 1: think he is, He's stronger than you think he is.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of quarterback design runs, the zone reads,
Speaker 1: and then you combine that with Barkley and he's made
Speaker 1: good decisions so he goes to the right spot with
Speaker 1: the ball, and I'd say that's a credit to the
Speaker 1: offensive staff or how they've handled it, from Brian to
Speaker 1: Mike kind of how they've put the game plan together.
Speaker 1: And I think Daniel is a very smart kid, and
Speaker 1: he understands how they need to play, how they want
Speaker 1: him to play, and he's played smart, a good situational
Speaker 1: football and he's been a factor with his legs. And
Speaker 1: then se Quon again has probably been as big of
Speaker 1: an impact under offense as anything. So tackling will be
Speaker 1: at a premium as it's been, you know, for most
Speaker 1: of these games. Nick, since he's been back from missing preseason,
Speaker 1: came on Thibadeau from the time he saw him in
Speaker 1: college till now, but you know, years span, what have
Speaker 1: you seen in him and what kind of problems does
Speaker 1: he present on the edge. Yeah, I'd say his effort
Speaker 1: in his overall playing style is very good. He's he's
Speaker 1: very tough. He runs really well. I mean the play
Speaker 1: that he had against ETN chasing him forty five fifty
Speaker 1: yards down the field. He's talking about a guy six
Speaker 1: four two fifty five two sixty. That's Chase the you know,
Speaker 1: back for three or whatever et N runs down the field.
Speaker 1: So he's played well. He's kind of transitioned to playing
Speaker 1: more exclusively from a two point stance because they're really
Speaker 1: more of a thirty front team, more two outside linebackers,
Speaker 1: two end the line of scrimmage players. So he's got
Speaker 1: good lengths, he's got good playing strength, he's got good toughness,
Speaker 1: and he's transitioned well to the Winks scheme and kind
Speaker 1: of how they're trying to play. So Kavon was a
Speaker 1: good player at Oregon. He's been a productive player to
Speaker 1: this point. So you know, it's no surprise that he's played.
Speaker 1: He's played well. Nick, back to your young players, the
Speaker 1: record isn't what you wanted to be at all, and
Speaker 1: how does that affect them? How important is it to
Speaker 1: keep a positive atmosphere, positive culture going around them as
Speaker 1: they continue to play through the season. Yeah, really, you
Speaker 1: want to take it one week at a time. So
Speaker 1: that's what his league is about. So you try to
Speaker 1: look at the week and what do you have to
Speaker 1: do that week in order to prepare in order to
Speaker 1: get ready to play the next opponent. So I think
Speaker 1: just understanding the week to week nature of it and
Speaker 1: how each week, whatever happened last week in the end
Speaker 1: doesn't have necessarily relevance. Understanding what happened, understand the why
Speaker 1: behind it, and just try to make some progress understanding
Speaker 1: that you're going to go through some ups and downs.
Speaker 1: Like we've played eight games, we have another nine remaining.
Speaker 1: Then you tack on the three preseason games. So these
Speaker 1: players have played eleven games, so they already played a
Speaker 1: full college season and we don't even have we have
Speaker 1: half the season remaining. So I would say a certain
Speaker 1: level of stick tuitiveness, certain level of discipline to stay
Speaker 1: on your routine and just stay committed to what you
Speaker 1: need to do in a week to week basis, and
Speaker 1: really just understand the opponent who you're playing, and it's
Speaker 1: a very personnel driven league, so understanding Juan Dale Robinson
Speaker 1: versus Chris Slayton versus you know Whoever, the different receivers are,
Speaker 1: the different offensive lineman that you're going to face, What
Speaker 1: are their strengths, what are their weaknesses? How do you
Speaker 1: exploit those? Because in the end, that's what it's going
Speaker 1: to come down to, and you say, better you understand that,
Speaker 1: and that's what you have to focus on and not
Speaker 1: necessarily get caught up and what's the record? What are
Speaker 1: the standings? Like, we can't control that. We can control
Speaker 1: what we can control, which is our performance, is how
Speaker 1: we prepare, and the record is what the record is.
Speaker 1: But ultimately you have to focus on that week and
Speaker 1: just kind of going through your process and get ready
Speaker 1: to play on Sunday against a good Giant's team. Nick
Speaker 1: happened to see this article and I didn't read it.
Speaker 1: I just saw the headline, and I thought it would
Speaker 1: be a good question to ask you just your opinion
Speaker 1: on somebody had written about the trade deadline being later
Speaker 1: in the year, like week eleven, week twelve, Like you
Speaker 1: just said, we've played eight games and the trade deadline
Speaker 1: was last week and we still have nine games left
Speaker 1: to go, and most teams have nine games left to go.
Speaker 1: Would have behoove the NFL to move the trade deadline
Speaker 1: a little bit later. Would you like to see a
Speaker 1: little bit later or is that just like a case
Speaker 1: by case basis, like year to year, like, oh, some
Speaker 1: years I'd won earlier, some years I'd want it later. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think the NFL has done a good job of
Speaker 1: looking at some different policies or different you know, things
Speaker 1: that we can do maybe a little bit differently, or
Speaker 1: their timing element involved, So if there's any merit to
Speaker 1: doing that, So I think whatever it is, you're prepared for.
Speaker 1: If it's a week later, then you're prepared for a
Speaker 1: week later. It doesn't necessarily change anything materially. Each team
Speaker 1: has to look at their team, look at their composition.
Speaker 1: Like the thing that was unique this year, there was
Speaker 1: more activity this year than it wasn't any other point.
Speaker 1: So I'd say that doesn't necessarily mean anything, or is
Speaker 1: that going to be a trend moving forward. A lot
Speaker 1: of trades, even you know, going to the draft and
Speaker 1: even during the offseason, they're all player driven, so you
Speaker 1: don't necessarily know how it's gonna go. You could think
Speaker 1: you're gonna trade or want to trade or do something,
Speaker 1: but in the end, if it doesn't materialize, then I'm
Speaker 1: sure there's no trade, and then you move on. So
Speaker 1: I think the league will look at it. If it
Speaker 1: makes sense, you know, moving it, then they'll do it.
Speaker 1: If it doesn't, then we'll kind of keep it where
Speaker 1: it is. But you know, in the end, I mean,
Speaker 1: you just have to be prepared, just try to make
Speaker 1: good decisions for your team with your roster or whatever
Speaker 1: it is. A couple of other notes from the Philadelphia game.
Speaker 1: You're coming off the loss to Tennessee, tough loss, and
Speaker 1: it seemed like the guys really rallied together, particularly early,
Speaker 1: trying to fight a way to move the football. They
Speaker 1: did tied at the half fourteen fourteen. You hit Katranto's
Speaker 1: first catch and Chris Wore's another touchdown pass. What about
Speaker 1: the way they came together in the first half overall, Nick, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the players in the staff did a really good job
Speaker 1: at getting ready to play. So anytime you have that
Speaker 1: short turnaround, a quick turnarounds, it's taxing, it's mentally and
Speaker 1: physically taxing. But players had a good attitude, the coaches
Speaker 1: make sure the players that were prepared. We were able
Speaker 1: to get off to a good start. There was a
Speaker 1: certain energy that was involved playing Thursday night. You're playing,
Speaker 1: you know, the best team in the league on prime time,
Speaker 1: so everybody knows that you know, you're playing, you're the
Speaker 1: only game in towns or to speak, other than the Astros.
Speaker 1: But so they came out with good energy. Are As
Speaker 1: a team, we came out with good energy. He was
Speaker 1: just manibal to sustain it completely until the end. But overall,
Speaker 1: the players and the coach did a really good job
Speaker 1: and get ready to play, and we're able to see
Speaker 1: some things early early in the game. Nick, as we
Speaker 1: get near closer to the end of the college football season,
Speaker 1: how does it kind of how does it kind of
Speaker 1: change for your college scouts and what's kind of the
Speaker 1: program from from here until we get to the Senior
Speaker 1: Bowl in those all star games at the end. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a really good question. We're kind of winding down here.
Speaker 1: You really have a kind of a handful of weeks
Speaker 1: left in college football. I mean, realistically, kind of Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: weekend is sort of the end. You'll have another game
Speaker 1: the following week, and then you have the conference championships
Speaker 1: and then you're really into bowl season. So our staff's
Speaker 1: done a really good job a lot of scouts. A
Speaker 1: matter of fact, it is kind of going through my
Speaker 1: notes from yesterday, some of the reports that have come in.
Speaker 1: It's kind of second time through, third time through. You're
Speaker 1: kind of seeing players, seeing any anything that's changed, any upgrades,
Speaker 1: any downgrade. So I'd say we've you've seen a lot
Speaker 1: of players, we have a lot of information on those players.
Speaker 1: Now it's starting to fine tune that and in December
Speaker 1: will kind of have the first initial run through, maybe
Speaker 1: identify some need not necessarily grades, but some needs, or
Speaker 1: here are some of the things that you know, we're
Speaker 1: gonna have to see if we can find more information
Speaker 1: out about over the next however many months and weeks,
Speaker 1: and then once the kind of the season is over,
Speaker 1: then you'll have an idea of who's gonna attend East West,
Speaker 1: who's going to attend the Senior Bowl, and kind of
Speaker 1: start to prepare for that. And then you have the
Speaker 1: under classmen, which they'll make a declaration by the middle
Speaker 1: of January relative to their eligibility. So we're winding down.
Speaker 1: There's still a lot of information that's available. You maybe
Speaker 1: have a player didn't play earlier in the year that's
Speaker 1: back on the fields. You can kind of see how
Speaker 1: he's played. Vice versa. You had some guys who have
Speaker 1: kind of been hurt all year and it might be
Speaker 1: done for the rest of the years. So all right,
Speaker 1: that's all the information that we have. All right, kind
Speaker 1: of transition to the next evaluation stage. Does it translate?
Speaker 1: And I want to ask this in a variety of ways.
Speaker 1: Guys who come up big in big games on the
Speaker 1: college level, does that translate sometime? And how do you
Speaker 1: rate that they got a check mark because they're big
Speaker 1: time players and big time situations. No, it's a good
Speaker 1: question mark. Let's say you're looking at and in college
Speaker 1: at times, there's in a lot of a situational football,
Speaker 1: I'd say, just because the way that it's played. But okay,
Speaker 1: their production relative to the opponent. So when you see
Speaker 1: them against I know we kind of joke about the SEC,
Speaker 1: but each week you're seeing them play against the best players.
Speaker 1: And when you look at and even you know, back
Speaker 1: to Tennessee's defense, they have I don't know five or
Speaker 1: six guys that played in the SEC you know, we
Speaker 1: have a number of guys that played in the SEC.
Speaker 1: You know, that's the best competition. Doesn't mean that there's
Speaker 1: not a lot of other great programs out there, which
Speaker 1: there is. But how the player performs maybe against the
Speaker 1: best competition and critical situation doesn't necessarily mean that's going
Speaker 1: to translate over not necessarily, but it's just kind of
Speaker 1: to your point. We can grade it accordingly. Okay, how
Speaker 1: they played against this team the game great against you know,
Speaker 1: against this team in this game? Was this all right?
Speaker 1: How they played against maybe a player on the other
Speaker 1: side of the ball, how they fared against them, Because
Speaker 1: ultimately that's a representative of what they're going to see
Speaker 1: on a week to week basis. So it's all part
Speaker 1: of the evaluation. You don't i'd say minimize or put
Speaker 1: more importance on it. It's certainly a part of the equation.
Speaker 1: And then if you have a question, you're ultimately going
Speaker 1: to go back and say, all right, let's see how
Speaker 1: they played against the best people and the best players,
Speaker 1: and how do they perform. And then if you see
Speaker 1: that over a course of time they have a track
Speaker 1: record or performance, Okay, that's a good telltale sign of
Speaker 1: all right, The expectation is that guy's going to be
Speaker 1: able to come in and perform at a certain level
Speaker 1: if he's give any opportunities. Nick, what as it pertains
Speaker 1: to underclassmen, you said something to me that that's always
Speaker 1: been interesting. They have until middle January to make a decision.
Speaker 1: Is it important to have sort of an idea of
Speaker 1: what that player is considering so that you can see
Speaker 1: him on campus, maybe ask questions and do some of
Speaker 1: those things. You can always do it after the fact,
Speaker 1: but is it important to track that beforehand, or do
Speaker 1: you just say, hey, look, underclassmen, we kind of got
Speaker 1: our eye on but you know, really we just well,
Speaker 1: January fifteenth or whatever the day is, we'll just find
Speaker 1: out then and we'll go from there. Now, it's a
Speaker 1: good point. I mean, you do your legwork ahead of time,
Speaker 1: and i'd say what you find as you step on campus.
Speaker 1: Some programs and some people they're more inclined to talk
Speaker 1: about certain players with the understanding, Okay, there's a good
Speaker 1: chance his player is probably gonna make himself eligible at
Speaker 1: the end of the year. So you want to be
Speaker 1: respectful of the colleges. You don't want to assume anything,
Speaker 1: So you know, you don't want to do anything because
Speaker 1: the relationship we have a lot of schools between the
Speaker 1: NFL and the NCAA, we have a good relationship. So
Speaker 1: you don't want to do anything, and that's sort of
Speaker 1: you know, affects that relationship, So you want to be
Speaker 1: smart about how you approach it. We can evaluate as
Speaker 1: many players as we want, you know, because we watch
Speaker 1: him play. And then once you get on campus, when
Speaker 1: you get into situation where the liaison sits with a
Speaker 1: group and he might say, hey, you know what, there's
Speaker 1: a good chances player is probably going to declare, and
Speaker 1: they might be more inclined you find some schools or
Speaker 1: maybe more apt to talk about them other it's kind
Speaker 1: of more taboo. So whatever it is, okay, We're not
Speaker 1: going to try to make it up. We'll try to
Speaker 1: do our job, do our due diligence, be prepared, and
Speaker 1: whichever way it goes right. If he decides to go
Speaker 1: back to school, no problem, then we have our evaluation
Speaker 1: from the twenty two season, and then we're going to
Speaker 1: build on a twenty three season. If he makes a
Speaker 1: decision that he wants to declare, then we've done the
Speaker 1: work all right, and then the evaluation is done from
Speaker 1: a playing standpoint. Now we have to look into and
Speaker 1: drill down some of the things more on a personal level,
Speaker 1: which you really don't have the opportunity to do until
Speaker 1: call it February in March. Well more for you? Is
Speaker 1: there extra juice? And going to New York you see
Speaker 1: the Manhattan skyline right there and nowhere in New Jersey,
Speaker 1: but it's right there. It does it give you a
Speaker 1: little extra in the game. Yeah, it's a great place
Speaker 1: to play at Life Stadium. I mean, it's funny too
Speaker 1: many stadiums where you have two teams that's their home stadium,
Speaker 1: so they share at the Jets and a Giant, so
Speaker 1: they'll make everything blue and white. They'll move away from
Speaker 1: the green and you know whatever it colors the Jets
Speaker 1: are were in these days. I mean, it's hard to stay.
Speaker 1: So's good opportunity playing outdoors, which will be something we
Speaker 1: haven't done here, you know since Jacksonville. But a different environment,
Speaker 1: so the elements don't look like they'll be that big
Speaker 1: of a factor. Going to the East Coast, you know
Speaker 1: kind of you know, losing an hour or kind of
Speaker 1: moving ahead an hour or whatever that is. So playing
Speaker 1: day one o'clock. It'll be a nice fall day and
Speaker 1: hopefully go out there and play good football against a
Speaker 1: good team. Nick, thanks a lot, good luck. Thanks guys.
Speaker 1: I'm still a little ticked off Mark stole by rookie
Speaker 1: slash draft question from Nick. That's my role, that's my role.
Speaker 1: But I get it. It It was a good question, as
Speaker 1: always in great stuff there from Nick Cassari speaking to Mark.
Speaker 1: He's gonna stick with me next. We have not opined
Speaker 1: I think together on the Jeff Saturday as in ram
Speaker 1: head coach in Indianapolis situation. We'll do that next right
Speaker 1: here in Texans All Access. Welcome back this Wednesday edition
Speaker 1: of Texans All accesses. We're getting ready to take on
Speaker 1: the g Men, the New York Giants in New Jersey,
Speaker 1: which of course is the fallacy. You play in New York,
Speaker 1: but you play in New Jersey. So there you go.
Speaker 1: I'm John Harris alongside Mark Vandermer. Mark. We I don't
Speaker 1: think have had a ton of opportunity to discuss this
Speaker 1: whole thing that's going on with Indianapolis. A few days
Speaker 1: after the fact Indianapolis fire. Frank Rich, I think we
Speaker 1: talked about the Frank right side of things, Yeah, but
Speaker 1: the Jeff's Saturday side of things as the new interim
Speaker 1: head coach for the Indiapolis Colts. I know we haven't
Speaker 1: talked about this part because ed press conference. I think
Speaker 1: at the same time that we were doing Coach Lovey
Speaker 1: Show on Monday Night. Your gut reaction to Saturday becoming
Speaker 1: the interim head coach Indiapolis, well, my gut and I
Speaker 1: think we did discuss some of this. My gut reaction
Speaker 1: is what that's my gut reaction because he's in broadcasting.
Speaker 1: I'm sure when he got the phone call he admitted
Speaker 1: he was totally shocked, surprise, whatever, And maybe he wants
Speaker 1: to get into NFL coaching. But Johnny, I have this
Speaker 1: thought about people who want to get into coaching that
Speaker 1: maybe they should I don't know, coach, maybe you should
Speaker 1: explore the possibility of taking a job in the NFL,
Speaker 1: or college or some high level of coaching if you
Speaker 1: have the credentials, especially because Jeff's Saturday has the credentials
Speaker 1: to be assistant old line coach someplace, or offensive assistant
Speaker 1: someplace who wouldn't want Saturday in their building. And I'll
Speaker 1: say the same thing about Josh McCown, right, Josh McCown
Speaker 1: certainly has the credentials to be assistant quarterbacks coach somewhere,
Speaker 1: or quarterbacks coach or offensive assistant or something like that
Speaker 1: where he could get experienced. Both guys get experience, and
Speaker 1: then when there is an opportunity for advancement. I don't
Speaker 1: know about a head coach advancement, but advancement nonetheless, you
Speaker 1: can jump up. Now. It is a slap of the
Speaker 1: phase to everybody who spends time in coaching, especially in
Speaker 1: that building, because there are numerous people on that staff
Speaker 1: who could have taken over, and we mentioned one of them,
Speaker 1: Reggie Wayne. Right there, Reggie Wayne is right in front
Speaker 1: of you, Bubba Ventrone. Look, Gus Bradley has done it.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying he's the best option necessarily, but
Speaker 1: he's done it. He's actually done it. You could ride
Speaker 1: out the season now. I salute or at the same
Speaker 1: time also for thinking out of the box. But this
Speaker 1: is the kind of out of the box that has Look,
Speaker 1: how much more of a disaster could it be? I
Speaker 1: was going to say it has disaster written all over it.
Speaker 1: It's the out of the box that might not be
Speaker 1: the good kind of out of the box, right, maybe
Speaker 1: try it in the off season or something really wild
Speaker 1: and different in the off season as opposed to now,
Speaker 1: I think one of the things. And it's interesting because
Speaker 1: this happens with It happens with a lot of players.
Speaker 1: Oh I think that guy would be really great in
Speaker 1: the media. Oh I think that guy would be a
Speaker 1: really great coach. Oh yeah, Oh, I think that guy
Speaker 1: could rise up the ranks and be a great scout
Speaker 1: and maybe a GM down the road. We say that
Speaker 1: about about players a lot of times because they exhibit
Speaker 1: those qualities, Like, you know, there's a guy that you
Speaker 1: know the locker room that is loquacious and very outgoing
Speaker 1: and really answers questions thoughtfully and honestly. But he could
Speaker 1: be really he could be really good in the media.
Speaker 1: And we have seen a lot of athletes get into
Speaker 1: the media. We've seen a lot of them getting into coaching,
Speaker 1: a lot of them getting scouting, etc. But there are
Speaker 1: also a large number of them that get in it
Speaker 1: and go WHOA, I thought all I had to do
Speaker 1: was just talk or I thought coach easy. I just
Speaker 1: dropped the excess and os and give them the plays
Speaker 1: in the way you go, you know, scouting, I just
Speaker 1: pick a player here and player there, and they don't realize, man,
Speaker 1: there is some laborious work that goes into this. It
Speaker 1: is laborious and it's I remember when I first got
Speaker 1: into radio. You're thinking about doing radio. I've thought about
Speaker 1: doing it for a long time. I'd see my friends
Speaker 1: do it, So you do it. I heard a lot
Speaker 1: of people do it. Then you do your first four
Speaker 1: hour show and you're like, oh, man, that was great,
Speaker 1: and you're I was exhausted. Yeah, and guess what, that's
Speaker 1: a Monday. Ye get ready because you got four more
Speaker 1: the rest of the week, and you're like, wow, man,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of work that goes into this. And
Speaker 1: the same same for coaching. Everybody that walks into this
Speaker 1: stadium on Thursday night, just take Thursday night for instance.
Speaker 1: Every single one of them, Oh, I could call that
Speaker 1: play or I could call this play, And you have
Speaker 1: no idea what goes into it. Sure none, And even
Speaker 1: former players don't really truly know until they get into it.
Speaker 1: And so Jeff Saturday is gonna find out, Holy smokes,
Speaker 1: there is a lot that goes into it, and you
Speaker 1: find out I want this do I not do? I
Speaker 1: want to pursue. This is Indianapolis going to give him
Speaker 1: the opportunity to be the permanent head coach going forward,
Speaker 1: depending on what happens. I don't I don't see that happening,
Speaker 1: but I don't know. But that's the one thing that
Speaker 1: that strikes me about this what's coaching? And I'm and
Speaker 1: I'm sure that, as Jim Mercy said, he's seen a
Speaker 1: lot of great head coaches. He's never hired a bad
Speaker 1: or losing head coach. But there are always some coaches
Speaker 1: that you're like, hmm, that guy doesn't quite have it.
Speaker 1: You know, he was good with players, but there's so
Speaker 1: many other aspects that go into it. And how Jeff
Speaker 1: Saturday is gonna be it's gonna be really interesting. Look,
Speaker 1: he might be great, but he needs work, right. This
Speaker 1: is hard to do on the fly, on the job training.
Speaker 1: And they fired the coordinator yes the week before, so
Speaker 1: now you don't have anybody to call plays except Parks
Speaker 1: Frazier and Johnny. I'm gonna say this, the Saturday Cam
Speaker 1: is gonna be must see TV for de right, no doubt.
Speaker 1: But the Parks Frasier cam might even be better because
Speaker 1: if you focus it on Parks Frasier who has never
Speaker 1: called plays, and he's got Sam Ellinger to call plays for.
Speaker 1: This is going to be interesting. If I were him,
Speaker 1: I would take that Denny's menu and shrink it down
Speaker 1: to an index card and go coach Boone from Remember
Speaker 1: the Titans. We're gonna run five plays and we're gonna
Speaker 1: master them, and we're gonna spend the rest of the
Speaker 1: week in practice mastering five plays. It is not important
Speaker 1: for Parks to show how much he knows. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: is important that the offense moves the football. Yeah, That's
Speaker 1: what most important for him, and that's what gets lost
Speaker 1: on everybody. Actually, until you do it. You want to
Speaker 1: have the best ball play, you want to call the
Speaker 1: coolest ball plays, and then you realize, I don't really
Speaker 1: care about that. Are we moving the football? And that's
Speaker 1: really when I when I got to a point where
Speaker 1: I was calling plays and really was getting in a groove,
Speaker 1: that was what was happening. It was like I got
Speaker 1: this whole I did the same thing, the same thing
Speaker 1: you just talked about. I had a minill fold or
Speaker 1: filled both front and back with all these great plays
Speaker 1: that I had seen other people run, and we couldn't
Speaker 1: run eighty percent of them. So I'm like, well, let's
Speaker 1: take the eighty percent off and see what we got.
Speaker 1: And then once we get those down, let's have a little,
Speaker 1: you know, a few wrinkles. Now that's high school versus NFL.
Speaker 1: I get that, but it's the same philosophy of you
Speaker 1: gotta call what works. Nobody's gonna care about. Man, that
Speaker 1: was a really cool scheme. That was awesome. It's not
Speaker 1: going to matter because if that play results in a yard,
Speaker 1: who cares. It's nobody's gonna care. As you were talking
Speaker 1: about jobs that everyone thinks they can do until they
Speaker 1: do them. Talk radio is a great example, perfect and
Speaker 1: I always tell people this, and people can try this themselves.
Speaker 1: By the way, listening right now, you're thinking I want
Speaker 1: to do that. Look, that's how I got into the business.
Speaker 1: I listened to sports talk radio and said I want
Speaker 1: to get on the air and do that, and I
Speaker 1: found a way to do it. It's another story for
Speaker 1: another day. But try this in your cars, folks. You
Speaker 1: think you have hot takes, Okay, look at your clock.
Speaker 1: Set it for three to five minutes. Give yourself a
Speaker 1: time limit. Let's say it's three minutes. You're gonna talk
Speaker 1: for three minutes straight, buy yourself about a topic, and
Speaker 1: you're live. No starting over, no stopping and restarting, just go.
Speaker 1: You are live. Hit it three minutes consecutively. See what
Speaker 1: you can do, and you'll learn very quickly how difficult
Speaker 1: it is just doing it in your car by yourself,
Speaker 1: because at about one thirty you'll be like, I think
Speaker 1: I'm out of material now, you know, and you probably
Speaker 1: do have a lot of takes. Maybe they're really good takes,
Speaker 1: maybe they're excellent takes, but you could be out of
Speaker 1: juice within five minutes. That's why some callers are excellent
Speaker 1: for two to three minutes, but you put them on
Speaker 1: for four hours and it's like when's dinner. So it's
Speaker 1: very difficult. It's much more difficult than people realize to
Speaker 1: do that. How much you want to bet first drive
Speaker 1: of the game and they play the Raiders, they're out
Speaker 1: in Las Vegas. How much you want to bet first
Speaker 1: drive of the game that they face a fourth and one? Oh?
Speaker 1: And what do they do? Exact? Saturday said that he
Speaker 1: Saturday said, Nah, I'm not so much in the analytics.
Speaker 1: I've sworked down. I am going to kick a field
Speaker 1: goal and take the points. If you're at the thirty
Speaker 1: seven yard line of the opponent, okay, you're a no
Speaker 1: man's land. Too long for a field even let's make
Speaker 1: it a little bit more interest exactly. You're at the
Speaker 1: thirty five, Okay, it's gonna be a fifty three yarder.
Speaker 1: I promise you it's gonna be the first. Or you
Speaker 1: go for it fourth and one. You're not gonna punt
Speaker 1: from the thirty five thirty six yard line? What are
Speaker 1: you gonna do? Jeff right and so I guarantee it's
Speaker 1: happening within the first two drives of the game. He's
Speaker 1: gonna have one of those situations and he's gonna have
Speaker 1: to make that particular decisions. And even as a non
Speaker 1: play caller on either side of the ball. As a
Speaker 1: head coach, there's so many different things that are going on.
Speaker 1: How much do you chime in on the offensive channel
Speaker 1: when they're talking about plays. How much do you listen
Speaker 1: in on the defensive channel and chime in there? What
Speaker 1: do you do on fourth down? All these things that
Speaker 1: he's gonna have to work out for himself, and how
Speaker 1: he viewed it as a center as a player is
Speaker 1: gonna be different. Than how he's looking at it now.
Speaker 1: He doesn't have Peyton manning back there to go, hey, pay,
Speaker 1: let's just run this, or let's throw this, or they
Speaker 1: throw out the start out to Marvin. Hey, Marvin's out there,
Speaker 1: Let's give it the edge. It doesn't quite work. Work
Speaker 1: that way, throw to Marvin. So I'm curious, but I
Speaker 1: guarantee you within the first two drives of the game,
Speaker 1: he'll be forced with a fourth and one. I'll give
Speaker 1: you another one guaranteed. Give me the overrunder on how
Speaker 1: many delay of games and or gotta call a time
Speaker 1: out with the playclock running down situations they have so
Speaker 1: both count as the same. How many of those do
Speaker 1: they have throughout the course of it. You'll have a couple.
Speaker 1: But I would imagine that if there is one thing
Speaker 1: Saturday is telling his young offensive coordinator doing it for
Speaker 1: the first time, get the play call, no matter what,
Speaker 1: getting to play. In fact, that would be something that
Speaker 1: I would suggest to every offensive play car. I don't
Speaker 1: know how long you've been in it, get the play
Speaker 1: call to your guy with twenty seconds, I'm sorry, get
Speaker 1: them out of the huddle with twenty seconds at a minimum. Yeah,
Speaker 1: left on the clock. We started playing with fire a
Speaker 1: little bit with the with the Eagles, we're getting out
Speaker 1: of the huddle at twelve eleven seconds. That's got to
Speaker 1: get to your quarterback and out there so you can
Speaker 1: see what you're looking at. If you got motions or
Speaker 1: shifts or whatever you got going, you've got to get
Speaker 1: them out of the huddle, get them out of the
Speaker 1: huddle and go. And that's I would imagine that number
Speaker 1: is going to be relatively low. That's gonna be one
Speaker 1: of the things if i'm Saturday, it's one of the
Speaker 1: first things. Look, here's your time frame. Get the play
Speaker 1: called immediately, get them to lie of scrimmage. Even if
Speaker 1: at the line of scrimmage you got until fifteen seconds
Speaker 1: on the coach com right, if you get them to
Speaker 1: a line of scrimmage with twenty eight seconds left, you
Speaker 1: still have thirteen seconds for you to look at it
Speaker 1: and then tell Sam, hey change this play to this.
Speaker 1: Then the coach com goes off, you still have time
Speaker 1: to get everybody adjustin shifted as they were. If they win,
Speaker 1: you know, look they're playing the Raiders. The Raiders are
Speaker 1: a damaged team the way the Colts win, And I
Speaker 1: don't know if Jonathan Taylor will play. That'll be That'll be.
Speaker 1: The way they win is if they're able to ride
Speaker 1: Jonathan Taylor, because without Taylor, I don't know what they're
Speaker 1: gonna do. They're gonna have to rely on Sam Ellinger.
Speaker 1: So from the Raiders, I'm playing nine guys in the
Speaker 1: box and like I'm daring him to throw, I am
Speaker 1: daring him to throw. But if they have Taylor, they
Speaker 1: got a shot. Let's Taylor. They have a shot. But
Speaker 1: you're right, if they what if they win? The worst
Speaker 1: thing about all of this is with the Colts going
Speaker 1: through this, and this is bad for them. You know,
Speaker 1: say what you will, Jim Er say. Look, they've had
Speaker 1: a tremendous run with Peyton Manning Andrew Luck a little bit.
Speaker 1: They were even holding it together with Jacobe Brisett right,
Speaker 1: holding it together a little bit. They went to the
Speaker 1: playoffs with Philip Rivers. They were than a game of
Speaker 1: making the playoffs last year, and now look where they
Speaker 1: are and I don't know what it's gonna turn out
Speaker 1: to be for them. And the Texans will finish up
Speaker 1: the regular season up there in January, so I'm really
Speaker 1: looking forward to that one as much as effort to
Speaker 1: see how you can how they'll look at that time
Speaker 1: and what the Texans are gonna look like at that time.
Speaker 1: But the fact that the Texans are struggling even more
Speaker 1: record wise than the Colts just it's it's a hard
Speaker 1: pill to swallow right now. But I know they're in
Speaker 1: different stages of development, obviously, no doubt. And what I
Speaker 1: find interesting the Colts have been struggling to find that
Speaker 1: quarterback and obviously Matt Ryan. And there's been a lot
Speaker 1: of talk about whether Chris Ballder Frank Wrych pulled the
Speaker 1: trigger on Matt Ryan. That was a gym or so
Speaker 1: people signed up for it, Johnny. Most of the pundits, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: they were like, okay, no, I'm not talking about I
Speaker 1: don't I think if if they if they allowed Matt
Speaker 1: Ryan to play, I still think they could get to
Speaker 1: eight wins. Oh really, Okay, I still think you could
Speaker 1: get to eight wins. Now, if they get Taylor healthy
Speaker 1: and Matt Ryan we're back. I still think they could
Speaker 1: get to eight wins. But they're not gonna play Matt Ryan.
Speaker 1: And that was that was not ballad or Reich's call.
Speaker 1: That was going down a road. No, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I shouldn't have gotten them. No. I don't think going
Speaker 1: out of getting Matt Ryan was it was a bad move. Actually,
Speaker 1: I think it made sense. It made sense twenty hindsight.
Speaker 1: I think the issue is if Matt Ryan were still playing,
Speaker 1: I still think they would be competitive. But for some
Speaker 1: reason they were instructed not to play Matt Ryan, to
Speaker 1: go that Ellinger and where you go? Now? Going with Ryan,
Speaker 1: it's next year, it's not You're not gonna do that question.
Speaker 1: But let me ask you one more thing before you
Speaker 1: make your other point. Let's rewind a bit here. Offseason,
Speaker 1: you're the Colts. Do you go get Garoppolo? I'm telling
Speaker 1: you right now, Matt Ryan's not gonna work. We can't
Speaker 1: get him, or he's not. It's not gonna happen. For
Speaker 1: whatever reason, would Garoppolo be an option for the Colts? Yes,
Speaker 1: remember when Baker Mayfield was on at least the national
Speaker 1: media's radar for the Colts. But I don't know what
Speaker 1: it costs you to get Garoppolo. What are they going
Speaker 1: to give him up for? Ye? I think he probably
Speaker 1: could have got him for a little less than Matt Ryan. Actually,
Speaker 1: But but I don't know, but you didn't know at
Speaker 1: that time, and this is where the Colts were. You
Speaker 1: didn't know whether Jimmy was gonna come back fully completely healthy.
Speaker 1: He thought he might, but I think Garoppolo would have
Speaker 1: given you a better chance. You know why, because Jimmy
Speaker 1: could move. And that offensive line is not playing extremely well.
Speaker 1: Evenquing Nelson and Ryan Kelly are not playing extremely well.
Speaker 1: And we saw it in week one. We're like, wait
Speaker 1: a second, this offensive line is playing a lot better
Speaker 1: than they're playing right now. And they've never had the
Speaker 1: rough tackle answered after Costanzo left. That to me, everybody
Speaker 1: talks about Andrew Luck retiring, everydy Luck retiring, and for
Speaker 1: good reason, but they never replaced Costanzo. Now they drafted
Speaker 1: Bran Ryman out of in Central Michigan. He's not ready.
Speaker 1: He was not He's not ready. He needed to sit
Speaker 1: for at least a year and get to a point
Speaker 1: where he could be ready. He wasn't ready. So the
Speaker 1: offensive line is not played extremely well. So Jimmy gives
Speaker 1: him a chance because Jimmy can at least get out
Speaker 1: of dodge. He could scramble and make some things happen,
Speaker 1: whereas Matt is not that's not his that's not his Ballulywick.
Speaker 1: So would I have done it if I knew or
Speaker 1: felt good about Jimmy's rehab, Like, Okay, I think he
Speaker 1: can make it back by week one, I would have
Speaker 1: done that if you're telling me Matt Ryan. Would I
Speaker 1: still think Matt Ryan for them has not played extremely well.
Speaker 1: But if you let Matt Ryan just keep going, get
Speaker 1: Jonathan Taylor back, I think they still would have gotten
Speaker 1: to seven eight wins. And maybe that's where they don't
Speaker 1: want to be. Maybe they either want to be in
Speaker 1: the playoff hunt or they want to suck either way
Speaker 1: one or the other. Okay, maybe they're seven eight win land,
Speaker 1: which is not where they want to be because now
Speaker 1: they're just back in mediocre land. I don't know, but
Speaker 1: for some reason, they were instructed Matt Ryan's not going
Speaker 1: to be the quarterback. So here's the thing about them, though,
Speaker 1: they've been to mediocre land before and they've come out
Speaker 1: of it with a really good team, at least on paper,
Speaker 1: or a playoff team, and it was a team that
Speaker 1: a lot of people projected should do great things as
Speaker 1: long as they get that quarterback position solidified. Because they
Speaker 1: went through Chuck Pogano eight and eight a couple of
Speaker 1: years in a row, and had to fight to get there.
Speaker 1: And look, I thought those were pretty decent coaching jobs
Speaker 1: by Chuck considering what they did or did not have it.
Speaker 1: Those teams did not have talent like this Colt's team.
Speaker 1: And again, Skilaner has played a lot because he's been
Speaker 1: banged up. Jonathan Taylor has missed a lot of this season,
Speaker 1: and those are two of the best players to have
Speaker 1: and you can't take advantage of it. That's the thing.
Speaker 1: It's funny because people were talking to me about the
Speaker 1: Colts and I forget where I was, but I was saying, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're the all time nemesis because as bad as it
Speaker 1: is for them right now, and they haven't won this
Speaker 1: division since twenty fourteen, which is incredible to think about,
Speaker 1: but as bad as it is for them right now,
Speaker 1: you still have that terrible record against them, nine thirty
Speaker 1: one and one, right is that what it is now?
Speaker 1: And thirty two if you haven't the playoff loss, but
Speaker 1: whatever the case is. And Tennessee right now, they're sort
Speaker 1: of the class of the AFC South. You beat them
Speaker 1: last year when you were almost the worst version of yourselves.
Speaker 1: You came away with a victory in Nashville. You can
Speaker 1: beat those guys. But for some reason, the Colts have
Speaker 1: that hex on the Texans, and you gotta find a
Speaker 1: way to reverse the curse. Yeah. Well, we'll see obviously
Speaker 1: what happens with the Colts. And you know, if they
Speaker 1: continue to bottom out top five pick they get a quarterback,
Speaker 1: we'll see where they picked the right quarterback. I know,
Speaker 1: I know when Ballard went to the Colts, he was
Speaker 1: looking for a place he had a quarterback and with
Speaker 1: Andrew Luck there it was set up. It was set
Speaker 1: up to. I mean, after the twenty eighteen season, I thought,
Speaker 1: these guys are gonna be really, really difficult to beat.
Speaker 1: And you know, for Ballard at the time, when McDaniels
Speaker 1: bowed out, thought, okay, Frank Wright comes in, they go
Speaker 1: to the playoffs. Everything's looking good. They beat the Texans
Speaker 1: here and everyone says, you dodge that Josh McDaniel's bullet.
Speaker 1: Here they are today, a few years later. It's amazing.
Speaker 1: And look, it could have happened to the Titans too.
Speaker 1: Things Derek Henry could have gotten hurt. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: the quarterback situations if he had best man. I think
Speaker 1: if they had healthy Tannahill right now, they're winning at
Speaker 1: Kansas City on Sunday night, and yet Henry got hurt
Speaker 1: last year and they still without him. They were a
Speaker 1: number one overall AFC team because they are handling things
Speaker 1: well as an organization, and that's where you want to
Speaker 1: be right now, handling things well. And I think the
Speaker 1: Texans are set up well, but they're behind them in development. Mark,
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Thanks Shouning. All right, coming up,
Speaker 1: let's go round the league and talk about things happening
Speaker 1: with all thirty two teams. Next right here in Texans
Speaker 1: All Access. What's up everybody? Walking back to Wednesday edition
Speaker 1: of Texans All Access. I'm your host, John Harris, football
Speaker 1: and a a sideline reporter. Let's go around the NFL and
Speaker 1: starting Buffalo where. Oh boy, if you have Josh Allen
Speaker 1: on your fantasy team, this is a wait in c
Speaker 1: situation with Josh and his elbow. If you missed it
Speaker 1: against the Jets, he made a throw and after the
Speaker 1: throw he reached immediately for his elbow. Now he ended
Speaker 1: up making a throw way down the field. I think
Speaker 1: after that, well, apparently it's an elbow sprain of the
Speaker 1: ucl Now you hear a lot of that, I guess
Speaker 1: in baseball. But Sean mcderry, Buffalo coach, said he's day
Speaker 1: to day. Will he play this weekend against the Vikings?
Speaker 1: How about that? That's a heck of a matchup. Sean
Speaker 1: McDermott said, we'll see whether he is there. So if
Speaker 1: you have Josh Allen or your fantasy team, Josh Allen
Speaker 1: Buffalo Bill's quarterback. Now Jacksonville Jaguars ed drusher Josh Allen,
Speaker 1: But if you got Josh Allen, keep an eye on him.
Speaker 1: Case Keenum took snaps today in practice throwing too. Stefan
Speaker 1: Diggs both members of the Vikings for the Minneapolis Miracle
Speaker 1: back in twenty seventeen, So Josh Allen to keep an
Speaker 1: eye on that one. Russell Wilson really clapped back a
Speaker 1: little bit. Pete Carroll on seven in Seattle had mentioned
Speaker 1: that they didn't use the wrist band back when a
Speaker 1: certain quarterback was there because it was not comfortable, didn't
Speaker 1: like it. You know, Smith has been using it and
Speaker 1: it's really helped in Pete Carroll's mind. Well, Russell Wilson
Speaker 1: clapped back and said, I don't exactly what he said.
Speaker 1: But we won a lot of games without one on
Speaker 1: the risk. So Russell Wilson, Seattle Seahawks, Pete Carroll clapping
Speaker 1: back at one another, I kind of like get a
Speaker 1: little bit. I kind of like it seems like Pete
Speaker 1: Carroll's a great guy, Russell Wilson's a great guy. But
Speaker 1: they're snapping at each other a little bit. I thought
Speaker 1: Pete Carroll's comments more about not so much the wrist band,
Speaker 1: but the fact that his offs cordinayor is Shane waldron
Speaker 1: calls a play, do you know this quarterback takes it?
Speaker 1: They go run it. There's no barking back at each other,
Speaker 1: there is no pushing back. It is here's the play,
Speaker 1: here's what we're gonna run, and we're gonna run it.
Speaker 1: That I thought was a little more damning about Russell Wilson.
Speaker 1: But either way, play the headlines for what they are.
Speaker 1: But Russell Wilson has not I've been back on the
Speaker 1: field since they went to London, so we'll see what
Speaker 1: the Broncos have. But he did clap back today at
Speaker 1: Pete Carroll about that. Your Thursday night game is Atlanta v. Carolina,
Speaker 1: and Carolina is gonna be wearing the black, all black,
Speaker 1: all black unis in that one. So it's weird because
Speaker 1: the NFC South, nobody's out of it. Nobody. Atlanta Falcons
Speaker 1: are four and five and they're tied with the Bucks
Speaker 1: at four and five atop the division. They're not out
Speaker 1: of Carolina's not out of it. Two and seven. In fact,
Speaker 1: take Carolina beating Atlanta two weeks ago, Carolina would have
Speaker 1: been first place in the AFC South and the NFC South,
Speaker 1: So it's kind of crazy division. But that game will
Speaker 1: be on Thursday, Atlanta taking on Carolina. But our game
Speaker 1: is Sunday against the New York Giants. And the two
Speaker 1: men making the call, Mark Vandamir and Bob Popa get
Speaker 1: together with a little menu out of Mike's Next right
Speaker 1: here in Texas All Access. Oh yeah, we got one
Speaker 1: hour down and one hour left to go, right here
Speaker 1: on a Wednesday at Nation of Texans All Access. I'm
Speaker 1: your host, John Harris, football Analyst, and I have the
Speaker 1: pleasure of each and every Sunday having Mark Vandamir and
Speaker 1: good friend Audrey Ware both in my ears the entire time. Well,
Speaker 1: I know, Giants fans, I've been listening to our next
Speaker 1: guest for a long time, and that's Bob Poppy here
Speaker 1: on series Sex Sam sometimes in the morning, but here
Speaker 1: him calling Giants game and that the voice is just
Speaker 1: so recognizable with Giants football and when it's met behind
Speaker 1: the Mike's time. I love it. Mark with Bob Poppa
Speaker 1: of the New York Giants. Bob, how's it going great
Speaker 1: season for you so far? Yeah, it's been a surprise. Mark,
Speaker 1: great to be on with you. You know, I don't
Speaker 1: think any Giants fan, I don't think there's people in
Speaker 1: the building that thought this team would be six and
Speaker 1: two coming out of the buy. But that's where they
Speaker 1: stand and they've actually put themselves in position here to
Speaker 1: maybe even make the playoffs. Well, yeah, let's talk about
Speaker 1: what's going right. Say Quon Barkley has to jump out first?
Speaker 1: Or is it the play of Daniel Jones. I know
Speaker 1: the coaching staff's making a huge difference, but can you
Speaker 1: rank these things in order as to what the difference
Speaker 1: is for the New York Giants in twenty twenty two. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the star with sae Quon Barkley, And you know we
Speaker 1: noticed in camp, during training camp practices he was a
Speaker 1: lot more physical. And Carl Banks and I, who do
Speaker 1: a lot of work with the head coach on the
Speaker 1: various radio and TV platforms, that we're asking them one
Speaker 1: day in camp and you said, you know, one of
Speaker 1: the things that we stressed to sae Quon is, you know,
Speaker 1: take the dirty two. Take the dirty two, take the
Speaker 1: dirty three, meaning you know, if there's nothing really there,
Speaker 1: don't try to hit a home run. Keep us on schedule,
Speaker 1: and two or three yards on first down is not
Speaker 1: a bad thing. Two or three yards on second down
Speaker 1: is not a bad thing. It keeps us on schedule
Speaker 1: to the n be able to function as an offense
Speaker 1: because they don't have tremendous playmakers. And they told Barkley
Speaker 1: and they promised them, they said, sae Quon, if you
Speaker 1: just keep taking the dirty two, at some point during
Speaker 1: the game, one's gonna pop and you're gonna have a
Speaker 1: big play. And that's happened just about every single week.
Speaker 1: That's tremendous, and that's great advice. Even for quarterbacks. Take
Speaker 1: the pocket, change the four or five yard pass from
Speaker 1: time to time. What's the difference with Daniel Joe as
Speaker 1: you see it through half the season. Well, first of
Speaker 1: all Barkley being healthy, and then a coaching staff that
Speaker 1: knows how to use him and has coached him really well.
Speaker 1: He's picked up this new offense, he's picked up this scheme.
Speaker 1: He's getting better and better on it. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of false narratives out there about Daniel Jones. Obviously,
Speaker 1: his legs in his athleticism are very key components to
Speaker 1: what he can do on the football field. But his
Speaker 1: decision making. I know privately, the head coach and this
Speaker 1: entire football staff has been very impressed with Daniel Jones
Speaker 1: and his ability to make good decisions. You know, you
Speaker 1: put on ESPN or you put on NFL Network and
Speaker 1: you have you know, former players showing video, showing coaches tape,
Speaker 1: and they're like, you know, Daniel Jones has to be
Speaker 1: better with his eye discipline. There's guys running open and
Speaker 1: he's not seeing him. He's taking the checkdown well, other
Speaker 1: than the fourth quarter of the Seattle game last week
Speaker 1: where he didn't see the field, well, he's actually seen
Speaker 1: the field great. And his Dabel said to me, he said,
Speaker 1: you know, I said to him, I said, coach, you know,
Speaker 1: earlier in the year, I said, man it looks like
Speaker 1: there was a little bit more left on the bone
Speaker 1: there that you guys could have gotten. And he's like, uh,
Speaker 1: because it sounds just like my family. He goes, you
Speaker 1: know some of those guys that are running open that
Speaker 1: everybody's talking about that Daniel's missing. I said, yeah. He goes, well,
Speaker 1: how about the fact that those guys were running wrong
Speaker 1: routes and they weren't even supposed to be in the window.
Speaker 1: So how does he know if the guy's going to
Speaker 1: continue on a deep over or a shallow a cross
Speaker 1: wherever he's gonna just stop and sit down when he's
Speaker 1: running the wrong damn route. So Daniel Jones has done
Speaker 1: a lot better than his passing numbers and what the
Speaker 1: outside world may evaluate him. With Bob pop, a voice
Speaker 1: of the New York Giants with us on Texans Radio,
Speaker 1: what about Dabel what's he like to be around since
Speaker 1: you've seen him come into the building. He's authentic, he's real,
Speaker 1: he cares. He spends a lot of time in the
Speaker 1: cafeteriat lunchtime. You know, he'll sit with players, or he'll
Speaker 1: sit with some of his staff members or front office people,
Speaker 1: or you know John Mara or the Mara family that's there.
Speaker 1: But then other times he'll walk into the cafeteria with
Speaker 1: his plate food and he'll sit with the marketing department,
Speaker 1: or he'll sit with the broadcast production crew, or he'll
Speaker 1: sit with digital content, or he'll sit with you know, salespeople.
Speaker 1: And he's really made it a point of trying to
Speaker 1: get to know what everybody does in the building, getting
Speaker 1: to know everybody by name, and making everybody understand that
Speaker 1: we're all in this together. Even if you don't necessarily
Speaker 1: touch football, you're part of the same organization that's trying
Speaker 1: to win. And he's just a regular guy, to his
Speaker 1: credit for a guy that's worked as long as he
Speaker 1: did under Belichick and as long you know, he worked
Speaker 1: the one year with Sabin, but that's like working with Belichick.
Speaker 1: He did not try to become Belichick or Saban like
Speaker 1: so many of the other disciples that suddenly put on
Speaker 1: the I'm Bill Belichicker, I'm Bill Parcel's act without the
Speaker 1: resume to be that guy. Dave's is just Daves. He
Speaker 1: wants you to call him Dave's. He can't stand it
Speaker 1: when you call him coach Dable. It's like, dude, I'm
Speaker 1: Dave's okay, and that's it, and that permeates not only
Speaker 1: throughout the locker room, but throughout the organization. I gotta
Speaker 1: think having Link Martindale around is one of the smartest
Speaker 1: hires because he takes care of the defense, right, Davil
Speaker 1: doesn't have to worry about it. How do you see it? Well,
Speaker 1: I think that's the other You know, a veteran head
Speaker 1: coach told me once a long time ago, you're only
Speaker 1: as good as your staff. And if you're a young coach,
Speaker 1: when they would mentor young head coaches, their biggest advice
Speaker 1: would be, don't be scared to hire people that are
Speaker 1: big personalities, that are veteran coaches, because too many times
Speaker 1: young coaches don't want to bring in those guys because
Speaker 1: they're scared that they're basically hiring a ready made replacement
Speaker 1: if you fail. Sean McVeigh did a great job with
Speaker 1: the Rams when he first got the job. What did
Speaker 1: he do He hired Wade Phillips, a veteran proven defensive
Speaker 1: coordinator run his defense. Dable didn't even know Wink Martindale.
Speaker 1: They had they had, their pasts had never crossed. But
Speaker 1: Dabl said, look in all my years as a play caller.
Speaker 1: His defense gave me the biggest fits. Let me find
Speaker 1: out what he's all about. And he's brought in people
Speaker 1: within the organization that are not just robots from the
Speaker 1: Belichick camp or from this camp and they just parrot
Speaker 1: the same stuff. He's brought in people with different ideas,
Speaker 1: like his offensive coordinator Mike Kafka, who comes from the
Speaker 1: Andy Reid tree, you know. So they kind of sprinkled
Speaker 1: things around a little bit. So it's more of an
Speaker 1: open think tank. Boy, that sounds good. That sounds really interesting.
Speaker 1: Lovey Smith has been talking about the fact that the
Speaker 1: Giants are gonna blitz the Texans more than any other team.
Speaker 1: How blitz heavy and blitz happy have they been so far?
Speaker 1: Is that a key factor in their success? It has been.
Speaker 1: But wink Martindale, uh sometimes will not blitz a lot.
Speaker 1: You know. I think we all know that when you
Speaker 1: go against the veteran upper tier quarterbacks, the Peyton Mannings,
Speaker 1: the Tom Brady, the Drew Breezes of the world, you know,
Speaker 1: if you brit blitz them like crazy, they're gonna eat
Speaker 1: you alive because they can read it, they could see it.
Speaker 1: They've been there, done that they know what's coming, they
Speaker 1: know how to handle it. Now, Wink will dial up
Speaker 1: a blitz at the right time, like he did against
Speaker 1: Aaron Rodgers and the Packers in London, and he'll he'll
Speaker 1: pick his spots. But there's a lot of other times
Speaker 1: where they're gonna just play coverage and they're gonna try
Speaker 1: to create ways with just five to get to the quarterback.
Speaker 1: But I think in this case, you know, like with
Speaker 1: a young quarterback like Davis Mills, Um, yeah, I think
Speaker 1: he's gonna throw a lot of exotic looks at him
Speaker 1: and try to confuse him. All right, let me go
Speaker 1: a little history with you here, Bob Bob popap Voice
Speaker 1: of the Giants with us on Texans Radio, more beloved
Speaker 1: former Giants quarterback Eli Manning or Phil Simms. What do
Speaker 1: you got? That's an age thing, Man, That is clearly
Speaker 1: an age thing. I think if you're if you're of
Speaker 1: a certain age there there there are some that will
Speaker 1: never move off. Phil Simms. I mean, look, you asked
Speaker 1: my dad, He's gonna tell you why a tittle? So,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it kind of goes by generation. Um.
Speaker 1: They were both great in their own right. They were
Speaker 1: both phenomenal players. Eli is going to get in the
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame someday, although I doubt he'll be a
Speaker 1: first ballot, and Phil Simms should probably be in the
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame, but he won't. But I think you know,
Speaker 1: no matter how you slice it, you can't go wrong
Speaker 1: having those two quarterbacks as part of your franchise history.
Speaker 1: All right, let me stir up a rivalry here. You
Speaker 1: went to Fordham, So Fordham sports announcers versus Syracuse sports announcers.
Speaker 1: You tell me who's better. Go ahead, started off, Bob'll
Speaker 1: come on, it's Fordham. I mean, listen, Sherrek's Sarak Hughes
Speaker 1: has a great history with my mentor, Marty Glickman and
Speaker 1: Marv Albert and all the guys that are doing tremendous
Speaker 1: work now to Rico, Ian Eagle and saw On and
Speaker 1: so forth. But you know, Fordham, you know we got
Speaker 1: Vince Scully, we got Charles osgood when you go to
Speaker 1: the new side of things, and then you got Mike
Speaker 1: Breen and Michael Kay and Chris Karina with the Nats,
Speaker 1: and Spirodidas and Tony really of uh you know ESPN
Speaker 1: with you know the Game show and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of us out there, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be partial and go with Fordham. All right,
Speaker 1: very nice, Bob, Papa joining us. Now you've called boxing golf.
Speaker 1: You've done it all. Bob, tell me what's difficult about
Speaker 1: calling boxing. You gotta remember you're doing TV right, and
Speaker 1: then you pick your spot when you get into the
Speaker 1: heavy play by play. But like you don't have to
Speaker 1: call every job, you don't have to call every right
Speaker 1: hand that gets missed or blocked or whatever, because guess what,
Speaker 1: two people on the ring. The ring is a square.
Speaker 1: It's not like this stuff going on away from the ball.
Speaker 1: Everybody could see what's going on, and you try to
Speaker 1: pick your analysts brain and lead them into what they
Speaker 1: see and how it may manifest itself later in the fight.
Speaker 1: And then when you get to those aha moments, that's
Speaker 1: when you go in and you do your call. Now
Speaker 1: with golf, is that utter mayhem going on that people
Speaker 1: don't see behind the scenes in the truck? Because I
Speaker 1: always think with golf, you know every other sport, virtually
Speaker 1: you're calling a game with one ball or one puck
Speaker 1: or whatever. Boxing it's two guys with golf, it's a
Speaker 1: lot of different balls and players in different places and
Speaker 1: things like that. What's that like for you? Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: basically eighteen football fields happening at once. For us as announcers,
Speaker 1: you know, doing it on television, it's you know, you're
Speaker 1: just taking your cues from your producer and your directors
Speaker 1: getting you the shots. Now it's all hell on the
Speaker 1: truck because you've got a spotter for the producer, sir.
Speaker 1: Especially when we do college golf at Golf Channel, which
Speaker 1: we've become, you know, that's become a big franchise for us,
Speaker 1: the men's and women's NCAA's and all these tournaments that
Speaker 1: we're doing during the course of the year. Because it's
Speaker 1: one thing to do a golf tournament and for the
Speaker 1: producer to look up and say, Hi, Tiger Wood second
Speaker 1: at three and then we're gonna go to Rory's, you know,
Speaker 1: fourth at the par five eighth, where as opposed to
Speaker 1: a college golf event where you're looking up and you're like,
Speaker 1: all right, is that Pearson Cooty or is that Parker Cooty?
Speaker 1: Is this the freshman that transferred in in the portal
Speaker 1: for Texas or who's this guy? And which guy is
Speaker 1: that on A and M? And which guy is this
Speaker 1: on Oklahoma State? And who's this kid from Oregon. That's
Speaker 1: a whole that's that's being in the truck for that
Speaker 1: as a scene. Interesting. Bob popa voice of the New
Speaker 1: York Giants with us on Texans Radio. A couple more
Speaker 1: for you. All right, So in New York the football
Speaker 1: teams are doing well now, Giants, Jets having good seasons
Speaker 1: so far. The football team's king of New York? Or
Speaker 1: do the Yankees still have that title? How have things
Speaker 1: evolved over the last ten twenty years, Bob, baseball will
Speaker 1: always be king in New York when you get to
Speaker 1: the jet of winter or in the spring. You know,
Speaker 1: on the on the all talk stations, baseball is always
Speaker 1: the hottest topic. It is. It's just it is. It's
Speaker 1: you know, I would say the Yankees are definitely number
Speaker 1: one in town. I would say the Mets are second,
Speaker 1: with the Giants probably A two A, and then you
Speaker 1: get the Jets, and then it becomes the Knicks and
Speaker 1: the Rangers and everything else kind of falls in the line.
Speaker 1: In college basketball is huge in New York. College football,
Speaker 1: you know, I was. I was telling some friends I
Speaker 1: was watching the Georgia Tennessee game in Florida this weekend
Speaker 1: and one of my buddies is at Georgia grad and
Speaker 1: and then they were all fired up to Florida State,
Speaker 1: Miami LSU Alabama that night. And I'm like, you guys,
Speaker 1: realize in New York this might get a two rating.
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll get it too, probably a one five. Nobody cares.
Speaker 1: And they're like, really, I'm like, it's all about pros
Speaker 1: where we are so m you know, I would think
Speaker 1: the Giants are like a two a right behind the
Speaker 1: Mets in the in the pantheon, because you know, the
Speaker 1: Giants and Jets are lucky. Why when they've had these
Speaker 1: bad seasons the last five years and things are awful,
Speaker 1: and they're both like almost eliminated by Halloween. Well, as
Speaker 1: long as the Yankees are making a run and they're
Speaker 1: in the postseason, you know, the Giants and Jets could
Speaker 1: lose thirty five to three each weekend, but it all
Speaker 1: depends on what the Yankees did that day. And once
Speaker 1: the Yankees are eliminated, then the football teams lose their
Speaker 1: cover cover. I like that word. Tell me NFC East
Speaker 1: the rest of the way. We just saw the Eagles
Speaker 1: here last Thursday night. They're the only unbeaten team in
Speaker 1: the league. We know what the Cowboys are doing. Giving
Speaker 1: your thoughts on the division moving forward down the stretch here, well,
Speaker 1: you know, you always defer to the only team that's
Speaker 1: undefeated in the league, and Philadelphia is really good. The
Speaker 1: quarterback has you know, he's passing every test that they
Speaker 1: laid out for him in jail and hurts because they
Speaker 1: came into the season with a wait and see approach
Speaker 1: as to whether he's truly going to be their future.
Speaker 1: They've added a lot of pieces in free agency and
Speaker 1: via the trade, but I still think the Cowboys. I
Speaker 1: think the Cowboys are still going to have to be
Speaker 1: reckoned with, especially if they wind up adding Odell Beckhams
Speaker 1: Junior to their team. Their defense is outstanding. You know,
Speaker 1: Dak was hurt Cooper Rush held the fort and then
Speaker 1: Dak basically had you know, two extra preseason games playing
Speaker 1: the Bears and the Lions coming off the thumb injury
Speaker 1: and then the buy to kind of get up to speed.
Speaker 1: I still think the Cowboys are a team that's going
Speaker 1: to be heard from before the season's over, and it
Speaker 1: wouldn't shock me if Dallas wound up winning the division,
Speaker 1: even though Philly's beaten him once that was with Cooper Rush.
Speaker 1: That Dallas defense is pretty awesome. Bob, thanks so much
Speaker 1: for the time. We really do appreciate the visit and
Speaker 1: I look forward to seeing you in the booth on Sunday. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I have a safe trip up and hopefully this weather holds,
Speaker 1: because man, it's been in the mid to low seventies
Speaker 1: all week and it is as nice as it catch
Speaker 1: sounds good. Thanks a lot, Bob, Man, I thought there was.
Speaker 1: Those were some interesting comments from Bob talking about Daniel Jones.
Speaker 1: I think it puts a lot of it in perspective.
Speaker 1: We watched the game and we can see things happen.
Speaker 1: We see open receivers. Hey, why did the quarterback throw this?
Speaker 1: Why did the quarterback throw that? I mean it, I
Speaker 1: thought he put it so very well, and that is
Speaker 1: did the receiver run the wrong route to get open
Speaker 1: and he's not anticipating him to be there. That's a
Speaker 1: big part of playing that position is that everybody's on
Speaker 1: the same page and doing what the play call asked for. Now,
Speaker 1: there's always time for deviation. There's always time to change
Speaker 1: things up. But we saw that Tennessee game. There are
Speaker 1: at least two or three times where there was there
Speaker 1: was not a solid communication bond, if you will, between
Speaker 1: quarterbacks and wide receivers. It wasn't there. Tennessee backed up
Speaker 1: Brandy cookstrn's a little hitch and then goes Davis throws
Speaker 1: the out route and it's I don't know who's wrong.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but that can't happen. Happen a little
Speaker 1: bit later in the game. I'm trying to remember what
Speaker 1: route it was. But it happened later in a game too.
Speaker 1: A couple times in that game happened potentially against the
Speaker 1: Eagles once I can think of. So you just you
Speaker 1: just never know. But you just gotta work that much
Speaker 1: harder to get on the same page. But I thought
Speaker 1: those are great comments from Dable through Bob Papa about
Speaker 1: Daniel Jones and how well he is playing and doing things.
Speaker 1: Even though the numbers aren't gargant win. He's playing very
Speaker 1: well for the Giants and that's gonna be a tough
Speaker 1: match because of his athleticism getting out of the pocket.
Speaker 1: And by the way Daniel Jones has always been a
Speaker 1: obole out of the pocket Marcus Mariota type, always always
Speaker 1: tougher than two dollars steak. I never thought he threw
Speaker 1: it all that well. But you go back and read
Speaker 1: my draft report, and maybe I'll read it sometime this week.
Speaker 1: That's what I talked about. His toughness and his running.
Speaker 1: That's what really is what made him, has made him
Speaker 1: what he is. And they're getting the most out of that,
Speaker 1: hopefully now on Sunday, but throughout the rest of the year. Sure,
Speaker 1: why not, but just not on Sunday. All right, we
Speaker 1: get back. Let's hear from Jerry Hughes did a little
Speaker 1: deep slam with DeepC This will be fun for the
Speaker 1: greater Houston product. Jerry Hughes out of Austin High School,
Speaker 1: Fort Bend, I s d. Represent that's next on Texas
Speaker 1: to Access Man. I love being from htown, baby John
Speaker 1: Harris football on the sideline report for your Houston Texans,
Speaker 1: and I love saying that word Houston. Love that being
Speaker 1: my home and your home. I know you guys love
Speaker 1: living in Houston. I know Jerry Hughes is so proud
Speaker 1: to be from Houston. He spent his career with the
Speaker 1: Colts and the Bills. But earlier in his life, he
Speaker 1: went to Austin High School over the Fort Bend into
Speaker 1: Pended School District. He was an off state running back
Speaker 1: back in the day. Well he turned himself into one
Speaker 1: fine defensive end and now he is plying that trade
Speaker 1: right here in his hometown at Houston. Deepe City had
Speaker 1: a chance to catch up with him for a little
Speaker 1: deep slant interview of the week. Deepe and Jerry, Here
Speaker 1: we go. It's a deep Scent one on one presented
Speaker 1: by Vixfinity. My guests this week, Jerry Hughes, You're thirteen,
Speaker 1: off to the best start that you've had through the
Speaker 1: first nine games of your career. How does it feel
Speaker 1: so far for you? Oh? Man, it feels really good
Speaker 1: right now. You know, of course, we want to be
Speaker 1: winning a lot more ball games, so you know, we
Speaker 1: got an opportunity to kind of do that this second
Speaker 1: half of the season. So that's what I look forward
Speaker 1: to doing. You've had the most sacks that you've ever
Speaker 1: had through this time. I mean, what do you think
Speaker 1: the reason for the sack production that you've had this
Speaker 1: year has been? I got a credit to the secondary
Speaker 1: and how well they've been playing, you know, causing the
Speaker 1: quarterbacks to kind of hold the ball a little bit
Speaker 1: longer has been Hughes has been key. It's been allowing
Speaker 1: me to kind of get off those blocks and really
Speaker 1: finish my rushes, which is really what we focus on doing.
Speaker 1: Levey Smith said that when you're out there, you play
Speaker 1: like a rookie trying to make a team or a
Speaker 1: free agent trying to make a team, that you just
Speaker 1: have this this desire to just play and perform at
Speaker 1: the top level, like you're trying to make the team.
Speaker 1: Where does that attitude come from for you? I think
Speaker 1: it's just my competitive nature. Anytime you get me to
Speaker 1: play anything, I mean, football, basketball, checkers, even hop Scotch,
Speaker 1: I want to win. So I'm gonna go out there
Speaker 1: and give it one hundred and ten percent. I mean,
Speaker 1: my effort is probably going to be unmatched. This one
Speaker 1: thing I'm gonna try to do is, you know, really
Speaker 1: take it to that next level just to see how
Speaker 1: badly do you want it. But I think also just
Speaker 1: me flying around trying to do that just to show
Speaker 1: the young guys that's how we play football, That's how
Speaker 1: we play Texas football. I saw you play football in
Speaker 1: this league. You gotta be fast and decisive. You've got
Speaker 1: a lot of moves in your arsenal love. You talked
Speaker 1: about your bullrush, your spin move. I mean, at this
Speaker 1: stage in your career, are you still adding the moves
Speaker 1: or is it just fine tuning what you already have
Speaker 1: and knowing when to land what move. I would say
Speaker 1: fine tuning for the most part, you know, just knowing
Speaker 1: how to set up your pass rush moves. For It's
Speaker 1: really where I'm at right now, focusing mainly on hand plays,
Speaker 1: manning get off in the first half and then second half,
Speaker 1: really closing it in and really just making it all
Speaker 1: look at one fluid movement, so you can't really tell
Speaker 1: what I'm doing. I try not to give off too
Speaker 1: many tales as I'm pass rushing. I mean, it's an art.
Speaker 1: I like watching all the other guys in the league
Speaker 1: get after it, and even the guys on this team,
Speaker 1: they have moves that you know, I haven't seen before.
Speaker 1: I've been playing on this stage for thirteen years, so
Speaker 1: people are certainly finding new ways to get after the quarterback,
Speaker 1: and so I like adding new things that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm constantly working on my game. Do you bring out
Speaker 1: those new moves in practice, like you'll bring them out
Speaker 1: against the old line and see what they think of it.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I'm certainly trying them on LT and
Speaker 1: a big Titis. I mean, those two guys are probably
Speaker 1: you know, some phenomenal pass blockers. I mean, big guys
Speaker 1: who move like dancing bears as we call it. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying for that side, ye be so nimble?
Speaker 1: Oh man, it's incredible. So when any time I get
Speaker 1: a one on one opportunity, but then I'm trying, and
Speaker 1: then I'm in their ear asking what they saw, What
Speaker 1: sells did I give if the move wasn't successful, And
Speaker 1: they're so smart they actually reciprocate that information and they're
Speaker 1: feeding it back to me on how to beat an
Speaker 1: offensive linement, which is cool to have, you know, an
Speaker 1: offensive lineman working with a defensive linement on how to
Speaker 1: get sacks. So I never thought about the idea of
Speaker 1: disguising a move like you hear about defenses disguising their coverages.
Speaker 1: But even as a pass rusher, you try to disguise
Speaker 1: your move before you you know, you may present one
Speaker 1: thing and actually do another. Is that part of what
Speaker 1: you have to do at the stage. Like for me,
Speaker 1: I like to bull rush, and so I'll like to
Speaker 1: run at you and you'll think I'm bull rushing. I'll
Speaker 1: set it up that way and then I might spend
Speaker 1: on you, or I might take an inside move quicker.
Speaker 1: It's just it all depends on within those first two steps,
Speaker 1: how I can make that move look exactly the same.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's hard to defend against too, and you
Speaker 1: have no idea what's coming, or you think one thing's
Speaker 1: coming you've prepared for, and then it's something else. How
Speaker 1: about you, You've moved back to Houston and you know
Speaker 1: you're back in your hometown. You're back with the teams
Speaker 1: that you grew up watching, the food you grew up eating.
Speaker 1: How has that been for you so far? It's been amazing, honestly,
Speaker 1: just to kind of stay in my routine, and you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a big routine guy, creature of habit, and so
Speaker 1: to be able to where I can start something in
Speaker 1: the off season and continue it, uh working with my chef,
Speaker 1: working with the Nutritionless team here, Oh, it's been phenomenal.
Speaker 1: I even got an acupunctuist that I'm able to see
Speaker 1: so everyone that I kind of put in play to
Speaker 1: kind of get my body back going for Sunday. It's
Speaker 1: like nothing has changed. I haven't skipped a beat or anything.
Speaker 1: It's got to be hard, though, to stay healthy in Houston,
Speaker 1: I would think, I mean, especially since you know how
Speaker 1: much good food is out here, is your weakness text
Speaker 1: Max Mexican food. I mean, it's on every corner and
Speaker 1: everyone has the best tacos, and I'm a sucker for
Speaker 1: street tacos. I mean I just found out carnate a soada.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm saying that right straight steak tacos.
Speaker 1: I didn't know a little bit that that flavor that
Speaker 1: however they prepare that meat that's your thing, that is
Speaker 1: my thing on the taco right now, I'm freaking hooked
Speaker 1: right now. Do you have to be super healthy like
Speaker 1: your third team in the league, Like, I mean, do
Speaker 1: you have to clean up your diet a lot or
Speaker 1: can you do you have like a little wiggle room
Speaker 1: as a defensive alignment. I have a little wiggle room
Speaker 1: just because it's so humid here, so we're able to
Speaker 1: kind of sweat it off right right, But I mean,
Speaker 1: coming off of Halloween where the kids went tigger treating,
Speaker 1: and as they like to say, they got to pay
Speaker 1: Dad taxes of course, So you know, I take a
Speaker 1: nice little percentage of that. Kid. What's what's candy? What's
Speaker 1: the candy you're taking? Oh? I'm taking the peanut M
Speaker 1: and m's. For some reason, my kids don't like chocolate.
Speaker 1: So oh no, very right. I mean don't know for you,
Speaker 1: because you're going to be eating most of it. I
Speaker 1: would love. The one thing I give back to them
Speaker 1: is the freaking sneakers. You can have that you can
Speaker 1: have the caramel inside anything else? Really, Dad tax pay up? Okay,
Speaker 1: So you're back in Houston. Did I read somewhere that Okay,
Speaker 1: so when the Texans were first formed, you were probably
Speaker 1: what high school? Yeah? Did I read somewhere that you were?
Speaker 1: You voted as one of the potential names, because I
Speaker 1: voted in that too. Yeah. What did you vote for? Oh?
Speaker 1: I think at the time they had like a space
Speaker 1: themed team coin. I know they had the Roughnecks to Texans.
Speaker 1: I think there's one more to hadros Okay. I think
Speaker 1: I went with it was something with like a space
Speaker 1: They either like a spaceship or something, but I went
Speaker 1: with the space team because I figured we keep it
Speaker 1: all Yeah it's Rockets Astros, and so I was just spaing, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was just thinking that we do. But I mean
Speaker 1: I like Texans because you know, it just branches out
Speaker 1: and now we get a wide range of fans. You
Speaker 1: get everybody, get everybody in the state. Right. You can't
Speaker 1: not do that right? All right? So a few years back,
Speaker 1: when Brian Cushing used to play here, he was from Jersey,
Speaker 1: and I asked him what the most prototypical Jersey thing
Speaker 1: about him was? But then I thought, what about you?
Speaker 1: Like growing up in Texas, what's the most Texas or
Speaker 1: most I should say, most Houston thing about you? Because
Speaker 1: I think Texas is different in different parts. What's the
Speaker 1: most Houston thing about you? I was gonna say, probably
Speaker 1: my love for just Mexican food. Okay, like seven days
Speaker 1: of the week. I feel like everyone here in Texas
Speaker 1: we could probably do that with a my soul frozen mark,
Speaker 1: you know. I feel like that's something that's probably very
Speaker 1: texting of us. We could probably eat that seven days
Speaker 1: of the week. That might be it. Other than that,
Speaker 1: probably I'm used to seeing like horses on the highways
Speaker 1: and road so that that doesn't really surprise me versus
Speaker 1: time that's like, no big deal. Oh no, it's like
Speaker 1: someone's riding their horse down like a freaking highway. We're like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: that's just it's just that's that's a normal day in Texas.
Speaker 1: Right anywhere else you probably think there's like an almost
Speaker 1: parade or something like that going on. But yeah, certainly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like Houston has its own culture between the
Speaker 1: music and the scene and everything like that. And so like,
Speaker 1: now that you're back, how much has it changed. Tremendously, Yeah, tremendously.
Speaker 1: I love how the city is embracing the culture. I mean,
Speaker 1: we we had bumb performing at our halftime, and I
Speaker 1: know my family was excited. They were going crazy up
Speaker 1: in the little suite, having a good time, Slim thug,
Speaker 1: a big slim mom. Mom's partying, rocking out, throwing up
Speaker 1: for Houston, tex Inside. I'm just like, this is amazing
Speaker 1: and it's great to see for the city. It's great
Speaker 1: that we have, you know, those music moguls that that
Speaker 1: are able to come back and perform and be a
Speaker 1: part of that because they are Houston and we love them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Jerry has been such a pleasure to get to know
Speaker 1: your best of luck for the rest of the season. Thanks,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. Always glad to be here. He
Speaker 1: is absolutely tearing it up rushing to pass this year.
Speaker 1: I think Jerry Hughes has been great for the Texans
Speaker 1: and hopefully Jerry feels that same love going back there
Speaker 1: the way he has been incredible for this team and
Speaker 1: provides pass rush, and he'll be facing a couple of
Speaker 1: good ones and Andrew Thomas, and don't know if it's
Speaker 1: gonna be Tyry Phillips or Evan Neil, depending on Evan
Speaker 1: Neel's availability, so we'll keep an eye on that. But
Speaker 1: Jerry Hughes rushing y edge has been a problem for
Speaker 1: every offensive tackle he has faced this year and looking
Speaker 1: for more of that on Sunday against Daniel Jones and
Speaker 1: the New York Giants. Speaking the Giants, we do a
Speaker 1: little in the lab that is gigantic, well not in
Speaker 1: length and size and all that, but just it's a
Speaker 1: I would say it's a typical in the lab, like
Speaker 1: a crazy, funky typical in the lab. Yeah, that's next.
Speaker 1: On Texans All Access, we go on false segment of
Speaker 1: this Wednesday at issue of Texans All Access from the Honday,
Speaker 1: Texans Radio Studio. I'm John Harris Foot playing on all
Speaker 1: sideline reporters for the Schlumberge Stats Challenge, brought to you
Speaker 1: by our friends at Schlumberge, and the stats Challenge number
Speaker 1: is eighty five. Now I'll tell you what that number
Speaker 1: relates to, because it relates to somebody that we are
Speaker 1: going to discuss in just about fifteen seconds right here
Speaker 1: within the lab with my man Drew Doherty. Very interesting
Speaker 1: topic that we stumbled upon. And you'll see what eighty
Speaker 1: five means in just uh second. That's right, it's in
Speaker 1: the lab time Drew Doherty, John Harrison, Mark Vandermer is
Speaker 1: over there playing darts and screwing around. So John, how
Speaker 1: you doing. I'm doing well. You know the other day
Speaker 1: I can't remembers one or Tuesday whenever our buddy Chris
Speaker 1: Moore came in here. I had an interview with Chris
Speaker 1: Mark and I usually get a player on Tuesday while
Speaker 1: you guys do the Players show. And Chris walked in
Speaker 1: and he saw the dartboars. Oh you mounified throw a dart.
Speaker 1: So we have about four dark it's five darts. We
Speaker 1: used to have like six or nine, they've all gotten
Speaker 1: broken or thrown whatever. He comes in. He throws two
Speaker 1: bulls eyes of the four and then the other two
Speaker 1: are just around the bull's eye. And I'm like, you're
Speaker 1: no longer and you're no longer invited. You throw like
Speaker 1: that play We're do you get good at darts? I
Speaker 1: don't know, probably back in college I would imagine yeah,
Speaker 1: Um he said he hadn't played in a while, but
Speaker 1: uh yeah he You know, Mark and I pretty solid team.
Speaker 1: We took on our video team, Jared Huff, ri Ip
Speaker 1: and h Tyler Suttarth. We would take those two on
Speaker 1: each probably each day. It got to be a battle
Speaker 1: summer for sure, before a training camp, and so darts
Speaker 1: were a pretty big deal. And then he just came
Speaker 1: in here and Chris Barres just started throwing. He's throwing
Speaker 1: darts at dagon bulls. I were like, no, no, no, man,
Speaker 1: you're you're you're out of here, professional athlete. You're too
Speaker 1: good for us. Yeah, believe it or not. I used
Speaker 1: to be good at darts about twenty years ago. Not anymore,
Speaker 1: haven't played, But I was okay, I could handle my business.
Speaker 1: You just said rip about Jared Huff and Jared huffed
Speaker 1: to nut. Jared huff edits a lot of the videos
Speaker 1: and put together a lot of the videos that you
Speaker 1: see on Houston Texans dot com. He just he's spending
Speaker 1: his last week with us. He's got a new job.
Speaker 1: So crat stuff Uff. We're gonna miss Huffy. He's a
Speaker 1: good dude, good strong aggie. And yes he's moving on
Speaker 1: leaving the Texans. Okay, you are expecting us to talk
Speaker 1: about A and then B, but we're doing Q today
Speaker 1: because we're just gonna go full on in the Lab. Okay,
Speaker 1: gonna be dorky. It's gonna be like a March version
Speaker 1: or a June version of in the Lab. And it
Speaker 1: was spawned a week or so ago when I was
Speaker 1: doing Texans All Access with DP and Mark and you
Speaker 1: know how they are. I brought up a great little
Speaker 1: tangent idea in the middle of a show, but it
Speaker 1: was a little too It wasn't enough mainstream for them. However,
Speaker 1: we were talking about trading and trades, and I said,
Speaker 1: whoa Boa, Boa, You can trade for any AFC South
Speaker 1: player that's not a quarterback that is retired all time,
Speaker 1: and you can add him to this roster at his peak,
Speaker 1: the Texans roster, which guy are you trading for? So
Speaker 1: you can't get Peyton Manning or or Andrew Luck, but
Speaker 1: any other position you can add them to this Texans roster.
Speaker 1: So it's two thousand and two through now basically, but
Speaker 1: retired players. Who would you add? John Harris? And it's
Speaker 1: got to be a retired player has to be retired
Speaker 1: because I would add Dwight Freeney. I want to pass rush.
Speaker 1: I want more guys getting after the quarterback. Now there's
Speaker 1: other positions you could add that would possibly help as well,
Speaker 1: well certainly would help, but that's where I would go
Speaker 1: to have a constant This guy might get two three
Speaker 1: sacks per game off of you if you're not careful.
Speaker 1: That's who I would get. I would add Dwight Freeney
Speaker 1: to this roster to up the anti help Jerry Hughes out,
Speaker 1: help Grenard out who's not in, and get after the
Speaker 1: quarterback and make things a little dicier on opposing offenses.
Speaker 1: Who would you add? Because the clear answer is he
Speaker 1: had Peyton Manning. He's the best quarterback, he's a Hall
Speaker 1: of Famer, he's one of the best ever. But we're
Speaker 1: not adding a quarterback. You and I are kind of
Speaker 1: thinking along the same lines, or I should say line,
Speaker 1: but I would probably go inside. Okay, And one of
Speaker 1: the guys that always frustrated me when I watched him,
Speaker 1: and I think he's retired, I don't know. I haven't
Speaker 1: seen him anywhere. I think he's retired to retired. No,
Speaker 1: Darrell Casey, that's a good tightness. He was the Titans
Speaker 1: version of of JJ because he was inside outside guy.
Speaker 1: He didn't always go up to defensive van like in
Speaker 1: a four three all the way outside, but from five
Speaker 1: technique to five techniques just outside the tackle on both sides,
Speaker 1: all the way across. He could. He could impact the play.
Speaker 1: Pain in the ass, absolute pain in the ass. And
Speaker 1: I loved watching him play because he was not three
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty pounds. He wasn't just doing a sheer size.
Speaker 1: He had every combination of quickness, hands, playmaking ability. He
Speaker 1: had it all. And he played for some really bad
Speaker 1: Titans teams. I was gonna say, man, he was there
Speaker 1: in the Mettenburger years, the Revolving Door before and after Mettenburger. Yeah,
Speaker 1: those those teams really tough. But when he I hated
Speaker 1: it at the end of hit for him because they
Speaker 1: finally had something by seventeen sixteen seventeen eighteen, and he
Speaker 1: was kind of at the back end of his career
Speaker 1: at that point. But I always felt like Drell Casey
Speaker 1: for the Titans was a guy that impacted everything. It
Speaker 1: was really hard to run against him, especially if you
Speaker 1: ran away from him, because he had a He had
Speaker 1: an uncanny knack of twisting his body towarding his body
Speaker 1: to get in between zone pulling lineman and then get
Speaker 1: down a line of scrimmage quickly and make a play
Speaker 1: on a running back. He was really tough. But I
Speaker 1: think we're both at the same point and it and
Speaker 1: it kind of leads drew to a discussion that I
Speaker 1: know people have asked us, but they're they're already thinking about, like,
Speaker 1: what do you do when you come to the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three draft and there are some elite defensive alignement
Speaker 1: in this draft. And I know that the Texans haven't
Speaker 1: gotten out of Davis what they've wanted to get out
Speaker 1: of Davis, and there are some really good quarterbacks in
Speaker 1: this particular draft. But I think you can see where
Speaker 1: you and I are going, and that is if this
Speaker 1: defense could hold up better against the run. And it's
Speaker 1: funny because I picked an interior defensive lineman and you
Speaker 1: picked a defensive end. Who have we been missing Jonathan Grennard,
Speaker 1: ye Emily Collins. It's not all on two guys to
Speaker 1: stop the run. But we weren't beefy upfront as it was,
Speaker 1: but with those two guys in the lineup, they just
Speaker 1: gave you that much more against the run. Now, it
Speaker 1: wasn't gonna be perfect with them, and those two guys
Speaker 1: played in the game against Chicago and klil Herbert went
Speaker 1: absolutely crazy against you a backup running back. So it
Speaker 1: hasn't been perfect with them, but it certainly has not
Speaker 1: been good at all without them. So we're thinking definitely
Speaker 1: along the same lines at that front seven. In particular
Speaker 1: those two. I thought about linebackers, and I was kind
Speaker 1: of going back in my mind, like what linebackers would
Speaker 1: I want? Demiko Ryans. Demiko Ryans would be a good one.
Speaker 1: The other one that I would want is a healthy Cushing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would want a healthy Cushing. If we had a
Speaker 1: healthy Cushing on this defense. And he was the guy,
Speaker 1: he was the guy in charge, and he was running things.
Speaker 1: He brought oop he was incredibly explosive in twitchy before
Speaker 1: the injury. I'd take Cushing all day, every day. So
Speaker 1: you put those three guys, Freeny, Casey, Cushing on this
Speaker 1: defense and things are changed exponentially. The two thousand and
Speaker 1: nine in two eleven seasons for Brian Cushing some of
Speaker 1: the best overall seasons by any player, regardless of side
Speaker 1: of the ball position. Absolutely in the history of this franchise.
Speaker 1: He was outstanding both He was a pro bowler in
Speaker 1: O nine, he should have gotten into Pro Bowl and eleven,
Speaker 1: but you know, understandably there were probably some lingering stuff
Speaker 1: or lingering ideas about him and who he was and
Speaker 1: all that that kept him from getting in eleven. But
Speaker 1: he was out. He was the heart and soul of
Speaker 1: that that twenty eleven team. He was the MVP. I mean,
Speaker 1: his teammates voted him the MVP of the twenty eleven team,
Speaker 1: which might, I would say, probably be the best team
Speaker 1: of all time Texans wise, when you you emphasized the
Speaker 1: letter Q, and I was like, when you asked your question,
Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, I think I know where Drew's
Speaker 1: going with this. But then you said retired players. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And because Q. I was thinking of Quentn Nelson Um
Speaker 1: for the Colts, not that I would take him right
Speaker 1: now because I didn't want to go see because that's
Speaker 1: two Yeah, I don't know. You just picked the letter Q,
Speaker 1: and I thought that's where you were trying to write
Speaker 1: down l U m or. But if you could pick
Speaker 1: a current AFC South player, not Texan, a current non quarterback,
Speaker 1: current aff Jeffrey Simmons, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's he's
Speaker 1: a guy slam dunk. Yeah, absolutely, I mean he him
Speaker 1: is a slam dunk. He's pretty easy for me. That's
Speaker 1: that's who i'd go with. And here's here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing. And this is kind of why I've
Speaker 1: had this debate because on my podcast locked inn FFL Draft,
Speaker 1: I've been talking about this with the guys and the
Speaker 1: two other guys I'm on. When I had presented kind
Speaker 1: of like a top five draft scenario, and in that
Speaker 1: scenario for the Texans, I just you know, I picked
Speaker 1: Will Anderson Junior and Jaylen Carter from out of Georgia,
Speaker 1: boy and something. Jaylen Carter is Jeffrey Well, because I
Speaker 1: think when I when I take the Browns, when I
Speaker 1: did this the Browns right number four, So it was
Speaker 1: one of them. It was two and four. I was
Speaker 1: getting out of the top ten even No, he won't
Speaker 1: get out of top four. And then he's saying, I
Speaker 1: think the Browns will I think they're gonna win. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the Brons will start to win a few games. Um.
Speaker 1: I think the Browns are gonna end up being right
Speaker 1: where they were last year thirteen thirteen through fifteen. I
Speaker 1: think that's where they're gonna end up. Um. And so
Speaker 1: you're not gonna get Carter at that point, but watching
Speaker 1: him against Tennessee. Had been banged up in the game
Speaker 1: against Oregon at the beginning of the year, and then
Speaker 1: he was kind of in and out, and then he
Speaker 1: finally missed a couple of games he came back for.
Speaker 1: I think it was I'm trying to think who Georgia
Speaker 1: played before Tennessee. But he's back for that game, just
Speaker 1: wrecking shop in the oh against against Florida in the
Speaker 1: in the cocktail party. But then against Tennessee, he just
Speaker 1: he showed it all. I mean to He stopped the game.
Speaker 1: It took the forty five minutes for them to correct
Speaker 1: that play, to figure out what safety wasn't you know.
Speaker 1: I mean he's lifted that dude up and then forklift
Speaker 1: him at the end and then got rid of him
Speaker 1: and then tackled. It should have been a safety. But
Speaker 1: either way, yeah, Jalen Carter, we start thinking about on
Speaker 1: his defense and it's like I remember for so long
Speaker 1: watching the Colts in this division, You're like, man, we
Speaker 1: need freedi in a mathist. Man, we needed freedi in
Speaker 1: a mathist. And then we go get Mario Williams and
Speaker 1: they who Mario Williams was not either one of those guys,
Speaker 1: but you found somebody that could impact the game from
Speaker 1: the edge. And when you got J. J. Watt, who
Speaker 1: get impacted the game from the edge and the inside,
Speaker 1: you start looking around the division and how do you
Speaker 1: win a division? Well, you want to go find one
Speaker 1: of those. You're not gonna find Derek Henry. You're just not.
Speaker 1: You're not gonna find Derek Henry. But Duke got Damian Pierce,
Speaker 1: which is a you know, you didn't go out and
Speaker 1: get an F three fifty. You know, you went out
Speaker 1: and found you know, a tank, which is a little different.
Speaker 1: But you can't find a Jeffrey Simmons. And it's his
Speaker 1: name is Jaln Carter. There aren't plenty, There aren't many
Speaker 1: of them, but you could go out and find a
Speaker 1: guy like Jeffrey Simmons. Do you think about every single
Speaker 1: game as Simmons has played for the Titans against the Texans,
Speaker 1: He's found a way to impact that game. He's an
Speaker 1: absolute monster, John, He's a monstrance. All week long leading
Speaker 1: up to that Titans game, I was looking at the
Speaker 1: injury report Ryan Tannehill. Yes, I know Jeffrey Simmons Wednesday sweet,
Speaker 1: same thing on Thursday, and then both those guys are questionable.
Speaker 1: And I think they wound up ruling Tannehill out on Saturday,
Speaker 1: but yet on Friday questionable and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: there's And I was much more. I didn't really care
Speaker 1: as much about Tannehill. I cared about Jeffrey Simmons, and
Speaker 1: he wound up playing and he was basically a grenade.
Speaker 1: When you throw that grenade in the middle of your
Speaker 1: offensive line, bad stuff happens. When on Friday, I was
Speaker 1: scouring the twitters, and as I scoured, I fall I
Speaker 1: found a video and I can't remember who posts. I
Speaker 1: think it maybe been Paul Karski posted a video in
Speaker 1: the locker room with Simmons talking about whether he was
Speaker 1: gonna play or not, and he said one thing and
Speaker 1: my heart dropped. He was like, well, I feel better
Speaker 1: than I did last Sunday, and I went, oh no.
Speaker 1: And the previous Sunday he played against the coltson he
Speaker 1: got banged up in that game, and I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: he's gonna play. And then when he plays, he's just
Speaker 1: he's out right. So when you get in a spot
Speaker 1: where you're trying to improve your team, you're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: what do other teams have, you know, it's like AFC
Speaker 1: South envy. What do they have that we'd like to get? Well,
Speaker 1: I'd like that guy. Yeah, and Jaylen Carter is that
Speaker 1: guy from Georgia. Now there might be some other things
Speaker 1: that happened in draft and we'll see where it all
Speaker 1: ends up. We're only halfway through the year. But at
Speaker 1: the mock that I was doing at that time, the
Speaker 1: Texans were two and the Browns were four, and so
Speaker 1: you get to the top four. And so I went
Speaker 1: Will Anderson and Jaylen Carter with that, thinking, what's our biggest, biggest,
Speaker 1: biggest need. Well, it's the be better defensively. Sure, and
Speaker 1: those are the two I came up with. And the
Speaker 1: two guys kind of said, no, man, I think you
Speaker 1: need to go quarterback wide receiver. And I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I can make a case for
Speaker 1: a wide receiver at four. But I got their point.
Speaker 1: I mean, I understand, you know, you've got to get
Speaker 1: better quarterback quarterback play, and Davis Mills got nine games
Speaker 1: to play better at quarterback, and hopefully he'll do that.
Speaker 1: He's shown some signs of playing better against Las Vegas
Speaker 1: early in the Philadelphia game. He's got to continue that
Speaker 1: and get consistent with it or they're gonna be, you know,
Speaker 1: some people that are going to be clamoring for that
Speaker 1: quarterback in the top whatever wherever the Texans end up picking.
Speaker 1: But you know, that's a discussion down the road. But
Speaker 1: I find it interesting that Simmons was the guy that
Speaker 1: you and I and I bet if we brought Mark
Speaker 1: and he'd say the same thing. Yeah, I think Simmons
Speaker 1: would be the one that everybody would want for this
Speaker 1: Texans team. Okay, a few little tangents that come up
Speaker 1: off of our conversation that you brought up. Brian Cushing
Speaker 1: saw him on Saturday, he's doing well. Yeah right, he's
Speaker 1: got shockingly he's got athletic young children. Yeah, very very
Speaker 1: good at flag football. And saw his chitt and chat
Speaker 1: with him because my one of my sons was playing
Speaker 1: flag football. The other one just finished up his seven
Speaker 1: on seven season. He made the all start too. Nice congratulation, Yes,
Speaker 1: proud of him, Proud of both. But Brian Cushing is
Speaker 1: doing well. Looks good, looks like he goes suit up
Speaker 1: and reek some havoc. Jadevion Clowney was in town that
Speaker 1: the Browns had a buy last week and his son's
Speaker 1: team was playing before hours, so Joe Devion's doing well.
Speaker 1: Got a chance to say hello to him. And then hey,
Speaker 1: I was voting yesterday and I saw Owen Daniels. He
Speaker 1: was voting ahead of me. So he did his civic duty.
Speaker 1: And you know we uh we fist bumped on the
Speaker 1: way out the doo. Do too much talking in the
Speaker 1: polling places because you know how people can be, so
Speaker 1: didn't say too much. Yes, we know how people can
Speaker 1: be at voting places. Yes. And then on top of that,
Speaker 1: you bring up Darrell Casey. He was a twenty eleven
Speaker 1: draft pick who was on this show. I don't know
Speaker 1: if his last year or two years ago. We did
Speaker 1: a read draft of two thousand and eleven for the Texans,
Speaker 1: and in that redraft, the Texans chose J. J. Watt,
Speaker 1: Justin Houston, Oh, Drell Casey, Yea, Richard Sherman, and Chris
Speaker 1: Harris amongst others. Wow, what a group that was. And oh,
Speaker 1: by the way, eighty five Terrell Casey's TfL number in
Speaker 1: his career. We could use a few of those this
Speaker 1: week against the Giants, against sae Quon Barkley for sure.
Speaker 1: Big thanks to everybody on the show, to all of
Speaker 1: you for listening. We'll see you next time, and as always,
Speaker 1: go Texans.