Payne & Pendergast
Ranking the Power Ranking
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Visit HyundaiUSA.com or call 562-314-4603 for more details. Hyundai, there's joy in every journey. All right, pain and pender gas. It's nine o'clock on a Tuesday. That means the power rankings are out. And as we do every Tuesday at nine o'clock, we check in and see where the experts think the Texans are, and we do that by ranking the experts. We power rank the power rankings at nine a.m. There's four of them we use for this exercise in no particular order yet. ESPN.com, theathletic.com, cbsports.com, nsi.com, sports illustrated. So let's do this here. We power rank the power ranking starting with number four, the athletic, which Seth has the Texans at number 15. This is about as low as the Texans have been on people's power rankings all season long. They've spent the entire season, for the most part, hovering at worst, like around 12 or 13, to the last couple of weeks. They've gotten as high as three or four when they were six and two earlier this year. I think both you and I thought it might have been a little bit of fool's gold at that point, just based on how. I mean, they were playing like a 500 football team, no matter what their record was over the course of the first half of the season. You know, the point differential would show you that. They had scored about the exact same number of points as they'd had scored against them. I think the fact that some of these places love the advanced stats, and like the Texans look better on some of the advanced stats than they actually are in reality, including on defense. I think they're overrated defensively in some ways. But yeah, as much as it feels like, oh, the Texans suck. Like, no, they're a 500 football team. They play and compete like a 500 football team. They've lose to some bad teams. They beat other mediocre and bad teams. They've only beat one good team all year long, and then they've lost to other good teams. So just this last week notwithstanding, it's been like a 500 football team the entire year. And in that division, that's good enough to clinch the division with three weeks left in the season, you know, that's just how it is. The category for the athletic, by the way, the Texans were 13th last week, so they lost to the Ravens, pushed them down two spots with the athletic. The category they do in terms of the topic for each team is what's next. And I don't know if it means what's next after the season or what's next this week or whatever. But for the Texans, I think this applies regardless of whether next means today or in a month, self-scouting for the offensive coaching staff. Offensive coordinator Bobby Slowick did so well in 2023 that he got head coaching interviews in the off season. He might get fired this off season. Houston has dropped from 12th in yards per play and 15th in EPA, expected points added per play, to 24th and 25th this season. And I think just if I stop right there, there was a period earlier this season where a lot of the stats for the Texans were, they've been this bad over the last four weeks, or they've been this bad. This, the last two months have dragged this offense down so drastically. This is where they are for the year. They're a bottom, they are a bottom quartile offense by, in my mind, two of the most important, if not the two most important metrics that measure offensive play, other than scoring points, because I know that's what you're going to say. But yards per play, yards per play and EPA per play are big efficiency measurements, I think, and they're horrible at both of those things right now. Yeah, especially when it comes to how routinely can you successfully run the football very, very rarely is that the case. It's great when they do do it well, because Joe Nixon ends up with huge yardage. I got annoyed at somebody on X the other day because he did the thing, which I hate much, was he tried to use an argument based on something I never said, which is, he said, "Well, oh, so Bobby, Bobby wasn't an ever issue before, but now he's an issue this year." That's not what I heard in the off-season, like, no. What I said the entire off-season was Bobby Sloake was promising. He's got to show that he can actually establish a respectable rushing attack, not even a league leading rushing attack, but he's not a proven commodity as an offensive coordinator. That was the big question. In that regard, he still has very much not proven that. And then on the other side, just in the passing game with everything else, offensive coordinators are just like quarterbacks. It's once they start to get, once a league has film on you and they start to get to know your tendencies and your strengths and weaknesses, it's harder in the second year. And so far, you could argue about how much Bobby Sloake is to blame or not, but there's no way you can argue that he hasn't proven anything positive this year. You could make excuses for him, but you got to concede that he hasn't shown anything positive, or to just show that he's built on the promise that he had last year. Well, he doesn't even have good answers when you ask him what they do well. Like he said, explosives. And I'm like, okay, well, we're all big. The explosives have largely been Nico or Joe Nixon being a superhero. Yes. Like I said that a few weeks ago, it feels like a, feels like a bad high school team that has a couple of future pro football players. Yeah. That's what it is. You know, like it's enough that they're, that they just win with those guys, but they're doing nothing else offensively. Offensively, you're absolutely right. Yeah. All right. Number three, power ranking of the power rankings. SI.com, which also has the Texans at 15th, down four from number 11 last week. So the Baltimore Ravens, the loss to the Ravens at this juncture in the year, you fall four spots. That's a pretty big, pretty big dip. And Connor or says this about the Texans, Seth, all of the biomarkers in a massive loss to the Ravens in which the offense was shut out. We're troubling. CJ Stroud again looked frozen against split safety looks. The defense was stomped out by Derek Henry, Houston's not alone there. And that's Connor or saying that, not me. And Lamar Jackson was allowed to spend more time from snap to throw than at any point this season with no punishment. That's pretty damning. Barring a major identity shift, the Texans are looking like a prime candidate to get boat race just as their playoff journey begins. Yeah. As far as what he's talking about CJ reacting to shell coverages and all of that, it was it was watching the Bengals and the Texans and that same several day window. Man, Joe Burrow was just thrashing the Broncos over the middle in the soft spots in zone. It was it was really interesting because the the one starting cornerback there for the Broncos has kind of been a he's been a he's had health issues. And when they had to play zone and when he was out of the game, man, he burrow just thrashed him. So I'm watching him thinking, all right, boy, he's pulling the trigger really fast. But also you got to concede that man, he's also throwing to wide receivers that have been with him for a long time. And it's a more balanced offense. There's more the linebackers were actually biting on the play action. Where were the Texans? They they just don't bother. The linebackers just kind of sit back and they're like, I'll come up and make a tackle when it's right. Right, right, because like what am I worried about these guys? No, yep. All right, number two, power ranking of the power rankings. CBS sports.com. That would be Pete Prisco. The Texans are 14 holding steady at number 14 on CBS sports.com. Here's what Pete Prisco says. He's always very brief. They got rocked by the Ravens on Christmas Day and seem to be limping into the playoffs. They are locked in as the fourth seed, but they don't look like one. Actually, they do. The fourth seed is typically the worst of the four division winners. They look like that. Yeah, what are you talking about? Every year, there's a couple of four seeds that you're like, oh, they should be the seven seed. Right. Right. Right. They look exactly like a four seed. Macking, I tell you. So 14th on CBS sports.com. I think also though, too, like, yeah, okay, they don't look like they should be a four seed, but the other than the AFC North winner, whoever the other, the six and seven seed, like they've got their blemishes and flaws. Sure. So it's not, I don't think it's, it's not as big an insult as Prisco. I think is kind of presenting. Are the Texans favored at home against against the Steelers or the Chargers? Do you think like would they? Will they be a favorite at NRG? They against the Steelers as you and I have pointed out several times they may not even be the home team. I think they'll be favored at home because of how the defense has played versus those two quite like, you know, the Chargers have had some lulls offensively. It really is just the last couple weeks that they got it going again offensively. And then like Russell Wilson has looked like the best version of Russell Wilson and the worst version of Russell Wilson at times this season. So I think the, I think the Texans will be favored in both those games and it'll be a surprise to a lot of people locally because it feels like they shouldn't be favored to anybody. But the, yeah, the way, the way they build the lines and everything, I'll be surprised if they're not favored. I'll be surprised if they're, I'll be surprised if they're not favorites. I'll be shocked if they're more than a field goal favorite. Yeah, it's going to be, it'll be, they'll need that home field advantage perhaps to get the, to get the, that three points is going to be the, the crucial factor in them being favored. Yeah, I think if you played either of those teams on a neutral field right now, if you made the Texans a favorite on a neutral field, I think the money would go, okay, hardcore to Steelers or the Chargers. How we're thinking like handicappers? So yeah, and an even field either of those, yeah, so it ends up Texans end up being like a one and a half point favorite for either of those games. That sounds about right. That's exactly what I was thinking, one and a half, two points for me on that one. Number one, power ranking of the power rankings, ESPN.com, which has been the most bullish on the Texans throughout their tumultuous last eight weeks. They were 10th last week, even though they were three and four in their last seven games going into that Ravens game. So they fall four spots in the eyes of ESPN. This is DJB anime typing this, biggest off season contract to watch. This is a good category, biggest off season contract to watch. And DJB anime says Stefan Diggs says Diggs proved his value to the Texans on and off the field through the first eight weeks with him. CJ Stroud had a QBR of 60.5. That's 10th. But since Diggs tore his ACL, Stroud has a QBR of 40.4 29th through week 17. So CJ has gone from a top 10. He was a top 10 quarterback with digs. He is in like rookie Bryce Young range without digs. So with digs, it'll be interesting. He turns 32 this year, this by this year, I mean, 2025. Yeah, he turns, he turns 32. He's coming off of an ACL. I think the Texans would like to have him back. The reality of the situation is he's a 32 year old coming off of an ACL injury. What does that contract look like? My fear would be that as much as Stefan Diggs was a model citizen while he was here. Does he at some point feel disrespected by playing for whatever the Texans think is the fair price for Stefan Diggs? Sometimes it doesn't feel like disrespecting the moment. And then you get in all of a sudden you're playing really well. I guess that's the only thing I worry about. And if it's, I don't want to resign a 32 year old wide receiver coming off of a ACL, if it means you're turning down drafting a wide receiver or signing a younger free agent. So I'm very, I'm open to whatever they do with it. I just, I'm not, I'm not hungry to get Stefan Diggs back on the team. Yeah, I think something that should be pointed out without getting to cap nerdy about it is the Texans. We know that the Texans took Stefan Diggs four year contract and took all the guaranteed money and basically just made it a one year deal, a one year 22 million dollar deal for digs. They took about 16 million of that and crammed it into avoidable years in the future. So there, if Stefan Diggs leaves, there is a credit card statement coming due for the Texans of several million dollars. That's where, so for both parties, the Texans, it might be worth their while just like to maybe give a contract that's a bit more if they can rework it into an extension. Yeah. So they give them a contract. Maybe it's a bit more than what others would pay, but it helps them out with the cap because they can spread it out more. Short term. Yeah. Yeah. So that's, it's just, it's worth noting. I mean, I think ultimately the biggest thing with digs is how do they feel about the knee at that age, you know, is just also get now this is a thing if you get a compensatory pick back potentially, I could see digs going to start ring chasing. So maybe he goes to a place where he actually plays a lot gets a lot of production and they end up getting a really good compensatory pick out of it. Yeah, maybe so, maybe so. Um, text message, uh, Bobby Slowick, listening to Slowick speak at press conferences reminds me of a salesperson BSing their sales manager about their pipeline to avoid getting fired. I've, I've made that comparison several times. Uh, when somebody's just up there, just free styling and just trying to survive till the next forecast is due, you know, way it went. I mean, he gave an answer about what they looked, you know, what they did during the bi-week and what they were trying to identify and one of it was identifying the strengths. On the next question, when asked, what are those strengths? He didn't have an answer at the ready. Now, now he also did say, okay, maybe I gotta, maybe I gotta back up. He prefaced it by saying, I don't want to give you, uh, all the secrets or anything, but I don't know. I feel like that's like, okay, like any, if you're good at it, other teams are going to know you're good at it. Yeah. I like, so that should be the question of what are you worried that other, what are you really worried that somehow other defensive coordinators aren't, I haven't realized what you're good at doing. Yeah. Um, I don't think that like what are, so what are other defenses? What are defenses going into a game saying? What they're saying is, we just got to take away Nico Collins as much as possible. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, we feel pretty good. We're going to be able to stop the run and it's, it's as simple as that. Like, because Joe mixing has done some really good things, but he's not a steady machine with this offensive line and with these tight ends blocking for him and with the wide, the wide receivers aren't blocking the same way like the 49ers do when they're good. So, uh, yeah, I think Nico Collins is the only answer. Maybe the, maybe the saddest thing for me about the Texans offense this year from, like for me personally, like with, and I'm gauging kind of my reaction to things that happen this year is that when tanked L went down with the injury, and this is before we knew the severity of the injury, like this is when we just like, okay, well tank, you know, he's hurt. He's down. Is it my first football reaction? And obviously, my first personal reaction was, man, I hope he's okay. I love tanked L. My football reaction, like you're processing, like, what does this mean now? Like, what's this going to look like? My reaction was they weren't going to win with offense anyways in the postseason. You know what I mean? Like they even with tanked L, this is an offense that had sunk to the bottom quarter of the league in offenses. So part of me is like, all right, well, I wasn't counting on more than 17 points in a playoff game, even with tanked L, you know, like how much worse can it get? You know, the thing is, if if they were going to make a run, it was going to have to be something clicking in the passing game. And the part where you just wonder what might have been was, all right, in that chief's game, they it looked way more like you were hoping it was going to look all season long. And so the tanked L injury, I think almost symbolically, but also substantively, it was taking that away, pulling the rug out when man, maybe it looks like maybe something is clicking. Yeah, that's true. That's a and then in that very game, you get into the fourth quarter, and the better team handles the fourth quarter better than the Texans without tanked L do. So I don't, then who knows, like that's a, that's a, that's a most positive spin I could put on an otherwise miserable season. Yeah, yeah, miserable season offensively. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um, so yeah, man, text message, three things CJ must fix in the off season, pocket clock, escapability, accuracy. That's from Cypher Frank. Also, you know, the thing is too that he's done a, somebody on my YouTube channel and said that CJ needs to learn how to extend the plays better. And that's, that's actually not an issue. Like he does pretty well on extended plays. Now it's not like a high success rate on those to begin with. So it doesn't always feel that way. But in terms of EPA on throws attempts that are like over three and a half seconds long, it's Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Pat Mahomes and CJ Strauss. CJ does a good job. The problem is the times I think he extends them too long at times. And that's where making the decision quicker to check down. He's gotten better as the season has gone along, taking the easy money, all of that stuff. It's, it's not that he can't extend the plays. It's that he's a little too dependent on extending the plays. He needs to just take the easy money more often. Yeah, man. That was number one. What was number two? Number one, pocket clock two, escapability, three accuracy. Yeah. So pocket clock is right. Like he's saying the number one, escapability. I don't know how much you're going to do with that. I think the, the thing that I'm more concerned about is pocket movement. Because I think last year as a rookie, he was really good as the season went along. It's starting to just, you know, know when to take just a half step to get out, to clear yourself some room to throw. And it feels like he's regressed as he's gotten bludgeoned week after week after week. I don't know if he's got the same feel for it. I think those, I was having a conversation with a buddy yesterday about CJ. And my conclusion I came to is I think those three weeks, Green Bay, Indy, Jets game on Halloween night, those three weeks where the pocket, the pressure rate was so extreme. It was like nearly 60% over the course of those three games. And he was getting hammered. Yeah. I think those three games damaged him, like not, not irreparably damaged him, but I in 20, they 2024 damaged him. And this is where like it's all interrelated. And that's what's so frustrating about trying to figure this stuff out is that the types of pressure that he's getting, it's right up the gut. Like that for that Kyle Van Noisek, it was, you know, the protection was right. They had the numbers matched up. CJ expects to get protection, but it's right up the gut. And yeah, that's what screws your decision making the most. That Dalton Schultz, the easy opportunity to throw to Dalton Schultz, you look at that, man, Laramie Thompson's getting blasted into the backfield at a power rush. And the rest of the pocket was there was no place for pocket movement there. It was just it was so compressed. He had no opportunity to take a side step to the right to clear room, because all those guys were getting destroyed. And like they if there was if there was a half yardage more space, what CJ was waiting for was a route to clear down field and somebody was coming clear. But the pressure was right up in his lap. So okay, yes, that should have been an easy throw to Dalton Schultz, but maybe only if he had gotten rid of the ball quicker, but why did he have to get rid of the ball quicker? Because Dalton Schultz got hung up in the backfield because Laramie Thompson was getting destroyed. And the rest of the offensive line was getting destroyed as well. So it's just it's all interrelated. And it's it's just all a big mess right now. All right, pain and pender gas with you on a New Year's Eve Tuesday. Appreciate you guys hanging with us and tuning in. Up next, the three biggest takeaways from Dimeko Ryan's press conference yesterday. There are big questions heading into this week 18 matchup with the Titans. Dimeko gave us answers. We'll have them for you. Oh, it's such a clutch off season pickup, Dave. 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Here was Dimeko Ryan's being asked, will you rest guys now that you're locked into the four seed. Going into this game has I mentioned to all our guys that everybody has to be ready to go. And that's where we are. Everybody will be out there playing and we'll, you know, we'll see how the game goes. But for us right now, we got to go play better. And our last outing on the field was not good enough, not representative of who we were are defensively, offensively. Just it's not a good representation of our team entirely. So we got to go out. We got to play better football. Okay. So this is where this is how I read that, where with coach speak or lying for gamesmanship or whatever else like like that might go into play coaches, just like Dimeko Ryan's himself has said it various times where he's, you know, says Derek Singley isn't going to, you know, follow Amari Cooper, you know, in the game. Yeah, right. Like, so Dimeko's capable of the coach speak like the everything that Dimeko said right there is true with the asterisk that like any other NFL game injuries are going to factor into it. So I think that he probably, I'm guessing that the starters for the most part will play the first quarter. I don't think that I think there will be guys who have injury issues that in any other regular season game, it wouldn't have held them out. But if they've got something that could get better with rest, those guys probably aren't going to play. Yeah. So, um, like in CJ's child might be chief among them. They're, hey, what I mean, you know, when I'm coach speaking about how everybody be out there, everybody who's healthy, you know, everybody who's not, you know, like any other NFL game, it's just the, the bar gets lowered a little bit for what keeps you out of the game. Yeah, I'm a simp. My notes for that cut. He's clearly playing everyone and for how long will depend on the game. Like I just, yeah, I take Timiko at his word, man. And I don't, you're right. Sean, I admire you and other people who are pure of soul who watch sports year after year after year. You know, who does this John McLean, who should be cynical as all get out. And in some ways is sometimes when a coach says like, no, we're never going to cut that guy or whatever, he'll say, yeah, he'll say like, hey, he said he was never right. Like, they do it all the time. Yeah. I'm never, no, I'm here for life. Yeah. College coach. Nope. No plans on leaving like it. And people believe them. Yeah. It's a style. It's amazing to me every year. As long as you keep doing it. I don't know. I, it's amazing. Yeah. I don't know. I don't, as long as you know, this is how I am and this is how I'm going to be and you're cool with it. That's really all that matter. I just feel like I should be taking advantage of you more often. I feel like you're easily duped. Uh, New Year's resolution. Hello. Take advantage of Sean more often. Everybody who thought Tom Herman was never going to leave you of H. I just want to sell them. Hold on. Hold on. I want to get, I want to get into a pyramid scheme. I just, so a bad liar. That, that one I did not believe. I, I was not on that. But there were a lot of people that did. Those are the people that I want to, I don't want them to miss out on the money-making opportunity of a lifetime. Right. Because if they get in now, Sean, uh, though they're going to, boy, boy, riches beyond their wild beliefs, you must believe in me. There's only so many spots available for this great investment opportunity. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I got you. I got you. I can't wait to talk to you after the show. Did you ever fall for a pyramid scheme when you were a kid? I never did. I never did. I once printed off a thousand. I went, I, I snuck into my mom's office and printed off a thousand pamphlets that you could sell for a how to, how to make money in a system that's basically selling pamphlets about how to make money. Oh, yeah, dude. Remember, remember Don LaPree? Tiny, tiny classified ads. Yeah. That was good stuff. It's always somebody on TV selling you something that will make you rich behind your wildest dreams. And you're like, well, how come you're doing this instead of that, uh, that thing that you're talking about? Because I want to give back. Right. That's why I go, no, no, it's because your plan is to get other people into this. Don LaPree. I probably paid like 25 bucks for that pamphlet that told me how to make pamphlets. Oh, I got to see. Well, that's why you're so, I mean, sometimes you got to go through some things to get to the level you're at now. You know, the, that was your, I basically sold, I didn't know how much printer it costs back then. Yeah. Who knows how much money in printing out all those pamphlets, not to mention the staples to put them together. Uh, you know, because you fold it. It was classy affair. Uh, I wish I could come back and watch this 25 pound paper I took. Oh my God. All right. Um, continuing with Demico Ryan's, uh, number two takeaway. Number one takeaway. He says he's playing everyone. We'll see what happens. Number two takeaway. No excuses for CJ Stroud. Uh, he was asked about CJ mentioning after the Ravens game, casually mentioning he's a little banged up right now. The piece about CJ being banged up is, you know, I think that's real and that's real for everyone in the league at this time of the year. Everybody is banged up. The amount of games guys that play, the snaps that they play, like everyone is banged up. That's what it is. That's NFL football this time of year. Yeah. You try to manage it as best you can. And it's also, we all have to fight through, push through and a lot of guys are fighting through a lot of things. Not only CJ, but a lot of guys are fighting through and that's the nature of what we do. And also shows how resilient these guys are, what they go through, what they battle through that. A lot of people would never know that they're fighting to go out there and see it'll go perform and ask to perform at a high level. That's the, uh, art of equivocation, this coach speaking. Demico's getting really good at it because, uh, the fact of the matter is it's true. It is true. Everybody's banged up. So not having to say like CJ is not banged up or CJ is banged up. You just say, hey, everybody's banged. You can say the same thing about cancer. We've all got cancer. Everybody's got little microscopic, uh, bits of cells that usually, if you immune system's doing the job, it sweeps it up immediately. It's when it grows out of control. So there's different levels of we're all banged up and or we all have cancer. And not see that comparison coming. Sometimes it's, uh, sometimes it gets real bad. Sometimes it's just like, oh no, my immune system took care of it. Oh, really? I got cancer cells floating around in me right now. Well, a little like a little celia and your body just wipes it out. Okay. Yeah. I don't know. That's what I read in the pamphlet that I bought, you know, a scheme in which I was going to get rich selling cancer pamphlets. Yeah. That's what was in the pamphlet, eh? You get rich. Now you get rich selling cancer pamphlets. The tobacco industry. Oh, yeah. There you go. I have a pack of cancer pamphlets. There's a lot of good advice being told out in this segment. Last, last one from Dimeko here, three things that we learned from the press conference. So that we, Dimeko spoke on the biggest things yesterday. Number three, Deontae Johnson, the newest Houston Texan. He's got a clean slate in Dimeko's eyes with Deontae adding them to our team, a guy who has talent. He's done it at a high level for other teams. It's bounced around a little bit here. As I mentioned to him, of course, it's a clean slate starting with me. It really doesn't matter what has happened in the past or what the narrative is about to come here and everything is a fresh start. And so we'll see how he can help us, what he can add to our team and on the field and off the field. Okay. So there you go. Deontae Johnson, we're in Jersey number 82. Yeah. Somebody earlier asked whether if CJ doesn't play, how does he develop chemistry with Deontae Johnson at game speed? My simple answer is to that, to that is I don't care. Because right, there's a lot of things that you'd love to have be perfect and ideal. CJ's, if you identify, if you look at one thing that could actually take this offense over the hump, if CJ is indeed injured enough that the cells have turned to cancer, I fact checks myself on that everybody. It's more it's way more complicated in the way I presented it. Um, the surprise. I fact checked myself during a 30 second cut from Jamaica, surprise, surprise. Yes, I'd heard the cut before. Um, look, the identify the one biggest thing that could make the biggest difference. If CJ getting marginally healthy is the thing that could improve his play, that matters way more than a few targets to Deontae Johnson. Because you're not gonna, it's not like in one game you're gonna all of a sudden have picture perfect chemistry with Deontae Johnson. Take care of that and practice and walk throughs and everything else like that. CJ's health, if hypothetically he is banged up enough that it's bothering him, that's the biggest improvement you can make right now to fix or to be better at things that you haven't been good at for 17 weeks. Like it's not, I don't know what anybody thinks they're gonna accomplish in a quarter of football that they haven't been able to figure out over 17 weeks. I'm with you. It's not cutting time. Yeah. You gotta do the biggest possible thing to boost you and that would be all right. I almost like, I almost hope CJ is really, really banged up because that would mean that, okay, maybe a week off really could be the elixir for some of these things. Yeah, we'll find out more tomorrow when they practice, man. Is CJ gonna be on the injury report? Is he truly like, is there a is he banged up with something specific or is he banged up the way D'Amico just described it, which is, hey, everybody's got a little something going on, you know, right now. I wonder if he does hit the tour at all or not. It's a big step in a young professional football player's life when you when you decide to start getting the tour at all shots. That makes everything feel all right. Yeah. It's not psychological. It's not a psychoactive drug at all or anything, but it makes you feel like you're you're wearing bubble wrap all over you. Really? It's a yeah. Not like, because the way I first said it, it almost sounded like viking in or something like, no, no, no, no. Just physically, everything just hurts a little bit less. So it just needs to put the needle like on CJ's chair in front of his locker. You know what it actually feels like? It feels like somebody put WD-40 in all your joints. Okay. It's just kind of like everything is just loose like yeah, more fluid. It just when you're at the end of a season, most guys are probably on average dealing with like it two and a half injuries of some sort and then all the other just normal soreness that you get used to. It just makes it all feel all right. Yeah. Every season for you or just a few seasons that you did the old always always shut perpetually. Yeah. Coming off of a surgery or something. It's the tea train. You line up. You line up and just boom, boom, boom. The tea train. All right. Pain and pendergast with shot. You're taking your butt. I guess I didn't explain that you get the tour at all shot. Yep. All right. Pain and pendergast with you. Final segment coming up. We'll talk to the guys on in the loop. It's New Year's Eve. CBS sports.com has New Year's resolutions for each of the 32 NFL teams. What is the Texans New Year's resolution? That is next. All right. Do you believe in New Year's resolution, Seth? Are you one of the? Oh, I thought you were going to ask me a much more important question like I like do I believe in either Santa Claus or God or something else like that. I was like, hey, Sean, I just botched the cancer discussion. Do you really want to go hardcore? No, this is easy. Do I believe in New Year's resolutions? Yeah, I do. I do. Yes. And I've followed through on a few of them. What's your normal shelf life for a New Year's resolution? Like do you do you bail? Like in the past, if you had the ones like of getting in the past and you bail in the past like a week, you know, I think over the last few years, I've kind of been more realistic about it. And I, you know, I have my habits spreadsheet that I do every day. So I actually keep up with them because I've got a daily checklist of things I have to tick off. So like with my like this last year, I was going to lose weight. So it's been a I monitor it every single day. This is on my daily checklist of things. That's cool. You got a habits checklist? A habits checklist. Yeah, we got a spreadsheet that I either I get a red box or a green box on that item on that day. And it's month by month. So like as the month is going along, if I see a lot of red, I'm like, all right, I got to get my crap together. I'm not really so by the end of the month, they're like, Oh, that's a lot of green. Okay, good job. And then I try to promote it the next week next month. Yeah, I got a list of to-dos. So many of them are just they've been sitting on here. Like the biggest to do is rewriting this list like every two weeks. I'm like, all right, now I'm going to do these things. I'm going to, yeah, I'm going to collate this and prioritize. And yes, jealous that you're good at this habits thing, man. Good for you. Well, the other thing that I've done too, to try to just manage kind of you know, getting overwhelmed with how big your list is. I try to do things in groups of threes now. Okay. So I have like, I do a little, I do a little triads of tasks. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to attack these three tasks. Gonna get it done. I'm going to take a break. And then I'm going to attack these other three time. I'm only allowed to work on tasks. Ideally, I'm only working on one box until that box is complete. Oh, that's really good. And that's the dopamine. I, I completed everything in this little box right here. Okay. Yeah, just try to, I try to break everything down to as small a task as possible. So some of these boxes are really one task, but it's the three steps that I need to complete in that task. Yeah. My, um, my New Year's resolution, I think is going to be to try to build my social media a little bit more. I've been telling myself, I got to do it the last couple years. And the, the, the monitoring, the resolution last year. I think it might have been. And, and I, and I did okay, but like, I need to like focus on it more hardcore this year, more content with the people. You know what I mean? Like that kind of thing. I've always found that if you really want to do something and incentivize yourself with money and, uh, I get, I know, especially if you really want to get a good something, make a, have a contractual obligation. Yes. Like, hey, maybe you're a good cards player. You start, uh, start, start being a pro full time gambler. You're going to get way better, way fast. Yes. So if you accept the job, you're going to, you're going to get better at it, Sean. So I, you need to go work at Google is what I'm. Okay. Or X. I like what I'm doing. You're going to give up our hours for working for Elon Musk. I'll just do what Doug Gottlieb does. Like apparently you can just host a radio show and still go do another really important job out there. You know, Musk ain't going to let that fly, man. You got to be there 12 hours a day, at least. Okay. You're not going to be able to work both these jobs. Musk ain't Wisconsin Green Bay. No, no, no, no, no, he's Musk. Yeah. Um, so CBS sports.com has a New Year's resolution for each of the 32 NFL teams. I would say this is a good one for the Texans. Fix the front. CJ Strauss, accuracy, touch and comfortability have all regressed, but he's also rushed his process behind a shoddy, streaky offensive. Okay, streaky is an interesting word that would imply that there's actually long spells of good play with this line. I don't know that that's the case. As you pointed out, it's gotten better, I guess, than it was during the really, really bad times. He says, past catching depth would also help, but the trenches are vital. That's a good New Year's resolution. Nick, if if you're listening, if you're listening, if you're writing down your New Year's resolutions, and by the way, Nick Casario seems like the last person who does New Year's resolutions, right? Yeah, like Nick wait, still January 1st to do some form of self improvement feels like the most opposite Nick Casario thing ever. Like, I think Casario's got a role in it. I would guess he's kind of the kind of person who's had a rolling five year plan or five year set of goals for the last since he was 14 years old. Yes. But if you're listening, Nick, this is a good New Year's resolution. Fix the front. The the phrasing of all of that talking about the front and the trenches and everything. This book I'm reading, Blood Red Snow, about this German soldier on the Russian front. I'm just thinking about what the Texans offensive line would look like in the face of a tank assault. Oh boy, it'd be well, just just fleeing backwards across frozen rivers as fast as they possibly could. Yeah, they would be. They'd be like, you know what they'd be doing? They'd be like, like tanks would be rolling over their trenches because they were too busy trying to find the highest, the height in Russian boot fashion from dead soldiers. Right. They're like, Oh, no, go ahead. Go ahead. No, yeah, we're fine. We don't need to protect that village. All right, that guy, that guy's got a snazzy pair of fur boots. I'm going to go get those. Yeah, how the war go, our drip was amazing. Yeah. That's how it went. I will say this, this is, it's going to be an interesting off season, man, because this is not that Nick Casario hasn't had to fix things before. He inherited maybe the worst situation that any GM has ever inherited when it came to the cap, lack of draft capital, your quarterback wanting out and then your quarterback being untradable because of issues off the field. But this is going to be interesting because this is a very specific thing that needs fixing. Right. And there's, and there's, I think there's multiple ways to get there. And I think you probably don't, you probably aren't just deploying one of them, like fire the offensive line coach. Okay, you don't stop there. That doesn't make all five of these guys great players all of a sudden. Like I don't. Right. And yeah, and I think that, you know, the O line propaganda cabal gets together and they, they, you know, to get people to try to focus on PFF pass, pass, pass protection grades and everything. They're the way everybody on that offensive line plays, including the offensive tackles who are good at pass protection, but not so great at run blocking. There's not, they, there's not a grittiness there. There's just a, there's not a competence as a unit. And there's, there's nobody really along the offensive line that should be safe. The, even, because even the guys who do have a natural grittiness about him, like Shaq Mason, Shaq's, Shaq's old. He's just not the player he used to be. Um, so I, a complete and total swapping out of the offensive line, if it were possible cap wise, it doesn't even seem extreme at this point. You gotta get, you gotta get sworn mentality guys out there or the, the very least guys who can capably play the complete football, not just pass protection, but run blocking as well. Yeah, the line needs new leadership. You know what I mean? I don't think talent is the issue. Like there's plenty of physical talent on that offensive line. It needs an attitude adjustment. The other, and I would go to is all as, as long as if Bobby Sloak doesn't, if he remains, you're, you're just fooling yourself, if you think Dalton Schultz is going to be a driving force behind becoming a great play action football team. Uh, like he just, he flat out can't block at all. And every now and then he has a nice one, but like it's just, he's so routinely getting absolutely destroyed that when I talk about the blocking, I need to be better about including the tight ends in that the upside is Cade Stover, perhaps. Brevin Jordan doesn't help you out as a blocker if he comes back. Uh, it's just there, they've got, they've got systemic issues in their level of physicality in the run game. Yeah, Jordan, we'll be back. He signed in. He's he, oh, that's right. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. He's he signed a contract. So it's like a one year deal. I mean, so now you got two guys who are better receivers than they are blockers. There's a lot on Cade Stover developing ASAP as a blocker. No doubt. No doubt. Um, Seth, I enjoy a good checklist. This is a, this is a texture. Do you have your Excel spreadsheet with all of the equations and formulas? I've got some equations and form, I've got a financial spreadsheet where that's got, that's got all the formulas. Nice. The spreadsheet, I don't, I try not to, sometimes when you start tracking fitness or calories or anything like that, there's a tendency to get like, for me at least I get a little too obsessive with it. So that's why I went to that red green color system. Yeah, because I can just look at it intuitively know if I'm on track or not. I can just glance at it and be like, oh, that's a lot of red. All right. I snap back at it. Yeah, it's good. But on the financial side, yeah, I got it. It's fun. That, that's a little, the finances. I need, I need more just knowing exactly where every penny is. Yeah. Not because of a lack of discipline on my part more so than that there have been times where I've had fraud that I did not discover until like nine months later. And the bank's always a little extra skeptical when that happens. Like, wait a, wait a second, wait a second. You, so you're going to tell me this $6,000 in charges was fraudulent and you're reporting it now. And Mark, I'm like, yes, I just, you've got to understand my life, man. Yeah. It's a mess. Yeah, it's funny. Um, text messages, Deontae Johnson playing the whole game, or will he be considered a starter and play a half? Okay. Well, first of all, we don't know what Damico is doing with the quote unquote starters yet. But let's assume that that there is a quick hook for starters in this game. But Deontae Johnson, Johnson hasn't played a snap as a Houston Texan, but considering what he brings to that receiver room, you could argue he's in the upper certainly in the upper half of valuable players on this football team. I'm going to put the goal I'd like to see Deontae Johnson get at least 40 snaps in 15 targets. I just like, I just got even if it's Davis Millstone or the ball, just get him, get him hungry for more, get him in like as comfortable as you can and just just try to feed it to Deontae. I think that'd be more than he got in his, like, two months with the ring. I know. He'll feel so special. He will. He will. Yeah. Sean, real quick, before we get too far away from the New Year's resolution. Yeah. Um, it's not enough for you to have this vague goal of like getting more active on social media. You need to set some goals. I need to set. Yeah, leaning into like an instant, like a number of Instagram followers that I got to get to. Either that or if you want to just try to focus on the process that will lead to that ultimately is just like, okay, number of posts per day. Are you posting at least once on each platform? That's true. That's true. Now, that is something Casario would do. He would focus on the process, focus on the process of success, to figure out all the things that would make you get a, you know, a huge increase and then just really dial in on doing those things. And that way your success, that way you're not gone down in the dumps on a day where you don't gain any followers. You're like, okay, yeah, but I put out a post and I'm good to go. If I keep doing this, if I just, if I stay after it and follow the process. Yeah. All right. Good stuff. John Lopez, Reggie had a tooler here. How many thirst traps a day? How many what? How many thirst traps a day? Yeah, you mean that he's posting or that he's like viewing? I'd be interested in both. And what are they? What are thirst traps? Yeah, I don't even know what a thirst trap is. This is brilliant. This is brilliant. This is brilliant by him. All right, I'd rather Seth. I'm talking directly to Seth here. This is brilliant by Sean to pretend like he does not know to avoid all culpability, right? Like, I'm not going to get myself in trouble if I'm the guy who's just like, what's a thirst trap? Well, I don't know. There are people. I may know, I may know what it is, but I don't know the label. You know what it is. No, it's a, no, it's a picture of an attractive person. Oh, oh, yeah. No, specifically designed to try and, you know, that's the trap aspect of it, right? Specifically designed to try and, you know, bait people in. Okay. So you think I need to be shirtless on Instagram a little bit more this year? Oh, do you guys? Yes. For one, yes. I think there's people that like the bald head. I feel like we play that. Oh, there's everybody's got to fetish. Like, I'm there's a thing for you. You know what I mean? Yeah, you do have to do that. Yeah. Nobody wants that. Hey, are you guys when you're on, I don't go on Facebook often at all. Apologies to everybody that sent me DMs. I'll check them in like six months. But I am also, I guess one of the things is I'll get, because I'll get a friend request, like a notification. And so I look at the friend request and just whatever. But like, you get the friend request where you're like, okay, obviously this is, this is obviously a dude pretending to be a woman or whatever. Like, you know, like, I find you fascinating. I'd like to be friends. Do you guys, like, but then you see that they're friends with a couple of your guy friends? Yeah, and you're like, like my high school teacher is from like, oh, man, oh, he fell for this. Oh, yeah. Yes. Yes. Oh, man. Now I'm trying to think like, usually when I'm confirming people as friends, I'm saying really interesting. Well, I don't know. No, no, I don't confirm off of a off of a DM. But oftentimes, like, I don't, like, I, my, like confirming new friends on Facebook process happens like three times a year. Like, if you have requested friendship with me on Facebook, you are sitting in a queue right now that's been sitting there for three months. But then I have this burst of activity where I'm like, you know what, I'm going to go through and confirm these friends. And I often do look and see like how many crossover friends they've got with me. But it needs to be okay. So I don't feel unless I've got a ton of stupid people that I'm friends with, which is definitely a distinct possibility. I don't often do the ones that it's only friends with like two people. No, no, it's got to be like you Lopez. It's got to be like if it's a lot of radio hosts, I'm like, all right, this is a listener. Yeah, you know, and so exactly. We can be friends. Who's the specific mutual? Because I feel like we all do this where there's like, Hey, mutual friends that if you're mutual friends with them, I think that I should follow you no matter the platform. Do you have like, at least in your mind, like at least, you know, okay, if I see this person, I know that this is a good follow. Oh, like if I see somebody here, Sean is on my list. Okay. Sean and maybe some other listeners. Okay. And then I've got my fishing group. Yeah, it's like Scott Captain Dean. Yeah, mutual. I'm like, okay, you know, that yeah, I would say like any like if there's multiple six 10 personalities that are friends with somebody, then I'll just go ahead and give it to the open firm. Yeah. Yeah. Also, the sometimes some of our listeners that have been longtime listeners, you see when you see a few of them, even if they don't fall, like it's like, okay, this is one of the they're one of the tribe thing you got to be careful of is if I thought I was already friends with this guy. Oh, and it's a, yeah, it's a, you know, now, now your friends with some bot that's in person. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Exactly.
Hour 4 - Power Rankings, Will the starters play and New years resolution for the Texans