Payne & Pendergast
What's at stake in Week18
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Visit HyundaiUSA.com or call 562-314-4603 for details. Let's get right into it on the line. Our Odyssey NFL Insider, Ross Tucker, joins us each and every Tuesday at this time. Insider calls brought to you by Hellman's Real Manays. May your game day be delicious. Ross, great to talk to you. The news coming down yesterday. You get another crack at Texans Titans again this season. My friend, we're excited about this. Hey, I'm excited anytime I get a chance to call an NFL game. And yeah, I guess I'm especially excited to do the rematch. You know, it's so funny because anytime you do a divisional game, you go back and you watch the first one, obviously. Thankfully, I already did that one. I already called that one. So I'm very familiar with that. Although, I don't know, on some level, both teams are reasonably different since then. It's going to be a really interesting game. I mean, Brian Callahan came out yesterday, the head coach of the Titans, and said that they're going to play both quarterbacks. Right. Will Levitt and Mason Rudolph. So I'm kind of fascinated. Well, I'm kind of fascinated to just hear like, how the logistics of that work. Can we alternate plays or series? Like, what are we going to do here? And then for the Texans, I don't know, I saw a bunch of quotes from Demico Ryan saying that they're going to play their guys, that the servers are going to play. So I guess we'll see how much or how that works. But I'm fired up about it. That's where, yeah, and we're here. You know, Demico's actually, he's gotten better and better at the deceptive part of being a head coach. And he's had a couple of pretty good, like, coach-speak lies. Last year, going into the playoffs, he said, "Hey, Derek, singly. We just don't, he's not going to travel with Amari Cooper. That's just not what we do." And then boom, there he did it. So I guess he spoke in generalities about CJ yesterday. But CJ himself after the game last week said that he was kind of banged up. And I'm wondering, Ross, not whether you think Demico will play CJ or not, but should he play CJ or not? That's a really interesting one. What I don't like about questions like that is I don't really know what the injury is. You know what I mean? Like, you know, Seth, and I'm sure you, with the injuries you had and me, you can appreciate this. If I knew what the injury was and I knew number one, whether or not he could make it worse, or number two, whether or not it would clearly be better if he didn't play and was able to arrest it for, which would be extended time since they played on Christmas, right? So if I knew either one of those answers, I think I could answer it a lot better. I don't think you can or should feel good about the way that the Texans are playing right now, in particular on offense, in particular since Tank Dale got hurt against the Chiefs. I think that's a problem, but you ask any player this time of year, and Seth, I'm guessing you'd be the same. If you ask me, hey, Ross, you know, like, would you rather be a little bit stronger or a little bit faster or longer arms? Like, this time of year, I would say, can you just let me feel a little bit better, like, you'll a little bit better when I go out there? Because everybody has like, you know, your elbow or your wrist or your ankle spraying, like, whatever it is, it's a much, much better feeling as a player when you go out there, and that thing, whatever that thing is, is not bothering you as much. It's a, hence the popularity of Tor at all. That's a, you hop on the T train, if that's a, okay, now Ross, you've seen this offense operate and, you know, I know that you had some questions about CJ last time after the Tennessee game. What, like, at this point in the season, and I don't expect to have a clear answer on this because we've been struggling with it all year long. Like, how much of it is the offense versus the play calling versus just CJ himself in terms of divvying up the blame for the, the meek offensive performance? Yeah, that's a great question. Nobody ever likes this answer, and I get it. I don't really like the answer either, but it does feel like it's a combination of all those things. You know, like, the offensive line, well documented, has had their issues. I think there are certainly situations where it feels like Sloak could put them in a better position. You know, I know it's been well documented that they have this affinity to run on early down a distance that has not been nearly as productive as they would like it to be or needed to be, quite frankly. And so I understand the frustration there, but then also, you know, CJ Shroud, he's missing throws that it feels like he didn't miss last year that are really tough to explain. I mean, really tough to kind of wrap your head around, but that's, that's the reality I feel like of where he's at right now. So I don't know, I guess if he, if he was playing better and getting the ball out even quicker, then I think the offensive line would look a little bit better. I think it would help the run game. I think Sloak's calls would look better. So right or wrong, I think if we're going to heap as much praise on CJ as we did last year for how fantastic he was, I think we have to also acknowledge that they need him to play better than he's playing this year. Yeah, no question. Ross Tucker's our Odyssey NFL insider insider calls brought to you by Helman's Real Manays. You can purchase Helman's at your local Walmart Kroger or grocery store to add extra deliciousness and creamy flavor to your game day dishes this football season. So Ross, the Texans are locked in as the four seed and they can only play one of three teams. The, the heavy favorite, according to the computers, is that they'll be playing the Pittsburgh Steelers, but there's still a decent chance they could play the Chargers. There's a minuscule chance that they could play the Ravens. If you're the Texans or you're a Texans fan, which of those three teams do you, do you most want to see at NRG Stadium in the wildcard route? I'm kind of surprised I'm saying this, but the Steelers, you know, you don't want to see the Ravens. You just, you just watch that movie. Yes. Okay. So you don't want to see the Ravens. I think you can make an argument for the, the Chargers or the Steelers. I don't know though, you guys know on NFL network on Saturday, I did the Chargers Patriots game and that's two games in a row where the Chargers look really good. And I, I just think Herbert is a significantly better quarterback than what you're getting from Russell Wilson. Yours are a bad way right now. You know, really both sides of the ball. They're giving up over 30 points, like three games in a row. They're, they're not scoring at all. There's kind of like in fighting. They're calling each other out. Like there's a lot of bad stuff going on. I feel like right now with the, with the Steelers, I think that's who you want to play. I think you want to hopefully catch them while, while the bad stuff is still going on. Aziz al-Shire comes back and Ross, we got so tight. We were, we were, we were so hardcore into playing the victim for a few days. After the Aziz al-Shire incident that I, I kind of just never wanted to talk about it again, but he's back. And like for this Texans team to make a deep playoff, well, I shouldn't say a deep playoff run anymore, just to have at least, let's say win a couple of games in the playoffs. I, I feel like it's got to be led by the defense and yet the defense has also shown some warts over the last couple of weeks. Where do you, where do you look at the Texans defense right now? You know what? I was disappointed by the performance against the Ravens. Really disappointed. I thought they were pretty good against the Chiefs. I thought they were fine. The week before, I think was the week where Stingley had the multiple picks, right? Against the Dolphins. That was the Dolphins. Yeah, the Dolphins. Yeah. I was really disappointed by the Ravens game. You know, they did not look like they belonged. That was way too easy. I'm not exactly sure what happened there. I mean, certainly give the Ravens offense a lot of credit. They deserve it, but that was an ugly performance by the Texans defensively. Now, the good news is playing against the Titans, you would expect the Texans to, you know, be able to get some confidence going and be able to stifle the Titans. Although, you know, they had trouble with them in that last game I did when I hung out with you, Sean on Thursday night or whatever it was. I mean, Will Levitt's kind of lit them up. I mean, with some big plays. So this should be a confidence building game for them, you know, for the Texans defense heading into the playoffs. I think it probably will. But man, can you imagine, like if Mason Rudolph and Levitt light them up, it'd be the exact opposite. Yeah, no question. Ross Tucker, our Odyssey NFL insider joining us. Hey, Ross, before we get you out of here, what's your excitement level for the Sunday night game this week? Lions Vikings to 14 win teams in the loser is going to be the five seed in the NFC. It's wild. Very, very excited. It's funny. I was just thinking about this too. Like, there's a really good chance that the Eagles, who you guys know, I do a lot of stuff with them, that the Eagles will end up playing the seven seed will be the 12 and five Green Bay Packers. Remember how much everybody was freaking out when they extended the playoffs to 17s? Like, oh my gosh, you're going to have all these eight win teams in and nine and eight. It's going to be horrible. I mean, it's kind of the opposite. I mean, it's great. Like, it would be real bad. Can you imagine if we only have six playoff teams and the 12 and five Packers? Wild. Who, like, could see, like, when the Super Bowl didn't get in? I mean, so that's what I think is interesting. And I bring that up because I think we really overweighted, unfortunately. I think we've overweighted the number one seed. Yes. I mean, like, that to me is ridiculous that now when you get home to the advantage, you're the only team that gets a buy. I mean, you get to play nobody when the Vikings or whoever loses that game has to play a road game, even though they have basically the same record. And then the Eagles have to play a really good Packers team just doesn't seem like that's the way that's the way it should be to me. Yeah. And I hate that the only solution for that. I'm with you on that Ross that that number one seed had carried so much weight. And the only solution I think is to expand the playoffs even more and have 18 so that there is no buy anymore. And I hate that because it waters down the regular season. Yeah. I don't know that we have a good solution. Yeah. I almost want to do it, like, on a case by case basis every year. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Let's do an eight seed this year. Exactly. But then, but then other years be like, no, no, no, no, we're not doing it. They're not in. But can you imagine like an eight seed this year, you know, like in the AFC, whoever that would be, you know, like the Bengals, that'd be awesome. Yeah. Like the bank. Can you imagine we had eight seed bangles at the sheet? Yeah. You know, in the wildcard round, that would be awesome. It would. It would. It would. It would be amazing. Ross Tucker, our Odyssey NFL insider insider calls brought to you by Hellman's real and may you'll game day be delicious. Hey, Ross, we look forward to hearing you on the call this weekend. We'll talk to you next Tuesday. Yeah, I can't wait. Thanks so much guys. All right. You got it. See you. Happy new year. Happy new year to our good friend Ross Tucker. I forgot he had to leave early today. And I was, I, I, when he brought up, you know, how much work he does with the Eagles. Oh, I just, I got to, I got to start talking to more people about Nick Sirianni. He fascinates me. The Sirianni, it seems like there's a weekly report of him either getting into it with a position coach or, or, or a tight end or whoever it might be. It's, it's, it's fascinating up there. It's an AJ Brown's got discontent with the quarterback and, and yet there they are for different reasons, but the Texans remind me a little bit of the Eagles last year at about this time. Like the Eagles were a playoff team. They, now they started 10 and one last season. The Texans started six and two, you know, and, and got off to a good start. And, and for different reasons, again, like you were, like you were just talking about Seth, there was a lot of infighting going on with the Eagles at the end of the season last year. They had, he made some bad hires, you know, as his, the, the follow up to Jonathan Ganon and Shane Steichen, those two, he's, they had Matt Patricia at one point. They switched coordinators and it was the opposite of what the Bills had done with their offensive coordinator. They, it was a, it was a doubt. I don't know if it was a downgrade, but it wasn't the solution. Yeah, their defense was falling apart, falling apart. So there were a lot of negative feelings, even though it was a playoff team, a lot of negative feelings around the team. Yeah. And they've gotten it turned around. And I think the lesson in that is, well, they went and got Vic Fangio and they went and got Kellen Moore and those have been two pretty good hires at coordinator. Yeah. And I think the Texans are going to be in the market for at least one coordinator. And as you mentioned yesterday, I can't remember we talked about this on the air or off the air. But, you know, the, I think there's an argument to be made that maybe, you know, De Mico should see play calling duty on defense to whether it's Matt Burke or somebody else as the D C you brought up Robert Salas name yesterday. Yeah, like that would be a really good hire. I think if this season ends the way it's looking like it's going to end, which is best case they go on the road and get beat in the division around like that's the ceiling for this team. It feels like right now I'm, I am here to be wrong about that. I am very much here to be wrong about that. But that's what this feels like right now that that's the most this team can accomplish, which they've accomplished seven other times in the last decade and a half. There's going to be some hard questions that need to be answered in the building over there, you know, as far as structure of the staff. Yeah. Whether it's whether it's a change or a coordinator or an offensive line coach or whatever it might be. And you're right on both sides of the ball because it's it's both Matt Burke and De Mico Ryan's defense. But you know, De Mico is obviously very heavily involved in the defense. It might be that, Hey, he really likes Matt Burke, but maybe trust Robert Solomon, which would allow De Mico to be more of a genuine overseer of the entire team and be able to like allocate his resources necessarily. So in that, that doesn't even get into the okay, are you making changes on the offensive side of the ball? But yeah, structurally something, something's got to be different. Because the Eagles are also a great example, Sean of like, there's one thing that there's people need to understand sometimes that even the best dynasties still have serious dysfunction on some levels, because it's an organization composed of hundreds of people. So that always you're always going to have some level of dysfunction. But man, you know what, you know what overcomes a lot of that dysfunction doing things well on the football field. Yeah, winning. Yes. Yeah, like the Patriots were dysfunctional as hell. Yeah, Belichick's a sociopathic madman. Yep. But they were really good at football. And ultimately, that's what makes the difference. Yeah. It's a problem where people sometimes fall into the spell of trying to emulate everything a successful person does, because no, there's some things that that person does that they only get away with, because they're so good at the other stuff. Their strengths are so strong. Yeah. So when you try to, and that's what happened to all these Belichick proteges, they think they got to try to imitate everything Belichick does like, no, unless you are as much of a football genius as Belichick is, you cannot get away with that same stuff. Absolutely. Right. Lean hard into the football stuff. And whatever your weaknesses are, it won't be as big a deal. Yep. So, so the Texans and the Titans play on Sunday, noon kick here on Sports Radio 610. Seth and I have you for Texans countdown at 9am final game of the regular season. And I would say, like, if we're putting a to-do list together for this game, like what are the Texans looking to accomplish in this game? I would say at the very top of the list, even if it's Davis Mills at quarterback, is to cobble something positive together offensively, because there's a whole lot more than just CJ Stroud that's wrong with this offense right now. It would be nice. I would be even more encouraged if the offense actually were able to accomplish some things with Davis Mills at quarterback, because he's not nearly the threat that CJ Stroud is. And wow, they're doing this with Davis Mills at quarterback. But I think specifically the offensive line, whether it's protection, running the football, you know, we'll see how much Joe Nixon plays in this game. But maybe getting somebody established as a guy, whether it's Daria Gumbowale or Damian Pierce or JJ Taylor, whoever, somebody establishing somebody who can take six or seven carries worth of heat off of Joe Nixon if he needs. Right. And then how do they use Deontay Johnson? And can he get integrated into this scheme? All of that. That really matters. The thing I worry about with the Titans, if you're hoping to go get something going offensively, one of the things that's really, really brought out the worst in the Texans offense this year is good rushing defenses. And the last time the Texans played the Titans, the Texans knew what the challenge was. Those offensive linemen were not all of a sudden surprised by the physicality of the Titans defensive front. Those guys are still there. And the Texans have had 17 weeks to show that they're somebody different than who they are. I look at Deontay Sweat, Sean, who's who's as much water buffalo as he is human being. And much like any wild beast, the first time they taste something, they're very cautious. They're not quite sure if they want to devour it right away. And I feel like Tevandre Sweat's gotten a taste for the Texans and CJ Stroud. I worry about Jeffrey Simmons and Tevandre Sweat versus anybody who's playing on the interior offense. Totally agree. Totally agree. And Tevandre Sweat since that game has proven he can, he's a menace with the football in his hands. Oh, that's right. Scoop and scoop and riot and one of scoop and score, but he had a nice run back at three. He had a really nice run back and a stiff arm in there. Yeah. Yeah. Somebody just bounce off of him. Whatever it was doesn't matter. Yeah. I think, uh, yeah. And now remember how he swatted Shaq Mason away? Like, like it was like, like it was a leaf off his windshield. Uh, now he might be facing Kendrick Green, who's like 70% the size of Shaq Mason. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so I think getting some going offensively. Here was DeMico Ryan's yesterday on the importance of playing better to get some momentum going off of that Raven's loss. Yeah. I want to see our guys go out and just gain that confidence just from doing, doing ball the right way and then you gain confidence by there. You want to have that confidence. You want to be playing your best ball at this point of the year. So that's what I want our guys to feel and we're Tennessee's a tough matchup. Again, they, uh, they got us here earlier in the year, uh, really tough matchup for us. So we know we have to play our best ball versus them divisional opponent. It's always tough matchup. And so we have our work cut out for us. I want to see our guys go out and just play the right way and gain some confidence going into the postseason. So you've said, you don't think CJ is going to play that this is maybe another example of DeMico getting better at the the line. Yeah. Well, he's already done. I mean, he's done it multiple times before. I get, I really hate it whenever I see headlines that say things like Texans will play their starters. Uh, like no, you got to say coach says that the Texans will play their starters. Yeah, because we don't know coaches. This is the exact kind of stuff that coaches lie about. And it's not bad lying. It's just gamesmanship. And in somebody might say, well, okay, well, if they're going to rest a bunch of starters, what's why bother with the gamesmanship because there's a balance and he doesn't, he, he does want to win the football game, but the harsh reality is you got to look at, all right, what matters most for actually winning the first round in the playoffs. And if CJ Stroud is that banged up and it would be nice to be actually were that banged up? Because it would be an explanation for some of his errant passes this year. Yes. That, you know, Ross Tucker asked the question a few minutes ago, said, okay, I guess the other question is how much can he actually recover over the course of just one week. And that's the big gray area we don't know. But let's say something hypothetically, like it was a separated shoulder that can calm down a lot with complete rest over the course of a week or two. Maybe it's like, I don't think it's ribs, but let's say it was ribs, bruised ribs or something or a cracked rib. That can calm down a lot over the course of a week. So whatever the nature of the, whatever the nature of the injury or injuries are, because all quarterbacks have injuries of some sort at this time of year, that's where I do think that's, you've had 17 weeks to get competent on offense. The only thing that can really, you can pray for right now is that your quarterback goes on a heater in the playoffs. And the best chance for that isn't by timing or anything else you guys have been doing in practice for 17 weeks. It's CJ's health. It's health. Yeah, he'll, he'll have, if he doesn't play in this game, CJ Stroud, that is, he will have had, depending on what day the Texans play that weekend, anywhere from 17 to 19 days off, in between starts that, you know, that that's where the Wednesday game against the Ravens helps out. That's four or five extra days of rest that he wouldn't have gotten had they played that game on a Sunday. You know, so that's, I'm with you. If I were, if I were to me, go, I put this list together yesterday and got a lot of reaction to it. There are six guys that I would not play in this game. And CJ's definitely one of them. Look, he says he's banged up. That's good enough for me. The other five would be Joe Nixon. If for no other reason, then you got to find out if any of these other guys are able to carry the rock if something happens to Joe Nixon. Like, I don't know, I don't know if people know this, but the second leading ball carrier on the Texans in terms of rushing attempts on this team is CJ Stroud, who's got 52 rushing attempts. You know, that includes kneel downs at the end of games, whatever. The next, the next most prolific carrier of the football on this team isn't on this team anymore. He's on the Minnesota Vikings. Cam Acres has the second most carries of any running back on the roster. He had 40 carries. Damian Pierce isn't even the third leading running back when it comes to carries. That's Dario Gumbawale. Damian Pierce has 21 carries. Cam Acres has double that as a Texan, and he had been a Texan since like week four. I think honestly that Damian Pierce might be the best evidence that we have that maybe Nick Casario wants to make a change on the offensive coaching staff because I know, look, I talked to somebody from another NFL turn training camp, team during training camp that just loves Damian Pierce, loves Damian Pierce. And I think that Casario still sees the upside in Damian Pierce. And when you have, when man, with Pep Hamilton as the offensive coordinator, boy, Damian Pierce looked like a machine versus with a bunch of personnel around him that wasn't any better than what he has now. And I think that he starts to look at, okay, how are we coaching on the offensive line? How are the, how are the plays being called? Why is Damian Pierce not able to adapt to this offense when you also have a whole lot of other guys that don't seem to be playing up to their potential in this offense? Yeah, the fact that Damian Pierce is still on this roster despite I, my skepticism, I don't, I did not think he looked good in training camp. There's no evidence that he's come around in this system. The first couple weeks of training camp, I thought he looked good athletically and everything, but his training camp went on in both the games. And in practice, I felt like there's something missing with Damian Pierce that the fact that Nick still seems to be very much a fan of Damian Pierce probably spells doom for at least one member of the coaching staff. Yeah, I would say, so I would sit mixing, even though mixing only needs seven, mixing needs seven yards to get to a thousand yards. And according to Texans cap, he's got a $250,000 incentive if he gets 134 yards in this game. So I don't know if that factors in at all. Like I, I would not want Joe mixing getting enough carries in this game to get 134 yards. If you want, if they want to start him great, if they want him to play, they want him to get a thousand yards, cool, whatever. I mean, there's a lot of games where he's averaged like 1.5 yards per carry, but still gotten over, except for his 170 yard run. So he can get 130 yards. We know he can do it quickly. Maybe that's what you hope for. Hopefully he get bus off a 103, 130 yards, touchdown. He's lined up in the aisle, in the inside section. Yeah. Yeah. And, but maybe a good first quarter and then put them on ice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would sit Nico Collins in this game. If you lose Nico Collins, your sunk sunk at wide receipt. You know what I mean? Like it's, I'll tell you what, honestly, Sean, yeah, if you lose Nico Collins, you're done for especially versus a team in the play, whichever team you face in the first three rounds, they have a good defense. You know, it's ironically enough. I think the Ravens, well, the Ravens on the sum total of the season might be the worst of those three defensively, but they've played really well defensively the last few weeks. Yeah, we saw. But if you go, so this is a thing. What are the Texans way better at scoring in the first half compared to scoring in the second half? So Bobby Slogg's pretty good at dialing up a gadget play in the first half. Yeah. Maybe that's the answer is that you get, you get the taste of success. They've scored. They've been very good at scoring on their first drive. Yeah. Like that's a, that's been a weird thing about an offense. It's otherwise moribund. So yeah, go on, run your script and then bench everybody. And there's a good chance that you can go out saying, Hey, look, we had a 14 point lead and, and we would have won that game. Just pretend. Yeah. I think there's a decent chance they treat this game like a preseason game, you know, that they do play their guys like the main guys, just the first quarter, maybe the second quarter. I think like any, anything's in play as you point out, we can't take the mico of face value on these quotes about all our guys are going to play. He didn't say how much they're going to play. He did allude to the fact that we'll see how the game goes. So I think there's, I think everything's in play. I would sit mixing. I would sit Nico. I would sit both of the edge rushers similar to Nico on offense. Like if you lose the Neil Hunter and or Will Anderson, like that is a, that is a huge hole in the best thing you have going for you, which is those two guys, you know, by the way, that's always a nice, um, that's a nice little, like there should be a badge for it. They're kind of like in the military, you get a, you get a badge for, for ascending to a certain level. Um, that I think they should, if you're a guy that gets rested for the final regular season game, it does feel nice. Yeah, just kind of like, Oh, I'm a made man. Oh, wow. It's, yeah, it should be a patch of just like the bubble wrap. Like a, you know what I mean? Like, yeah. It should be just, it's just like, ugliest patch ever square of bubble wrap on your jersey. Like, wow, oh, you're one of those guys that gets put in bubble wrap for weekends. I've got, uh, I've got marksmanship. I've got, I did, uh, I did advanced weapons training and I was protected in a week 18 game. That's what this bubble wrap is right here. Yeah, right over your purple heart. So I would, I would sit both of those guys. I would sit Derek Stingley, junior, for sure that he's made it through this whole, that he's made it through this whole season healthy, you know, like is a huge, that's a big step for Stingley. He's missed 14. Don't coming into this season. He'd missed 14 out of a possible 34 games. Um, he's been, man, he's been a rock at that corner spot for them. I would rest them and CJ. Those would be my last two. So you said Stingley and, uh, it just thing, just thing, just thing, although, although, although, I do think there are guys that you at least, like last year would be a guy to have a conversation about, you know, you know, that's one I would debate and discuss. I mean, look, it's only a 48 man roster on game day. You know, like you've, you've got to play some of these guys. You have no, by the way, the offensive line would play every snap, the starters, they wouldn't come out. Laramie, you ain't resting if I'm the head coach. All of you were playing. I think with CJ, um, and I heard Ryan Fitzpatrick talking about this the other day on Andrew Whitworth's podcast. He talked about how, you know, at one point in his career, he had a rib injury and he was, he played and fought like, nope, I'm not going to, I got to be out there. I got to be the guy. I got a, my teammates are depending on me. And, you know, looking back on it, you realize this, okay, I probably made the bad decision there. Like, you know, like ultimately it was, I was hurting the team. And that's the, the tough part with quarterback. And it's different than, like, say with a pitcher, because with pitchers, you got four other starting pitchers. With a quarterback, there's a sense of duty and obligation, I think. And CJ, it might be a hard discussion between Damiko and CJ, where Damiko wants to bench CJ. CJ really doesn't want to get benched and Damiko's got to really, you know, first try to soft talk, give him the soft sell, but then maybe just put his hand down and say, no, we need to get you healthy. That's the best thing for the team right now. Damiko talked about momentum and wanting to get the taste out of their mouths. I think CJ is at the very top of that list of guys. I don't think CJ wants this to be how his regular season ends. You know, and yet, and yet, it doesn't matter what he wants. Like, ultimately the best thing for, I'm reading this book, it's a really good book called the Blood Red Snow. And it's a, it's a memoir of an East German soldier from the Russian front in World War II. And it was kind of dicey Sean there outside of Stalingrad. And the first time, this guy ends up being a highly decorated soldier. And it's cool because it's just from a soldier's perspective, there's none of the politics or anything like that. And it's, the first time he gets shot or hit with shrapnel, it's that he's getting, he and one of his, one of his fellow soldiers are, they're getting trucked away out of the battle. And, and I think he encapsulated it perfectly. The feeling that we've all felt it sometime, obviously never to this degree. But, you know, he had desperately wanted to get out there for three months. And that's all he could dream about was getting out of there. But they're both sobbing as they're leaving because they're leaving behind their friends that are in still a really, really bad situation. So that's an extreme version of it. But, you know, like my mind goes back to football, and like that's, that's a lot of it's, it's a similar feeling, a lesser version of it where a guy like CJ is the best thing for him might be to go in the convalescent troop for a week. But he doesn't, he does not, he just desperately does not want to abandon everybody. Right. No, I, and I think that's how he's wired. Like I, it's been a complicated couple weeks with CJ because of the optics of the tanked L injury and, you know, the, you know, the, the open crying during the injury and Joe mix and having to talk to him and whatnot. And yet, I think CJ is one of the toughest players I've ever rooted for, you know, like he is, he is supremely, physically tough. Like he takes a pounding behind this offensive line, and he gets up every single time. So I'm with you. That's, that's a really good analogy. Like, there is probably a big part of CJ that almost feels like guilty wearing street clothes. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the blood red snow, it's a really good memoir. So I say World War one. It's World War two. My God, I didn't hear which big difference there. Okay. It was World War two. Okay. There you go. If you rest CJ, this is a text message. If you rest CJ, how will he build chemistry with Deontay Johnson in game situations? Um, he won't. And, but it's again, it's a, it's a, some of all parts. Like you're, yeah, you miss out on that, but how, how capable is he of forming chemistry if he can't make the throws that we know he's, you know, can typically make it just, you just, you gotta, you gotta, it's a, yeah, you gotta, you gotta weigh it all together. Yep. And I think for right now, CJ's health, if it's something that can be improved with a week off, that's of paramount importance right now. Uh, text message DP will get 20 carries and have 100 yards against the Titans. Then more skepticism will set in on Bobby's slow. Okay. So if to me, if, not to me, go if Damian, if Damian Pierce has a big game on Sunday, what are we saying on Monday when we come in? Like what's the narrative? Damian Pierce has a really, Damian Pierce has a good game against the Titans. Like, okay, should he, like, are we, are we like, man, why hasn't he been getting carries all along? Are we saying? Yeah, it would be something along those lines. It's not going to feel good or right. Right. Nobody. And we'll probably all be screaming at each other about it for, no, it feels bad for this reason. No, it feels bad for this reason. I, I would love to see it just for Damian because as much as I just, I, there's, there's something that's not meshing right now with his offense, you know, I love the guy as a, as a personality, the way he plays football, all of that. I love him. So yeah, it's very conflicted. Uh, you know, I wouldn't know how to take it. Let's hope we cross that bridge when we come through. Hopefully, hopefully that's a bridge we have to cross. I agree with you. I hope it's a good problems to have. It would be a great problem to have. No question about that. But yeah, that was just, that was wild to me, man, when I was looking up the numbers yesterday, cause, cause Nico's in a similar situation to Joe Mixon in that, if Nico gets 32 more yards, he gets a thousand yard season and both these guys would have thousand yard seasons and have really earned them given the amount of time that they missed. You know, mix and miss three games with that ankle injury, he'll have earned that thousand yards just based on the line he's running behind. Um, like that's a thousand and I feel like 955 of those were all Joe Mixon doing Joe Mixon things. Yeah. Um, it's a little bit of the same boat for as CJ is when trying to figure out what's going on. Cause that, I mean, mixing, mixing sometimes at times is too much going for the home run. Yeah. Instead of instead of just hitting it and getting four yards and then anything after that as a bonus, there's times where he's, he's not making the right read. Yeah. And then you go into that same like, okay, but is it because he's rarely seeing a good picture in front of him? Is he pressing all of that? It's, it's, it's just hard to say. It's hard, uh, but it's just not right. The sum total of it is that the offense is not operating right on any level right now. I pain and pendergast with you on a Tuesday. All right. So, um, week 17 fully in the books, what is left to be played for in week 18? Not so much with the Texans, but around the league. What are the games you need to dial into this weekend based on the playoff situation right now? There actually is a Texans tie to one of the divisional races over in the NFC. And we'll tell you what that is. 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Lots of them. And guess what? They're probably on auto trader. Whether you're into timeless classics or the latest trends. Did somebody say solar powered eco friendly vegan leather wrapped aroma therapy scented disco ball equipped self driving car. If you see it on the road, you can likely find it on auto trader. Big cars, small cars, blue cars, new cars and used cars, electric cars. And one day, maybe even flying cars with millions of options to choose from buying a car becomes a whole lot easier. See it. Find it. Auto trader coming up. All right. We got the petty cast coming up at the top of the hour Tuesday petty cast to be ready for that. Lot of petties to get to. And we'll we want to hear yours. 713 572 4610. So here's where we're at. Here's here's where the NFL sits heading into week 18. There are still three divisions that have yet to be decided. Texans are fortunate. They're one of five teams to have clinched their division. So at least they've got clarity. It's not, I don't think the four seed would was what everybody was planning for at the beginning of the season. But here we are in the playoffs, four seed home game. And we wait and see who the Texans opponent is. That is something that is still to be determined that is Texans related. Seth, the three divisions that are still up for grabs AFC North, which Baltimore is in the driver's seat for right now. They play, they play on Saturday at 330 Baltimore and Cleveland. And then I think the assumption is that a lot of people assume Baltimore's going to win. And then if that's the case, then the subsequent Pittsburgh Cincinnati game really only has seating ramifications for the Steelers as a wildcard team. But big ramifications for Cincinnati, who's one of a couple of teams, them and the dolphins are still in the hunt for that last wildcard spot. If they if they're fortunate enough to see Denver lose to Kansas City's backups, then Miami and Cincinnati kind of enter the chat here as the possible seven seed in the AFC. There's still some things going on in the AFC right now. The the Baltimore or Pittsburgh or Baltimore or or or or chargers conundrum. I think I feel like I want to see the chargers, whereas the majority of your poll respondents would rather see the Steelers. The chargers, for one, I think people just in general, if you have to take a straw poll of like, who do you trust more as a quarterback? Justin Herbert or Russell Wilson? Right now people just trust Justin Herbert a lot more. But they were in a lull offensively until the last couple weeks. They seem to have found their stride. Yes, I respect Justin Herbert as more of an overall threat. But what I fear with this Texans defense is the ability of Russell Wilson to connect with George Pickens just twice in a game. And that's that's the part that makes me nervous. And because that that's been one of the Achilles heel for this Texans offense. But I, you know, both of them, it's it's almost a wash for me. The other big aspect is something you brought up. The Steelers are the Steelers might end up having home filled advantage when they're on defense because Steelers fans travel so well. And people are not all that bullish locally right now about the tech. Yeah, I don't feel great about either matchup for totally different reasons that that is not insignificant. Like the crowd aspect of it like that's that's the biggest thing that spooks me about the Steelers. Like I know they have a good defense like you're gonna all these teams, you know, like they're good teams at this stage, you know, so they all have good aspects to them. And the Steelers defense is what they kind of hang their hat on. But yeah, I'm a little spooked by that crowd. And there is the element with the Chargers even with Jim Harbaugh as the head coach at this stage of the Harbaugh rebuild here with the Chargers. He's done an amazing job. Like he should be in the conversation for coach of the year, I think in the conversation. I don't think you should win it, but he should be in the conversation. There's still an element to me like, okay, well, there's still the Chargers, you know, they it's they're not they he hasn't exercised all the demons quite yet, you know, and plus they only got they only have like 100 fans nationwide, you know, so there it will be a it'll be a Texans crowd that's probably not nearly as hyped as they were for last season's wildcard round game was like, holy smokes, we're getting a home game, you know, we didn't even know we were getting a home game until literally week 18, you know, okay, this is where you and I come into play because as much as we can and assist in the matter, the Steelers would be easier. It would be easier to drum up hatred for the Steelers than the Chargers. Chargers, it's almost like we got to go through whole education process before we even get to the level of hating them. Yes, really easy, especially especially for Oilers fans from back in the day. Really easy to hate the Steelers. So it's a it's a double edged sword because you're gonna have a lot of Steelers fans in attendance, but in terms of just really, really, really wanting to beat your team and being emotionally engaged in it for the Texans fans who are there, the Steelers might be a better bet than the Chargers. Because in terms of getting everybody back on board. Yeah, I can see that and they're a little more like emotional connection there and you know, in an angry kind of way. That was also the game where in CJ's rookie year, where Vandermere told all the Steelers fans to get out, get out, get out. Yeah, it's actually a hockey in there. I don't know if you see it in there Byron, but Vandy yelling get out to all the Steelers fans was that was a moment. And that wasn't that was the game too that that CJ himself and others in the organization point to is like, okay, wow, he's arrived. You know, like they they they played that game against the Steelers. It's crazy. Go back and find the the box score for that game like the extended one where they list all the starters and go see who the starting offensive line was that day. The Laramie missed that game. That was Austin Deculus. Was your starting left tag? Yeah. Well, that's where, you know, that's where again, when we go back to with the Texans and all the issues, there's something people will say a lot of time is it all right. Well, obviously, yes, the players are to blame ultimately for their poor performances, but it's important to remember though, too, that of a the Texans have spent money and resources and draft picks on on offensive line, but that there's plenty of really good solid offensive lines that don't have big names or anything. The Broncos, the Broncos are a lot like the Texans and the way their offensive line is composed. They've got a couple of high paid offensive tackles, then they've got a Ben Powers. I don't think he was a marquee free agent, right? It was like a he was like, it was a free agent signing. Yeah. But then they, Wadenberg, their center was a fifth round pick in 2022. Quinn Menner's, the with the the right guard was a third round pick in 2021. They're just a good unit and they play it. They play as a cohesive unit. It's it's there's plenty of teams that don't have marquee talent across the board at offensive line. They'd have credible. The Baltimore Ravens, they get it's a easier. Like the bar is lowered because Lamar Jackson and Derek Henry make the offensive line look good a lot. But they don't they don't have, you know, a plethora of huge names or whatever. They've scrapped it together with guys that are that some of them are just kind of emergency replacements, but they get the job done. Yeah, they Ronnie Stanley at left tackle Linderbaum the center like are the marquee guys and the rest of the guys are just dudes. Yeah, they're just guys. So, so that's the AFC. The NFC picture is really interesting to me because there's still two divisions to be decided. The NFC South and the NFC North and the NFC North, it's not just the division that's at stake here. The winner of the game between the Vikings and the Lions, it will be the number one seed in the NFC and deservedly so to me, the story about that game is whoever the loser is, whoever the loser that game is, is going to go on the road to face the winner of the NFC South. They're going to go to either Tampa or Atlanta. Yeah, with as a 14 and three football team to be the five seed in the NFC playoffs. Tampa scares the crap out of me. Yeah, you just what did you I did not watch much of Pennics at all. Did you did you get to see much? I didn't get to see much of them either. No, I didn't get to see much of them either. I don't want to go watch that game. Okay. I got to find some cut-ups. Yeah. Oh Atlanta. Yeah, you don't. Yeah, I wouldn't want to watch that game either. Yeah, because they played Sunday night against against the commanders. I did not watch that game. You know what though, but I do want to watch the commanders. Okay, that's what I'm watching. There we go. There you go. All right, Seth, I got to go back and watch. I still haven't watched JJ's color commentary on the chief's game. So I'm going to I might go back and watch that. You know what I'll do sometimes is because I like to watch the TV broadcast. You get all the info and everything themes of the game. But I watch it at double speed. Just okay. Yeah, you got to do it. And you got to do it in intervals. You got to sit down for 10 minutes and watch it at double speed and then take a break. Just like you're running with. You know, you're doing interval work on the track. Do you listen to a lot of podcasts? Not as much as I used to, but do you do you listen to podcasts at an advanced speed when you listen to? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Usually it depends. If it's something that's more conversational, I like to hear the natural pace of the conversation. Yeah. I find if I listen to too many podcasts at 1.5 speed or like audio books, I got to the point where I was listening to some of them at like like two and a half or three x. Okay, that's like so much for me. If I'm listening to something for info or to get a general education, I'll listen to like audio books, a nonfiction audio book really fast. Yeah. Anything. The more conversational it is, the more I want it to be just at normal pace. I'm one and a half. There's your answer. It depends. Well, no, I'm, I'm one and a half on everything on podcasts. It's just, it's just better. No matter what, no matter what, even conversational ones. But if it's something that's supposed to be funny, the problem is that it messes up the timing. Uh, a little bit. I don't know. It has it like I'm, I'm still cool with when things are funny, I still laugh at them at 1.5 speed. I've, I've noticed because I have a tendency to sometimes, uh, start talking faster than my brain can operate. Yeah. Or at least it's trying to keep up with all the different directions my brain is going. Right. If I listen too much or you, uh, like exclusively at 1.5 plus speed, I start really talking way too fast. I get hurried and everything. I've got, I've got, you've got a nice laid back personality to begin with. I'm way too hyper. So I gotta be careful on how much it's kind of like a, it's kind of like an alcoholic having, uh, having, um, just one beer. It's like, well, no, it's different for me than it is for, for other people. Yeah. I gotta be careful about how much I imbibe. I get it. No, I, I get it. What's funny is like one of the podcasts, one of my favorite podcasts is a wrestling podcast that a friend of mine, it's his pod, it's Bruce Prichard's podcast. He's one of the creative guys with WWE. And I've been listening to his, it's him and a host that just go back and forth on different things that happen in the history of WWE episodes about that. I listened to it at 1.5 speed, but I talked to Bruce on a regular basis or I, you know, Amy and I are up in Connecticut. We go out with him and his wife and it's really hard to like sit and have a conversation with him because I'm so used to listening him every week at 1.5 speed. Yeah. In my mind, I'm like, God, what's wrong with Bruce? Get to the point. Really slow. Like, is anything wrong with him? He's just wow. He ain't just catching up to him. I don't want to, I'm sure there's a study for this, that like what percentage of people do listen mostly at a higher speed on podcasts? Because over time that's going to seep into, because people, I mean, like so many people listen to podcasts now, it's going to seep into the way people speak in everyday life. I think man, there's it. And the way people listen. Yeah. So some of the advice people give about public speaking, I still, I wonder if some of it's antiquated because forever it's the advice is you got to slow down. But now we're in this world where social media, especially they'll, they hammer it to you that, like those first two minutes, especially fast pace, hit it hard, get people's attention, dopamine, dopamine, dopamine. Yeah. Like at some point people kind of get trained for that. And I think they tune out when they start hearing somebody speak slowly. Oh man. The Falcons commanders game is getting some love on the text page. It's getting a thumbs up, go ahead and watch it. Seth. Good, good. Jane Daniels is my household duties for that. There you go for the commanders and the Falcons. Sorry about it, Brandy. By the way, the winner of that division bucks or Falcons is on the text and schedule next year. Whoever wins that game, the Texans will have a home game against them. So there's that. All right, pain and pender gas with you heading into the eight o'clock hour, eight o'clock Tuesday, get your petties ready, send them in 713 5 7 2 4 6 10, petty cast, people getting petty, me and Seth getting petty. That's coming up next.
Hour 2- What's at Stake in week 18 and Ross Tucker joins the show