The Killer B's: Joel Blank & Jeremy Branham
09/27 DJ Bien-Aime: How Hard is it Going to be to Come Back?
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You nailed that game script. No, unfortunately, for the Texans, they lost by 27. But you kind of saw that coming. Not in that big of a blow-off fashion, but yeah. Them losing, yeah. Many because that defensive will get some issues. They jumped out on them early. It's going to be hard to come back against that defense on the road with that environment, that crowd. That's a real home field event. I'm not, you know, no, no shade to Texans fans. I think they're getting there, but there's levels. And I think, you know, that level was something that I couldn't hear myself think at times. You know, so playing against that defense, playing, you know, CJ going first time going against that Brian Floyd scheme. No Joe Mixon not being around the ball. It would just say combination of bad things that, you know, was going to happen. Well, and your boy Sam played out of his mind again. So, I mean, because you told us, you know, at certain point, at some point he's going to melt down. And yeah, it hasn't come to that yet. The slipper's still on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, it's week three. That was week three and he's a good for about three weeks. You go back to the bed and green bed. Yeah, yeah, I think against Green Bay he'll go back to playing like crap. So you look at that. We've heard all the takeaways. You went from a Sam Darnell quarterback game. Now we're going to a Jacksonville team that seems like Trevor Lawrence is in disarray. Is there any reason to believe that there's going to be a whole lot of fight in that cat in this case instead of a dog and they're going to come out and they're going to really show that they're a different team or are we to expect that this is where the Texans get right? I think the Jags is going to come out and fight. I mean, most of you like you're blown out and embarrassed. Especially on national TV, they usually show a lot more fight than next game. I'm obviously the testing got embarrassed too. But the Jags, I mean, before week three, and they just ran into a bus. I'm like, Buffalo is one of those teams that when everything is rolling, nobody can beat them. Like, it's been life for some years. But, you know, they're never like that in the playoffs. But there's just, there's moments where they're rolling and there's nothing, there's literally nothing you can do. And it happens and they, they're going to see that caught in that bus stop. But week one, week two, the Jaguars are very competitive. Obviously it's an Miami game. Travis East, he's seen this a phone with that, that, that pass. I mean, that carry in the end zone. It's probably a completely different game. Um, then the Browns game was kind of back and forth. I mean, obviously they had a shot to try to tie it at the end. They couldn't get in, they couldn't get in the end zone. Let, let the Hail Mary. But, I mean, I think it's going to be a tough game. Mainly because where, where they are, their strongest suit on defense is right now the Texas weakest point, which is their D line versus the Texas O-line, especially on the interior. The Texas interior O-line is still developing, still trying to get right. So I think that this week, I still think the Texas will win, but I don't think it's going to be a blowout. If they can't run the ball and they're facing a bunch of 37s and longer than, you know, the Texans are going to be scrapping just to get past 21 points. DJ, you triggered me earlier today when you said football to defend the, the Tank Dell injury. I am not a fan of playing, as you know, of playing starters whenever you're down by 27 with minutes left to play, minutes so they didn't do it, we see it in football. If you look at cross sport references, you know, NBA garbage time, best players out. You look at baseball, don't use leverage guys. Don't use their best players down late. Why, why do we use football as kind of the, the word to defend some questionable, questionable decisions of when to leave starters in and out of the game? I mean, again, like, if the Mika Nu thing might have gotten her dinged up, if he would have left me, he probably would have taken him out. Like I get, he got to have the foresight, because I made sure the game is over. As if I say, I mean, yes, you could have gone out there with Xavier Hutchinson and Robert Woods and Steven Sims, but you know, they wanted to give Davis some work and at least help him try to get into the end zone, try to get the officers to the end zone. Is that, I mean, I mean, is it worth it? No, but I don't think it's that big of a deal. I mean, yeah, he got hurt, but you got Stefan Davis and you got Nico Collins, you'll be fine. Would you rather have Tank or not have Tank though? Cause like, it's kind of. I mean, the way they're using him right now. I mean, like they're kind of using them like a gadget player. Anyway, so like, they're not using them to the best of his abilities right now, I'm honest with him. So being without him this week isn't going to affect most of the game player. No, I would agree with that. I think they're going to be fine without Tank. I think they'll win this game, even though the tank's not there. I think they're probably better suited for 12 personnel than 11 personnel right now, quite frankly, because of their offensive line. But it could have very easily been Laramie Tunsel. He was still out there. It could have very easily been Niko Collins. I think they're high money receiver. I think that's fair. I think it's a fair criticism, but I'm also not going to criticize the coach for keeping his guys in there and trying to like get, you know, touching on the board. Like I get both sides, but it's always high in sight. When it comes to that. I was saying it live in the moment. Well, I mean, I'm not supposed to know. I mean, I didn't know that you were saying that in the moment. You know what I'm saying? Like I'm just saying like, I'm just saying overall though, like it's a high in sight discussion for the most part, right? Like when guys usually discuss when people get hurt, but when people are still out there and nobody's hurt, and everything's just going fine. And it's just a blowout. Nobody says anything, you know what I'm saying? So for me, it's always a 2020 high side. 'Cause it's not like people, for the most part, not saying that you don't, but not for the most part. People are like pounding on it. Why it's actually going on in the moment, you know? So. - Okay, I mean, it's passion. If you guys want to keep going, that's fine. My question is one of the other glaring things coming out of the game was obviously the performance of the offensive line. We were talking about it on the show. It isn't even so much about the penalties, but we've heard from everybody, it's about the continuity. It's about getting better. We've heard we're fixing it. Who fixes it? How do they fix it? And is it fixable by this week? - I don't think it's fixable by this week. I think it's going to take some more time. More continuity between, I think, I remember this segment, correct? It's not like, can you, can you green juice, actually haven't played that many games together in like NFL, like regular team football at all? I think it's what? They're fourth game together. And it's not like juice played a lot last year. So like you have really, too, really, really young inexperienced players on the interior. And they just have to, it's going to take some weeks before they can finally all get on one of Corey. Because they're not blocking this vibe. They're kind of blocking us individual guys. Because the chemistry and the continuity and just being able to pick up and block the right guy at the right time, it's, because there's a lot of time where you see juice chasing blocks that he doesn't really need to chase when a guy crosses his face. But maybe if you felt like he was right next to him, pick up the guy that's trying to cross his face. Maybe he'll feel more comfortable. But you know, he's going to just take more reps. Because it's very clear what team is trying to do. Obviously, I think Bobby should throw curve balls at opposing teams. And instead of trying to run your outside zone, just start running power. Because with teams just trying to slam in, if you go power, one player was telling me that if they go, if we go power, what makes it effective against when a team's slam inward is we can wash them down and get them out the way. Because everybody's going inward. It's kind of clunky while you have, you know, juice and king greens, pushing them down. You have Shaq pulling around. Now you have a, you know, a hole for the running backs to run through, you know, things of that nature, you know, run some more inside zones and things of that nature. They run some duo just to like get teams to back off of that. And then you can get back to your outside zone stuff. So, you know, a lot of it doesn't also start with Bobby because you can't get it to where like, you're going to keep banging your head on the wall and trying to like, you know, implement what you want to do. I think I do as best for the team. And obviously right now, I saw outside zone consistently and effectively isn't working for them. - I think quick passing game is important too. Like you see some of the things that works with them in the passing game. It's like, okay, if the offensive line's not going to protect, if they're going to have trouble with the stunts and the games that we were talking about last week, quick passing game, kind of avoid that at all cost. - Yeah. I mean, the other thing is there's seen a lot of stunts in the passing game when it comes to games, you know, like the stunts in the passing game, they're usually seeing it on third downs because CJ, you know, he has the second most dropbacks against third and long, like 30 to seven and longer. The second most behind the Sean Watson. And I think CJ, like CJ is able to, I think he's like, it's completion percentage like 14 for 18 in those situations, but still like, there's a reason why they're towards the back half of like teams that convert on third down. I think like in the mid twenties or like high twenties, but still like you're weight in the back and that's cause they have a lot of thirds. - See like seven to the eight third downs against Minnesota were more than eight yards. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, because it was, that's bad. - Yeah, exactly. Like, you know, like that was, you just can't, it doesn't matter who you're playing. You can be playing, the Texans can be playing the 2000s. - They're in defense. - I was gonna say 2007 Detroit Lions. - Okay. - Yeah, yeah. Like they're like, yeah, they're gonna still, like the Detroit Lions will have a shot in that game because it's just too hard to always convert 30 and long. It doesn't matter how good you are, it doesn't matter how good you're quarterback. So, and I think it's gonna, they're gonna have to do a better job of getting into third and manageable. Because, you know, another thing too, that I've noticed on the film outside of the stunts is, that's why, you know, a lot's why I said earlier in the week, a lot of it's gonna start with Bobby. Like it starts with Bobby, because a lot of times where CJ is looking, looking to where the progression is taking him. And it's muddy there and he tries to look back left or try to get to his check down. And that's usually a sign that the defensive coordinator, at least early on is being able to have a read and a beat on your offensive coordinator. And then that's when the pressure can get to you. But again, like it's a combination of a bunch of things, you know, even with, you know, it's a common in both things. Like there's one stat that's crazy, I don't think I tweeted it out. But out of all the quarterbacks, I think CJ is in terms of time to pressure. So as fast as pressure gets to you, it's at 2.52 right now, which is like seven fastest amongst all starters. - You know what I'm being like, you know, so 2.5 is crazy. You know, like that means, by the time he gets to the top of his job, like. - So I thought you played well, I'd actually thought he played well in the Minnesota. - Yeah, yeah, I'd say all that stuff. I'd like to play well. - And we talk about like from snap to release and how quickly guys got to get rid of it, you have no time at all when you're saying it's 2.5. - Right, right. You're getting pressured at that point, you know what I'm saying? So like that can, that can be all it takes is to, you know, possibly potentially affect the throw. And then or you rush a throw or like, you're not able to get to that last guy or like I remember there's one play where he looked right and then was trying to get all the way back to Cam. And Cam was wide open at the end of going out of bounds to the left side. Cam was wide open and I could have been from a lot of yards, but again, like the pressure is getting there so fast, you know what I'm saying? So, you know, I think that's what I said, like it starts with Bobby, like I know like, you know, fans when the crowd starts to align and penalties and et cetera, et cetera. But, and I think all that's fine. But I think it starts with Bobby coming up with better game plans. We talked about it a little bit before we hit the air, but I saw you tweeting that Nico, thankfully practiced, Joe was the limited participant. Nico says he's going to play Joe. - It's questionable right now. Me personally, I would hold him out this week and the same for the Buffalo Bills game. 'Cause if you can't run a ball against the Bills, you have no shot. Sean McDermott, like, that's why that's right now, it doesn't matter who they have in the back end, who they have at the linebackers. He's been there since I believe 2017, it's 2024. He's been there for that. This is the eighth season. Like, there's a culture, there's a system there that they've been running for years. So, like, you know, their system is jam-packed. Like, they know what to do, things that I need to put on the plug and play and they play extremely fast. So, if you can't, if you're just dropping back all day, you're gonna, you're gonna be, you're gonna be in hell. That's why, like, when they play Miami on Thursday night, right, the Dolphins couldn't run the ball. It's who ends up throwing like 300, and it's throwing three interceptions. 'Cause he was facing a lot of third and longs. And, obviously, that one pick six, he couldn't get the ball out of arm. He couldn't throw it away completely out of bounds. But, again, like, if you're living in third and longs against the Buffalo Bills, they would eat your lunch. That's one of those defenses that would completely eat your lunch. So, I, personally, would save Joe for next week. Not saying, like, you know, I think you can win without Joe against the Jags. I don't think you can, I think your chances of winning against the Bills goes drastically down if you don't have Joe. I think there were some runs against the Vikings that if they had Joe, he would've been able to turn a one yard or a two yarder until, like, maybe four, maybe five. You know what I'm saying? Like, it still would've been tough sledding, but I think he would've been able to power through some runs. 'Cause that was one of those games where you kind of need a power back. And, like, yeah, Cam was able to have some nice runs when he was able to use his aloofness, but that was one of those games you had to kind of get north and south and get muddy and, you know, 'cause a defense was humming. - And you're looking at a third and five instead of a third and seven there. So, like, back to the whole third and long situation. Even if it's only two more yards right there, it's third and five, much easier to succeed than third and seven. - 'Cause defenses have to call, they have to call it differently at that point, right? Because if, like, any officers can call it differently 'cause it's five yards, that's like, no one, one step, but it's like two steps, right? So you can run, your whole playbook is open. When it's third and seven, third and eight, like, you know-- - What'd you say, two point? - Yeah, two point five before you get pressure, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's just, it's a completely different ball game. I mean, I think CJ right now, I think he's had 10 unblocked pressures this year, fourth most, three unblocked sacks. So, like, a lot of them are just on third downs. - That's crazy. - DJ, appreciate the time, man. - Yeah, absolutely. - The affirmation is always good conversation. We'll talk to you next week. - Absolutely. - DJ, begin with me. Covers the Houston Texans ESPN/ESBN.com. You can check them out on Twitter @DJBNME for all the latest Houston Texans use great follow. All right, Texans are two on one. Why are so many people acting like they're worse? 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