The Killer B's: Joel Blank & Jeremy Branham
11/04 Hour 3 - Can The Texans Hang On To Their Playoff Spot
A killer, please! ESPN 97 5 and 92 5 proudly present. The killer beat. Definitely a fan of the killer beat. So swept technique. Now from a Veritex community bank studios, bring you the fastest three hours in Houston Sports Radio. Here's Joel Blank and Jeremy Branham. I joined the bus 30 minutes ago, final half hour of the show. H.A. Joining me is we're going to take you till 5.30 and the eggs are going to take over. Because as Jeremy mentioned, and that's what Jeremy is about to do, is call some U of H. Cougar basketballs, college basketball season. Opens up this evening, so do the eggs and the eggs are going to be right here on the flagship for Aggie basketball. You can listen to all that action beginning with the pregame show at 5.30 right here on ESPN 97 5. But A.J. Jeremy, as he likes to do, he still wants to basically take over the entire segment when he's not here. He threw out the question, which actually I put on the rundown, which is, I think it's the legitimate question coming off the Jets game. I mean, you look at the Jets game, people were disappointed. We know the fact that they have three losses. We can pick apart all three of them and say that there were so many things that you can point a finger at. The good news is, is there still winning the division? There's still six in three and they should be a playoff team. But the question is out there and everybody can participate and get in on this 713 7803776. We encourage you to call, text, tweet, get on social media, YouTube, and then maybe even if you're a low life, you can get on Twitch. Are they more pretenders? Are they more contenders? Because to me, the takeaway after watching that game is, is that you, I factored in all season long, A.J. Look, their schedule is going to be really tough. And the tougher part of their schedule still yet to be played. But I expected because of the how good that their roster became in the off season between the draft picks and specifically all the trades and the free agent moves that made this team better. I expected a team that was going to win the division handily. I expected a team that was going to compete against anybody they play against. And now specifically because of the offensive line and also to a lesser degree, the injuries that you've sustained to Stefan Diggs and others, makes me more on the side of this team has a lot to prove to me. So therefore, I think they're more pretenders than they are contenders because of the fact that you see the Ravens getting better. You see the Chiefs getting better. You see teams that are already good getting better, yet you're supposed to be good. You haven't been better and you're not doing anything yet. Though there's time in the trade deadline to try and get better. Right, I absolutely agree with that. Because honestly, like Jeremy attests it to earlier, you're kind of looking more like a division around team based against scenario. But really that digs injury and then of course Nico still not playing. He might not even play next week. That really hangs into balance and playing it to a hot and a short team. That's going to be tough too. So I mean, for the Texans, like we talked about earlier, the pass protection, that's the main component. The defense is really pretty good. That's at this point your strong suit. So I would say, I would lean towards pretenders too as well. But I mean, I don't know, like you said, this is not necessarily too much of a, you know, like linear, you know, increase from last year. I mean, you made the divisional round last year. A lot of people expected, especially when the Cefan digs trade happened to, you know, go to the AFC Championship game. But like you talked about Buffalo, the Ravens still playing hot. Derrick Henry still playing like a 24 year old and he's 30 years old right now. It's going to be tough for the Texans, you know, come over them. And then obviously the Chiefs still looking great and passionate. No one's talking about the Chiefs. They're undefeated. Exactly. And yet every, and quietly they don't have to do anything by tomorrow because they've already done enough. They added a pass rusher. They added another receiver and there's rumors out there that they might be trying to bring back Tyree kill, whether they can pull that off or not. I don't think that they will and I don't think they're willing to spend the money. But the fact is the Chiefs are going to chief and they're the two time defending Super Bowl champs. They aren't going anywhere and come playoff time. They play their best football. So are you going to be able to play your best football by playoff time? I think for you, unlike even the Ravens who've made a move, a subtle move here or there and added a fiance Johnson to try and get even better and we already know that they have enough in play. And you couldn't beat him a year ago and Buffalo, a team you beat going out and getting a Mari Cooper to get better. What have you done? So that's why I think as much as the work has been done by the teams in front of you that you're trying to be like. The bigger thing now is the pressure is all on you to try and do something. And I think maybe more than one thing to try and better what you need to better before you get to the point where you're playing in the playoffs. Right, absolutely. So I mean, I don't know. I'm not a Texans fan. Your team beat my team in the playoffs. So that's enough of a hit right there. But for Houston, it's really how they play right now. Brown's fan? No, no, no, no, no. Yeah, I say your team beat my team. Oh, Green Bay beat Dallas. Yeah. So like for the Texans though, especially where they have been the past few years going into this year. I think a lot of the fans that hate Bobby Sloak right now. I mean, that's one thing that's been crazy. Yeah, exactly. Especially at the last year, everyone loved them. It's crazy how much a fan base can change after, you know, the precipitous fallout so far. But yeah, I mean, for Texans, it's like they know that they're good enough to win a division right now. But also they're kind of not optimistic and really pessimistic because they could see themselves losing the first run. The one thing too that kind of drives me nuts is the fact that Bobby Sloak is the guy in the crosshairs. When we were talking about bad, the offensive line is I was saying that before you even get to Bobby Sloak and how he can kind of get creative with the offense and go into a pistol and move the pocket around to do things so that the offense can be more effective. Why aren't we talking more about the offensive line coaches? Why aren't we talking about the fact that these proven veterans that are getting paid like some of the best offensive line men in the game and at least two of the three cases you extended. Shaq Mason, you're paying tons of like a top five left tackle. You're paying Howard like a top five to 10 right tackle and yet they can't do wrong right in the past game. They can block effectively in the running game and also a lot of credit goes to mix in. But why don't we start internally with the fact that maybe we need to do some things differently in the way we're coaching up these guys during the week so that we don't have to wait for disasters to happen to go. Oh, we'll fix that in practice this week. Why wasn't it fixed in practice last week before it became a problem? Exactly and that's fundamentals that comes down to it honestly. And with that, I mean, that's that's pure frustration. That's coaching. That's also on the players too because you see some things like Laramie Tunsel says. I mean, sometimes it's like kind of like, oh, it's I'm doing my job. The other guys aren't doing their job type of thing. And then with the penalties, it just really makes it frustrating if you are a Texans fan too because it's the same thing that are holding this team back honestly for the past few years. You know, the thing is too, when you look at it, they can still write the ship one more time. But take ownership in what you've done, right? When Tunsel had all the penalties early in the season, he said, look, without saying, first of all, saying, I don't want to put all the blame or deflect the blame for me. And then he deflected all the blame off of him and basically said it was continuity and things that they need to be working on. Well, regardless of whether it is just him or it was continuity, the coaches need to get grabbed the bull by the horns and they need to do some things to make sure that it was rectified quickly. A lot of it was. But when you look at now, the only guy to really step up now and say with the quotes coming out of camp yesterday and today and after the game was at least Titus Howard was able to say, I hate CNCJ go down. Like it's on us, we all have to do better. I have to do better. That's at least what the fans want to hear and deserve to hear right now. Don't give me this high and mighty. Oh, it's not me. It's us and we're not doing this. When you have eight, six or eight penalties in a game on one individual, it really is you before it is all of us. And that's what has to be addressed to. I get that Demico doesn't like to put too much in the media. I get that he doesn't want to address his players at the podium. But at the same time, then go into practice and shake things up before we even see a line up change or we all knew a week again, they're a week late in every situation. A week before the Jets game after that game, we knew that Kenyon Green was not the answer anymore at guard and a change needed to happen. What happened was we waited until the Jets game and gave him one more chance. And then our quarterback was sacked eight times and Quinn and Williams threw him around like a rag doll and then he, oh, by the way, got hurt and he's out for the year. But it happened too late for sure. Exactly. And that's my thing though. You want to protect your quarterback. Like you said, the eight sacks. That's absolutely atrocious. I mean, it should be a command to know like obviously C. Dre's throughout. He doesn't have any trust in the old line. And how could you? Because I mean, every single time, especially against a Jets defense like that, and now we'll see obviously the lines. They don't have eight and Hutchinson, but still they have a prominent pass attack sometimes too. And what can you make up for it and we saw it was with that Green Bay game with the Minnesota game when they started playing against these defenses, especially going into the playoffs potentially because even some wild card teams right now, like even look at a team like the Chargers, like if they make a wild card, they're playing against Khalil Mack playing against Bosa or even the Broncos. They've had a really good season even though they got blowout by the Ravens yesterday. So I mean, it's just a lot there. Hopefully they can get somebody's things together going into weeks in because you have what eight more weeks basically until the postseason and then it starts to get real. But once you know like that final stretch of three games, Miami's getting better. And two of plays, that one looked tough at the start of the year, then it looked like it might be an easy one when two of was out and maybe wouldn't play the rest of the year. He's getting back. Their offense is getting on track depending on how they look and what their playoff chances are. That's going to be a big one, but then the Ravens, the Chiefs, the big games that everybody's waiting for. Are you going to be playing your best football? Because right after that, you're going to be ready for the playoffs. If indeed you are able to hang out and win this division, which you should be able to do, then you've got to be playing at a certain level too. Otherwise, the whole season could be ruled as a disaster and a disappointment because you didn't do enough like right now to prevent the possibility of the bottom falling out. Because Nick Cassario has less than 24 hours and as much as the start of the season and when they got off to the hot start, everybody said, well, the deadline is not that important because you can add some depth. No, you need to add a starter. You need to add at least one. You need to at least look at one and maybe two moves and multiple positions because this team isn't as good as we thought they were. And then with the subtraction of digs and the fact that you've had suspensions, you've had injuries, you need to make sure that you better yourself now so that you aren't a disappointment later when it really does matter because so much is riding on this season for so many. Right, exactly. I mean, the expectation it was AFC Championship or even the Super Bowl. So that we talked about the Chiefs game, the Ravens game in December, that's the three games in 10 days when that's going to be a tough stretch for sure. And then playing against even the Chiefs, that defense, they stopped the run. So it'll be interesting to see especially Joe mixing, it's been great all this year. Go against that defense, especially with this old line too. That's going to be a huge question mark. But yeah, Houston just has a lot of problems and we'll see if they're able to compensate for that make up for it tomorrow with the deadline because I mean, they need to make some type of move. You can't stay intact right now. Here's my thinking too. When you think about what the Chiefs did, it's one thing to say they upgraded wide receiver and their outside linebackers. But you know what they did? They gave up very little to nothing to get them. And so if we know and what we talked about early in the show about some of the worst trades Nick Gessario has made, thankfully, a majority of them were centered around seventh round picks, sixth round picks that you traded for and then they didn't make the team. You traded it. You cut them the next week. You cut them within three weeks. But that's what it's the going rate right now to get actual good players. The Bears have Nate Davis at guard. They're paying him eight million. They're willing to pay a good portion of the four million left on his contract. He was a former. He was a former highly thought of offensive lineman in this league that could help you right now and be better than anything that you have. Go get him and then worry about it later after the season. You can change. You can do what you need to do. But because you have such meaningful football to be played because your schedule does get tougher, you have to attack now before the deadline hits because even after we get by the offensive line, we don't know if Nico's going to be back this week as you mentioned. But when he comes back, you're hoping he's going to be the same player he was before he got hurt. But how long does it take to get him there? Tanks got to be the same guy too. Hutchinson didn't do anything after he looked like he could possibly step up. Metchi might be doing some things. Jeremy said he watched the tape. But here's the thing, Metchi on that timing route across the middle late in the game when they needed that score. Yeah. The ball was a little behind him. He didn't catch it. Right spot. How does that happen? They're not on the same page timing wise. So you need to get guys that are going to run the routes that are going to do. If you could get a veteran receiver and it doesn't cost you much, and you know, we mentioned some of the guys that are out there when you look at a slate with the Giants, when you look at Thelin if he's available with Carolina, it shouldn't cost you much to get a better, more experienced receiver in the building so that one, it's an insurance policy and two, you still have a viable third receiver option that maybe you didn't have because of who's on your roster when you lost digs. I just think that there's a ton of work for Nick Castario to do between now and the deadline. Yeah. I think so too. And it'll, it'll tell a lot of he actually, you know, makes the moves, especially at the wide receiver position, you know, missing Stefan days that really hurts because that allowed really Nico Collins to be more free. He really couldn't double anyone because then you had to take Dell as well too. So now whenever Nico comes back, even without, even with Taint Dale being there, even with him returning for his first game, whenever that will be, he'll probably see double teams for sure too. And the defense won't pay as much as they would have his Stefan days was out there too. So it's a tough situation to use to run off for sure. Yeah. No doubt about it because I think that expectations changed when free agency hit and a lot of people thought that the digs moves on the slide were, they look at them as free agent acquisitions. No, that was a trade. The mix and deal was a trade. Then with the free agent additions of Autry to increase into and even settle and Foley and the guys you brought in Mario Edwards, guys that you were bringing in going, okay, they're bodies. No, they've been really good. And then Daniel Hunter is the big acquisition and you have all the pieces. It looks like except for a corner that was up in the air and all of a sudden Lasseter is the corner, you're too good not to do something to help this team out right now because the rest of this team is too good to have to deal with the fact that you weren't willing to pull a, pull a punch, make a move, improve your offensive line and maybe another position or two so that they have their best chance to win because it would really suck if Nick did everything pre-season. The locker room was all bought in in the season and now you're going to punish them by not doing something at this point to get you to the end of the season, I think that would really suck. Exactly. And nothing is guaranteed either. Even if you say we're going to have most of our roster next year, that's true too, but Jeremy talked about it a little bit earlier too. We're interested in injuries with his ankle in the past year and a half too. Obviously, you're not hoping for that, but you never know. I mean, it's a game of attrition as well too, so next year, CJ should go into his third season. What type of moves can you make? I mean, obviously you'll have the draft free agency, things like that nature too, but like I said, nothing is guaranteed. We didn't expect Stefan Diggs to get injured, but boom, that didn't have happened in two, so it was really just a game of attrition. But your point, you've got Autry in the waiting of the wings and you've got Jerry Hughes and guys that are already on your roster so that you're deeper there. You're not as deep as wide receiver because as much as you're hoping, Hutch and Metchie are able to do more. Right now they're showing you that they haven't. You let Noah Brown go, that didn't look like much at the time, but now he's doing something somewhere else and you're going, what are you going to do now, Nick, to get at least one more guy in here that can take away some of the doubt of whether Hutch and Metchie can do what you need him to do. So the clock is ticking, all eyes are watching, and there's a whole lot more pressure on the Caesario than I think that he or we thought they were going to be at this point in the season. All right, we're going to take a break. We're going to get to our final break and then we're going to lead you up to A&M basketball with our car wreck of the day. If you've got car wreck of the day nominations, get them to us right now, 713-782-3776. You can text them, you can call them, you can get us on Twitter, you can get us on Twitch, you can get us on YouTube. AJ and me until 530 right here on ESPN 97-5 and 92-5 FM. Broadcasting live from the Veritex Community Bank Studios, it's the Killer B's with Joel Blanket, Jeremy Branden on ESPN 97-5 and 92-5. Jeremy Branden, I'm out a little early today to get the college basketball season kicked off with a Cougars victory, hopefully against Jackson State. We've got the Aggies kicking off their basketball season, started with pregame at 530, so we're going to be off a little bit early. A lot of kudos and shout outs go to Brian McDonald's fill in, not Brian McDonald, because he got sick and decided to call in and do little to nothing. So AJ Ross filling in for him, AJ Russ, AJ Russ in the building, doing a very, very, very good job getting in on the dialogue with me here in the final half hour of the program. But as you know, what we do when we do it, the last segment of the day, no matter when the show ends, is always the car wreck of the day, and there are no shortage of car wrecks for today's version. So let's get to the car wreck of the day, shall we, AJ? Yes, sir, let's do it. You don't have the lead in, you know, with the sopranos and the, this is a letdown, AJ. You're going to blame BMAC? I don't mind that because everybody blames me because we could do the whole music and we can imitate it, but the bone is coming through on the shin of the soprano. Okay. So car wreck of the day, the first one that I found, because there was a lot of them that people were going through and it could be yours and Abigail's favorite team, the Dallas Cowboys who absolutely suck, they're an embarrassment and they should be the car wreck of the day just about every day after yet another letdown. But for me, it was one that, not a lot of, I hadn't heard anybody find yet, but Joe Kelly's at it again. Yeah, that Joe Kelly, the, the pouty face, getting, do it with the Astros, pointing fingers, getting into a Correa, all kinds of things. Oh, by the way, I looked it up during the playoff run and Joe Kelly was never on their roster. And there was conversation in the World Series, Joe Kelly was going to be on their roster at a certain point, but he never was. But now that Joe Kelly backed into another ring, Joe Kelly has plenty to say. And this time the Yankees are in his crosshairs. It's, it's, it's well known. We all knew. I mean, we're the Dodgers. We know every little detail, but I mean, past that, it was, it was a, it was a fun series. I mean, they almost, they almost nagged a couple of wins, you know what I mean? But I mean, if it was like, if it was like the NCAA, like basketball, baseball, hockey, or football, I mean, like, it, it was just a mismatch from the get go. Like we had a playoff re-ranking, like, they might be ranked eighth or ninth best playoff team. You know what I mean? Like, you're putting the posers ahead of them. You're putting the Phillies ahead of them. You're putting the Mets ahead of them. You're putting the Braves ahead of them. And the Braves just got unlucky because they had to play that double header. You're putting, I mean, the Guardians played like crap, but the Guardians played better to better see better baseball around. Like there's, it was just a complete mismatch and it's kind of the same feeling from 2018 when we had to go play the Dodgers. Like the Red Sox were just a way better team. So all we knew is that we just had to play regular Dodger baseball, we didn't play out of our butts, we didn't have to do anything crazy and we're going to win the World Series. It's facts. Like, just look at the team, look at the talent, we ranked the teams and the ranked eighth and they played against the number one seed. Like I said, everyone knew we had, we go through numerous scouting reports, videos, like, hey, look at this, it's a sloppy play, like, I mean, we, we pay attention to every single detail. You know, we have a lot of big superstars in our clubhouse, but the superstars also care and aren't lazy to play hard. So that's the difference in the biggest operator. So Kelly, did anybody pay attention to the detail that you didn't play? Like you get a ring, you should just shut your mouth, be happy as hell. You got another ring, had nothing to do about it. You're lucky that you actually throw harder than you weigh. And that's the reason why you're even relevant on a Major League roster. And yet you can't keep your big trap shut. And here we are again, Joe Kelly bumping his gums, talking about a victory that he had nothing to do with and putting down the team that oh, by the way, had one of the best records in baseball. I mean, look, I hate the Yankees as much as the next person, but you got to give them their due in the fact that they deserve to be there. Oh, yeah, for sure. I agree. I mean, they dominated in the playoff run and really throughout the season just honestly came down to the Dodgers being the better team, obviously in the postseason. We saw that. Freddy Freeman, he went off in this World Series, Otani, of course, he suffered that energy for you, but they were obviously the better team, yet a Yankees had a collapse, but yeah. People can bang on Aaron Judge and it's well deserved in the fact that, look, I compared him to the killer bees and the fact that no matter what you do in the regular season, if you don't do it in the playoffs, you become bagwell and bigio and you were going to be labeled. And now he's being labeled so much so that the big Twitter comments were Aaron Judge is going to make an appearance on New Year's Eve in Times Square so he can teach everybody how to drop the ball, not just the ones that watched him drop it in the outfield. I mean, those things are going to happen. Soto had an unbelievable year, but now you better not lose him, but the fact still remains, they had one of the best seasons in the regular season in the entire league. For Joe Kelly to say something like that was a bit much in my mind, so for me, he's my car wreck of the day. You got anything, any other nominees, late that you want to add, and then we had a list on there too. Yeah, I would say the fan talking trash adjacent Kelly in his face. I mean, I was pretty messed up, but I mean, I don't have respect, but at least he talked to him, but I mean, his phone found out that you shouldn't be talking trash to Philadelphia faithful. Oh, Kelsey. Yeah. Yeah. Kelsey's taken stress because he repeated the slur that the fan called Travis, and if you missed it, the guy had plenty to say to Jason Kelsey, who was on game day on Saturday at Penn State. And when he was leaving, they were following him and fans were smarting off to him and said, your brother is an F for dating Taylor Swift. And then he eventually had enough and he took the guy's phone and he spiked it down on the ground and said, how's the F now to something to that degree? And people are saying, should Jason Kelsey be fired from ESPN? Should he face ramifications? Should he? And someone saying neither guy, neither person should have said it. I kind of give him a pass because he's, he's not calling someone that he's retaliating for someone that called his brother that you're going to defend your brother. Right. Exactly. I feel the same way. I mean, I'm watching what's called countdown is on right now. He's on there right now. Talking right. I mean, I would have done the same thing. His brother and the fan really after round found out. So if it is really, because the question was going to become too at one, is he going to defend it or apologize for it? And would he do it on ESPN or would he do it on his podcast with his brother on Wednesdays? Honestly, I'll probably do it on a podcast. I think they, because they can be more raw there, honestly, him and Travis, plus he's going to get a lot more run because people are going to watch it anyway, but yeah, people are going to, like you said, he can say whatever he wants and people are going to be dialed in for it. And you look at self promotion, I mean, look, there's no bad publicity when you can get everybody to come to your website yet again or your podcast. So you're probably right. All right. So we got to get out of here for A&M basketball. I don't know how much time we got left, but if you got to pick a winner between those two, which one you going with? Um, you talking about banana football? Well, of the two car wrecks of the day, you're going for the fan that was all over Kelsey. Are you going with the, the, uh, the Joe Kelly comments? Um, I would probably say the fan over Kelsey, just because like you see all these trolls online, talk with some of them, some of them have the bravado to do it in person, but to actually do it and see a fan, actually get humble like that. I think I kind of, it was kind of refreshing to me. See, cause it's, it's also the James Franklin one too fan that again, you're willing to talk a lot of mess. And when James Franklin asks you what's your name, put your name on it, he turns and runs away. The cowardly fan, it's just too much to take sometimes because they feel like as long as they can stay anonymous and they can run and hide that they can say whatever they want. Too many people are too competent these days. Look at social media. So I think that that's a bigger issue, uh, to me, Joe Kelly's still going to be Joe Kelly. I'd never miss an opportunity to craft all over Joe Kelly because he deserves it. So we'll just call it a push because I think both of them deserve it equally as well and we can leave it there. Right. Exactly. No, I agree with you. All right. We got to get to A&M basketball. We appreciate you all listening. Texas A&M Aggies pregame show coming up next. You produce her in the house too. I don't know how you're going to feel about that, but, uh, make sure you enjoy the Aggies and Jeremy and I and the killer bees are going to be back in tech tomorrow for another day to carry through the rest of the week right here on ESPN 97 5 and 92 5 FM. Have a great night everybody. We're listening to ESPN 97 5.