The Killer B's: Joel Blank & Jeremy Branham
11/12 Hour 1 - We're Not Quitting the Texans!
With the $5 meal deal in McDonald's, you pick a McDouble or a McChicken, then get a small fry, a small drink, and a four-piece McNuggets. That's a lot of McDonald's for not a lot of money. Price and participation may vary for a limited time only. ESPN 97.5 and 92.5 probably present. The Killer B. It's definitely a fan of the Killer B's. Don't sweat 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. He's blank on Branham. It's Brian behind the glass. It is the Taco Tuesday edition of the Killer B's on ESPN 97.5 and ESPN 92.5. We have a busy show, casual attraction. We like to do that on Tuesdays. A lot of text and stuff going on. A lot of stuff that I got off my chest when it comes to things that are happening around the sports world. Of course, film don't lie. We get to that as well. I feel a lot like a lot of people are down on the Houston text. It's been rightfully so. 16-point lead at the half. Context matters. How you lost the game against one of the best teams in the NFL. That absolutely matters. So I understand where everybody's coming from. But there's reasons why I'm not quitting the Houston text. And they're mostly on the defensive side of the football. But look what they do against some of the better quarterbacks in the NFL. Look at what they've done against some of the teams that they faced so far this year. You go past this past weekend. Jared Goff was leading one of the best offenses in the NFL. He went 15 for 30 with five interceptions. That's a good day defensively. Anthony Richardson stinks. But Anthony Richardson, 10 for 32. An interception. You got him benched for a bomb and basically ruined that franchise. Jordan Love, 220 yards. Meh. Three touchdowns. Pretty good. But 220 yards. Meh. It took him 33 passes to get there. And you intercepted him twice. Josh Allen. Nine for 30. 131 yards. He might win the MVP. Nine for 30. 131 yards. Trevor Lawrence. Yes. He's a bum. But 18 for 33. 169 yards. You're seventh in the league in sacks. You're third in pressure rate. On top of that. You're second in defensive DVOA. You're third in total defense. And because you have this defensive line, I think that you can play with anybody in the NFL and you at least have a puncher's chance because of that defensive line specifically. And I think the other thing, Jeremy, is something that we were concerned with across the board with this team when we started the season. That's depth. And when you look at the depth of the defense in particular, and you look at the fact that you had guys that at the start of the year and when training camp happened. He's going to be a camp body. He's probably not going to make the team in the first four weeks. He was playing out of his mind and now he's suspended, but he's going to come back. And the fact that they have a rotation now because we were wondering how they were going to use Autry along with Hunter and Will Anderson Jr. Will Anderson Jr. goes down. Autry fills in. And you've got pass rush still and you've got the ability to put, you know, a pressure on the quarterback and wreak havoc in the backfield. And then when you talk about the guys they signed on the defensive line and you look at the guys like settle and Foley and guys, you're like, eh, you know, I personally thought reader and the guys that they had a year ago, Rankins. I thought those guys were better and I wasn't sure what they were going to do because we heard that to me goes out of his mouth was we're going to improve our run defense and our interior defensive line. I'm like, did they really do that? But then when you see the way that they were able to play, they played better. Aziz El Shair better than what we had a year ago. Then you go out and even at toe toe is a guy we weren't expecting much from. He's better than he was a year ago. Even we Christian Harris out. Now you add white and we're like, well, in a couple of weeks, maybe he's just depth and we'll see if he can contribute at all. And he's contributing. And even at the other corner spot when we were wondering about if a kuda was going to be the guy that was going to start and now you look at Lasseter and you look at the way that they move Petrie and the fact that they, the safeties aren't great, but they're okay except for Bullock who's a guy that you really can bank on. There is depth and there's talent across the board on this defense, which should excite you because especially as it specifically relates to the Lions game, they were wreaking havoc all night long and yeah, everybody's gonna say, well, at the end, they couldn't stop. Not many teams can stop Gibbs. Not many teams can stop this Lions offense. You held them to about half the points they were averaging in the last several games. For me, it's because you can wreak havoc on a quarterback because that is a very important thing to do from the defensive side of the ball. Like whenever we look at the offense right now for the Houston Texans, they're like, well, what is a yelling them? What is going wrong? And there's a bunch of different things, but it's like your quarterback play for many different variables, play calling, protection, injuries to the wide receiver. A lot of quarterback play by itself. There are a lot of variables that go into the production of the position. But that's the most important position in all football. That makes an offense go. So if you can have these kind of days in the NFL against some of the better quarterbacks where Jared Goff, who's been unbelievable, goes 15 for 30 and five interceptions or Josh Allen, who's one of the favorites to win the MVP, goes nine for 30 for a hundred and 31 yards because you can get into the face of the quarterback that you're facing. And you can do it quite frankly because your defensive line's really good. You can do it with a four man rush. You can do it with Daniel Hunter. Like, well, Anderson didn't even play in this in the game against the Lions. He's going to help you. I promise you that the reigning defensive player of the month that would help the Houston Texans. So look, the Texans are nowhere near their potential. They haven't played anywhere near their potential. I'm not even telling you that they're going to get to their potential. Maybe this is just who they are offensively, a middle of the pack offense that's incredibly disappointing considering the expectations we had for them. But I'm telling you right now, right now, their defensive line might be the best in the NFL. It's one of the best in the NFL. And you can see it. The proofs in the pudding based on how they make these quarterbacks struggle and these really good quarterbacks struggle. So I think that they have a puncher's chance against anybody that they play. Now do they need to play an A plus game if they ran into the Chiefs or the Ravens in the playoffs? Of course, everybody would. But because their defensive line can make a quarterbacks life miserable, I think they have a puncher's chance against anybody they play. Well, you think about it, if you're playing quarterbacks that are of that grade and that skill level, all it takes is one game. It's not a three game series. If you get in and you're able to do that against a good quarterback and a good team and a playoff situation, you're giving yourself more than a puncher's chance. You can slow them down and have the effectiveness you've had against several of the quarterbacks that you mentioned. So I think that that's encouraging all in itself. The depth, the talent, the ability to have standout guys at almost every level of the defense. And then to have the track record you've already shown playing good offenses and good quarterbacks. On the flip side, people call me crazy. But when you start talking about the fact that Joe Mixon until he got hurt and see if you notice the narrative here, but until he got hurt, Joe Mixon was having one of the better seasons as he was running back in the NFL, and oh, by the way, going into the game, he was third in terms of yards per game. Then when you look at it, Nico Collins until he got hurt was the best receiver in football and was putting up massive numbers. So you've got talent there running back and at wide receiver and even with digs. And I think that it all starts with the offensive line because of the fact that I still believe in CJ Stroud too. So if they can just somehow find a way to just put a band-aid on it and make shift this offensive line, this offense can still score points. We saw it in the first half Sunday night. Yeah, you're now you're talking about like reaching their potential, which I'm with you. Like if those things hit, now you reach your potential and we'll see how it goes. And you have, you know, when you're six and four right now, so you have seven games left to figure it out. And then hopefully you're lucky enough to get into the to the postseason. You're lucky enough to get into the tournament, lucky enough to get into the dance and try to make a run. But if there's one thing that I would hang my hat on right now, like let's say the playoffs started tomorrow. What is the one area that you feel gives you your best chance to win a football game? And for me, it's by far the defensive line. And you're not getting the quarterback play that you want that you think that you need to win in the NFL or win critical games in the postseason or win consecutive games in the postseason. But your defensive line is limiting what the opposing quarterback is doing to where if they have a bad day and the Texans have shown that they're more than capable of having a quarterback have a good quarterback, golf and Allen, then they can go out and win that specific game. So if the Texans were playing a playoff game tomorrow and you were to say, well, you have to risk your life on one specific area of this football team. What would it be? For me, it's easily the defensive line. I'm curious what other people think seven, one, three, seven, eight, zero ESPN, HRMP listener line seven, one, three, seven, eight, zero, three, seven, seven, six. I do think that the corner play helps that because if you can defend and you can cover then it allows the defensive line more time, all of those things. If you spoke to the depth of the team, that's, that's one area where I don't love the depth. Like Kamari Lasseter went off and they had to go to Kadir Holman and it's like, Oh, that's a massive drop off. Hopefully a kuda is back and we can see a kuda actually play a little bit of defense this year. I still think that's a significant drop off, but one area of this football team that you think is the best. I don't know how the answer is not defensive line. And also remember when we talked about it, even from the start of the season, but ironically it was starting with the coaching staff that was talking about, Hey, the defense is ahead of the offense. Hey, in training camp, the defense has been out playing the offense. Well, we were like, yeah, okay, but that's going to change. Well, it hasn't. We've said throughout the season that the calling card for this team has been the defense and the offense at times has been good, but that's why I highlighted the guys on offense because we talked yesterday. We've never seen the perfect storm hit where the running game and the passing game are clicking basically at the same time and they're clicking on all cylinders, but be, but on the times where you just have won the running game or the passing game, that can be enough when your defense plays to the level that they're capable of playing. And they have to step up offensively, though, like, I don't think there's anybody who would say like, if we ask the question, what is the strong suit of this team? What is the one area that you think could be one of the best in the entire NFL? 713780 ESPN, defensive line, the right there, defensive line, the right there with anybody in the NFL. I think that they, I would stack up the Texans defensive line with just about anybody in the NFL. Line backers, no, probably not. Maybe if you had Harris and disease, that's different, but you don't, you haven't had Christian Harris all year, so I can't do the ifs and buts, you haven't had them all season. The corners, I like the cornerback duo, but do I like it more than the defensive line? No. Safety's you're not saying that, Stroud has played nowhere near what we thought he was going to play. You know, running back has been fine, but it's kind of a one-headed monster and it's kind of been iffy and he's been hurt receivers, you thought would be, but Nico has been hurt, digs has been out for the year, tank, a lot of people thought, underproduced in the first few games when both of those guys were healthy, Schultz hasn't been that good in the offensive line. It's probably been the weakest point of the Houston Texans. I don't think there's another answer. I think it's an obvious clear cut. The strongest position group on this football team is defensive line and it probably should be. You drafted Will Anderson number three after you traded up for him one defensive rookie of the year. You signed Neil Hunter to a big two year contract. You did change some pieces in the interior defensive line. Like you said, that you had some questions, you had some wonders, but Foley's been good, settles been good. Mario Edwards has been good. This tongue and guy that they picked up from the practice squad looked pretty good to me. Whatever I was watching the film earlier today, so I don't, I don't think that there's any other answers. Is there any other position groups that even contend? Quarterback count. I don't think quarterback is even close. So he's just, I was playing nowhere near like a top 10 quarterback. No, I mean, you're going on potential. Well, but yeah, and talent. I mean, I still think that the talent is there. There's no doubt that because of all the factors we've talked about, that the production is way down and the performance is down, but it doesn't stop me from believing that this guy is still one of the top 10 quarterbacks in this league and then on a good day, or when, you know, when he's got protection that he can be higher than that. Yeah, for sure. But that's going on, that's going on expectation that's going on potential and that's going on like, you know, what you think of him going forward. And I agree. Like I think C.J. Strout has top five quarterback potential. Is he playing like a top five quarterback right now? No. And there's a lot of variables. Again, they go into quarterback production. If you put C.J. Strout on a, you know, a high school football team, the Millby Buffalo is he's going to have struggles. He's going to have a very difficult time. You put an average quarterback on the best offense in the NFL, then they're going to shine. Like that might be Jared Goff. Like Jared Goff's playing like a top five quarterback unless he's going up against the Houston Texans. Do we think Jared Goff is one of the top five quarterbacks from a talent perspective in the NFL? I don't. Brian does. He thinks he's going to win the MVP. That's different. Because that's talking about the production of the player. That's talking about the production because of the offense that he's built around. And sorry for the stray Millby buffaloes, but yeah, the defensive line to me is easily clear cut, the best position group that they've put on tape this year because I agree with you. Stroud like, Shroud could be a top five quarterback, but they haven't put that on tape. 6927. I said at the beginning of the season that Demico sent up the defensive line similar to how the Giants set up their D line for all those Super Bowl runs. I don't think it's a bad call make and that's the name of the game in the NFL. Like if you get really good quarterback play, you have a really good chance to win. C Pat Mahomes. If you have a defense that can ruin the day for quarterbacks, you're going to have really good defensive performances. And that's right now. The best chance for the Houston Texans to win bears, Broncos, Ravens. Those are the type teams when they got to a Super Bowl. Those weren't led by offensive, you know, juggernauts. Those were led by teams that had a defense that was able to absolutely win a game almost single handedly by themselves without a ton of offensive production. When you think about it, the comparison to the Giants is good because he had tuck on the inside. You had straight hand on the outside. You had, you know, solid runstoppers in the middle. You had guys across the board, you know, San Francisco. They used to have that kind of line. And then with cap casualties, they had to kind of get creative and move some guys. But when you look at it, Autry's a guy you can move around. When you've got Anderson and, and, and you've got Hunter on the outside, they can control the edge and they can get after the quarterback. The inside guys are just absolutely just blobs, you know, stocking up the run and getting back in the backfield. They're capable of being as staunch as any D line in this game and they are capable of winning games. Yeah. Christian group on this team that can rival the Texans defensive line 7, 1, 3, 7, 8, 0 ESPN, 6, 0, 4, 3 said, Shroud had protection this week, crap the bed. I think the protection was better, but I'm not going to sit here and say that Strauss protection was fantastic. That said, Shroud did crap the bed in the second half. I think he choked in the second half 7, 1, 3, 7, 8, 0, 3, 7, 7, 6, busy show cash over trash. We'll get into the rockets rockets on the big win dare I say they're rolling to start the season. That might be too strong of a word that they're rolling, but they're playing well, a film don't lie. We'll hand out game balls today too after the conclusion of week 10, after Monday night football yesterday, 7, 1, 3, 7, 8, 0, 3, 7, 7, 6 on Twitch, twitch.tv/espn975 on YouTube at ESPN Houston on Twitter and ESPN 9, 7, 5, blankers at Pac Man Joel, Brian's at sex by BMAC. I'm a Jeremy Branham first half second half. What is the problem? What is going on with the Texans between the first half and the second half? I wanted to see what it looked like last year. Is this something that is a, is there a correlation here? Is it a continuation for me a year ago or is this kind of just an anomaly or you have to find out next? It is the bees on ESPN 9, 7, 5 and ESPN 9, 2, 5. You're back with a killer bees on ESPN 9, 7, 5 and 92, 5, live in the Veritex community bank studios. Here's Joel Blanken, Jeremy Branham, 7, 1, 3, 7, 8, 0, ESPN, 3, 7, 7, 2, why do the Texans continue to struggle scoring points in the second half? I shouldn't have gone to bed at halftime. How do you go bed at halftime and suddenly I flip off the Texans of your team? It just doesn't make sense to me. It doesn't make any sense to me. How old are you? You're 70? 6, 6, 0, 2, Aaron Gliddmane, some absolute great adjustments for his Lions defense for the second half. That is true, but this has been a problem all year for the Houston Texans. Not just Detroit. I am very happy for Aaron Glidd, though. Grew up in the UMBOL Aldin area, Winter Nimitz, Winter Texas A&M was a course or an original Texan. So I am happy for the success that Aaron Glenn is having. I'm sure he'll be a head coach next year. I was just going to say the next step for Aaron Glenn is going to be a head coach in this league. Next season. There's no doubt. Yeah. There's going to be a lot of candidates though. Like it depends on how many jobs come open because I'm hedging what I say here because Aaron Glenn Ben Johnson will both be candidates. Do you think Brian Flores gets a head coaching job? He'll be out there at least as a candidate. I think he'll get a candidate. He'll get interviews. Or with everything else that's going on, I'm not sure he's going to get a job. Same. Same. I would have Glenn more likely than Flores, but there's going to be a lawsuit. Yeah. Yeah. And because his tenure as a head coach was pretty mediocre. And I would also add to the conversation as far as like, will these guys get jobs specifically Flores and Aaron Glenn? I think we have also seen a trend of on the most part over half the time, teams are hiring offensive guys, especially if they have a young quarterback. So that is also playing against them. I don't know how many. I mean, D'Amico, I mean, obviously it was the defensive guy that got hired, but for the most part, it feels like more offensive guys than defensive guys are getting hired right now. Is that coaches? I would say the bigger thing too is think about where Aaron Glenn is right now. You know, and these guys are getting a little pickier now to not just take the first job that comes available, taking a job that's the right fit for them to your point, Brian. Maybe he's looking for, you know, if he's going to coach the defense as well, that he's going to want a team that's ready to play now or have defensive players. But look, Ben Johnson turned down jobs two years in a row. I think Aaron Glenn could possibly be picky because he knows he's in a great spot where he doesn't have to leave Detroit unless it's the right opportunity. It's dangerous though. Same. Look what happened to Bobby Slowick or Eric B. Enemy triple zero to Bobby Slowick will not be a head coach candidate true or false. I would go true. I don't, I don't think anybody's hiring Bobby Slowick. His offense is in the middle of the pack in the NFL and many people expected it to be potentially top five. So yeah, it's been a disappointing season. C.J. Stroud's numbers between his rookie year and his sophomore year have gone down. So the arrows trending down for Bobby Slowick, I would be stunned if he were a head coach in the NFL next year, I'd be stunned if you were the offensive coordinator for the Texans next year. What are the chances he's the offensive coordinator for the Texans next year? Well, that's a good question. I'm still like 70. 30. Yeah, I still expect him. If he doesn't get a head coaching job, I would expect and DeMico seems to be a really loyal guy to his guys anyway. But I think that I think, especially, it's going to come down to C J. If C J still comfortable with Bobby Slowick, I think you're putting, you're telling, you're asking your third year head coach to decide the fate of your offensive coordinator. DeMico's doing that. I don't think DeMico's making a switch. I think that if there's synergy between Bobby and C J, they can, look, look what he's done with everything else, including when the offensive line was even more in shambles than it is now. We'll work it out. We'll handle it internally. It's a great, it's a question definitely worth just thinking about discussing. But I think DeMico will bring him back. But do you think DeMico would ask C J. Shrout his input, like, like you make the decision, C J. He might not make the decision. But yeah, I don't think he'd ask it for this input. Probably. But there's no way, I'm not sure that he would. If DeMico is determined 100% sure that he's going to bring Slowick back, I don't think he would ask Shrout because if you ask Shrout and Shrout says no, and then you bring back Slowick anyways, now you're between a rock and a hard spot. You are. Now you're trying to go to him, but pissed off to Sean Watson. Yeah. But hey, what do you think of the GM and then not taking his advice? It depends on where DeMico is at in the thought process. If he's 60, 40, he's willing to bring Bobby back and then he asked C J and C J like no way, then I think he would make the switch. But if DeMico was 100% sure he's bringing Bobby Slowick back next year, I don't think there's any chance he's asking C J. I think that there is. I think that he's discussing it. Maybe he would make it more about discussing it with key members of the offense. But what's the point? If you're 100% sure, because now you can take the law, maybe you find out something you didn't know. Maybe you find out that that mix in and or Nico or other guys had their issues. I mean, you see what happened in Chicago and basically it was that Iberflu's first and foremost came out and said, I'm sticking with my guys and the coaches are going to continue to do what they're doing. And then all of a sudden, I guess they said six to eight of the guys members of the offense or more came to the GM's office and said, and the head coach and said, we want to change and that's when they fired him. So I think that when you're talking, I don't think it's apples to apples though, because I think Iberflu's would have really liked to fire Walter. So he wasn't 100% sold on him. If you're 100% sold on a guy, you're not going to go ask other people their input. I don't think, but if CJ is not happy and because you know he's your franchise quarterback and you know you want him here long term, I do believe that that's a conversation that would happen. Yeah. It feels like you're saying Joel that even if Demico is 100% he'd be willing to be talked out of that position of CJ voice to strong opposition. Yeah. I think that there's a there's a chance that the way it could play down is he leaves the season or he walks away from the final game of the season thinking I still want Bobby to be my OC. But at the end of the year, when you have those end of the year meetings with each player and you talk to guys on the offense, if you find out there's an overwhelming consensus that there's issues with Bobby Slowick, then it's something you got to reevaluate. That's probably not 100% sold on the guy though. It's probably closer to like 75, 80, maybe a little bit closer to the fence than you know, just determined that he's back no matter what a three four one. I think he's walking a fine line on either being here or being gone depends on how the season ends. It's probably true. It's probably a season on the brink for Bobby Slowick. Thank you. Mr. Feinstein. Good book. 6043 is it a Bobby problem or CJ problem because I lean towards CJ being the problem. I don't. I think that I think you would have a whole lot less to say about CJ Shroud if he was given the ample time to throw the football. If he wasn't constantly looking over his shoulder and getting happy feet, knowing that he's been drilled way too much this season, so is that a Bobby problem or an offensive line problem? I think it's I think it's both. I think it's the offensive line and it's Bobby before I would start pointing a finger at CJ. I think it's all intertwined. I think that they're all parts of the eventual result. I would put more weight on the offensive line then Slowick and then Stroud, but they all they all have some fault. They all have some blame. They're all part of the, you know, the final result. A240 brain and T hopefully the Texans next three games they take them like they should. I do think they will surprise the fans and be either the Chiefs or the Ravens. Um, I mean, those guys, I mean, those teams might be resting some starters at that point of the year. That's a little early. Little early, maybe the Chiefs because they're nine to no, little early, probably the Chiefs more than the Ravens you're right. Because the Ravens aren't even in first place in the race. Right now, if the playoff started this week, the Texans will be hosting the Ravens in the four or five match up and then which one is the, um, let's see, they play, they play Baltimore after Kansas City. So Kansas City is not resting starters in week 16 Miami, K.C. Baltimore to finish the season. No, there's a division game in the last week of the season. And then Tennessee. Yeah. So the four games after the buy home from Miami, add Kansas City home for Baltimore at Tennessee. So Kansas City is not resting starters. Was three games left now. Oh, yeah. Like I recant. I recant. Uh, seven, one, three, seven, eight, zero ESPN. Let's go out to the HRNP listener line. Troy and Crosby. You're in the high. What's up, Troy? Hey, what's going on, guys? Hey, I haven't written the Texas office here, but I was just wondering what you would thank him. How can I think about this draft is they used their first two draft picks on the offensive line. Cause I think everybody agrees. The defensive line is pretty short up. Do you think it's your second round pick? If you get a starting offensive lineman through the second round, I'll hang up and listen. Appreciate you, Troy. Always good to hear from you. Look, I think there's no doubt. I think when you start talking about where a lot of offensive linemen are drafted, you can find good offensive linemen that were drafted lower than that. I think you look at Juice Scruggs, whether you're, you know, the jury's still out or how you feel about Juice Scruggs. You got Juice Scruggs in the second round and he was penciled in to start immediately. I think you can find guys that can be starting defensive lineman in the draft. Don't let Nick pick one in the first round and expect big things, but yeah, I think it's definitely a possibility. I mean, the Texans drafting offensive lineman hasn't been that fruitful. You mentioned Juice Scruggs. Juice Scruggs is the weak link on this offensive line. Either he or Shaq Mason. And let's not forget they moved Juice Scruggs because they don't love the coverage calls. He's putting them in prior to that. I mean, this last draft, you drafted Blake Fisher. How many games have Blake Fisher started for you? So like Troy's asking how many of those guys are going to start for you? Well, Blake Fisher was literally drafted in the second round and has not started a game. Now, should they have drafted a tackle or should they have tried to shore up their interior offensive line? But how about the first rounder that Nick Casario drafted in Kenyon Green, who was the weak link before the weak link. He's your weak link's favorite weak link. So I don't know. You should. You should. Now, is Nick Casario going to draft starters with his first two picks on the offensive line? Track record's not good for the Casario in that department. That comes out of the talent evaluation more so than the question to Troy, can you get a starting defensive lineman in the second round? Yes, you absolutely can. Now, can Nick Casario do that? That's a different question because you're right. I mentioned Kenyon Green and we talked about Juice Scruggs. Look, he found a guy like Patterson on the flip side in the sixth round, I think it was. And he has been really, really steady for you. And he's been a huge shot in the arm when you needed one for depth and for the ability now to start at two different positions. But when you look at it overall, you should be able to do it. If you're Nick Casario trying to do it, it might be a different story because Kenyon Green's been an absolute bust and Juice Scruggs has been less than I think in the case of Fisher, they drafted him thinking this year was going to be basically a work in progress to get him ready and more experience to play. But at the same time, you're right. I don't feel confident putting him out there. I think it's fair to ask the question too, if that's the right call. Like, should you be treating second rounders with the mindset of you want them to groom and develop for a year, whenever you only get them for four, you only get them for four. You do. But at the same time, you're banking on the fact you just spent a whole boatload of money on your right tackle and he's supposed to be playing above average and then you find out he's playing below average. I could make the argument though that's that's even worse because if you're spending the financial resources to pay a right tackle and now you're combining a draft resource to be the backup for that right tackle, it's a double whammy. But I think you did it because at the time when you signed them to the contract, you thought that he was going to be what you thought he was going to be. Now when you get to the draft a year later and you realize, we might have swung and missed on this one. How do we bail as soon as possible? Well, we get a guy that in a year's time should be ready to replace him if we want to let him walk. Yeah, I don't disagree. I just don't know if that's the best strategy because you look at some of the other offensive linemen that were drafted in the second round and it's like, okay, I could have used some of these guys. These guys might have been instant starters. It might not be a strategy. It might be a quick bail bail bail out procedure. Why are they going to strategy? I mean, that's, I mean, it's just reacting on the fly when you know the decision is a game plan. And I do think ultimately that is the game plan. I do think that this is tight as hours final year at the Texans and Blake Fisher will be your right tackle next year. But should you be doing that with a second rounder, seven, one, three, seven, eight, zero ESPN. I sent out a tweet today. The approval rating of Bobby Sloeck. I'm curious to see what you guys think it would be and what it actually is. And let's dive into the numbers here. Bobby Sloeck last year, first half, second half, is it consistent? Well, we've seen this year, seven, one, three, seven, eight, zero ESPN, HRMP listener line. It's the bees on ESPN 97 five ESPN 92 five guys word for my good friends at Stella Rosa wines. 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So appreciate you doing that. Hot takes in here. I asked my followers on Twitter at Jeremy Brown. Do you approve of the way that Bobby Sloeck is handling his job as the offensive coordinator of the Houston Texans? Look, we just got done with a election season. So approval rating here for Bobby Sloeck. What do you guess the approval rating is? There's been 332 votes so far. Not that matters, I guess 15% yes, the approval rating is doing a good job. All right, Brian, where are you at on this? I think it's going to mean more negative recency bias, I'm going to say it's around 40. That would be that would be more positive by a long shot. No approval rating of 40's more than you didn't Joe say 50. No, he said 11. Oh, 15. I've heard of like what in the world? No, I'm a sir Joel, no, but I stand by my okay. That's obviously not more putt more negative than but I'll stick with my number at 40. The approval rating for one Bobby Sloeck is 11.4%. Yeah, 11.4% of people think that Bobby Sloeck is handling his job as the offensive coordinator of the Houston Texans. Well, are they approved of the way that he is handling the job? So are is the patience of the city getting thin on Bobby Sloeck without a shadow of a doubt? There's no doubt. I see people on the timeline saying that they should fire Bobby Sloeck. People were reacting to the Shane Waldron news, whatever he got fired earlier this morning is the offensive coordinator of the Bears. People on the timeline were saying that Bobby Sloeck should be next. So they're calling for his job. There's only 11.5% of people that approve of slow weeks handling of the OC job right now for the Texans. Bobby Sloeck is public enemy number one. There's no doubt about it. And it's always the recency bias and it's always the what have you not done for me lately that stands out for people. But at the same time when you look at it with Bobby Sloeck, it's not surprising, but it's also ridiculous. I just think that bad teams that are going, you know, probably going to get worse are the teams like the Bears that end up firing their OC at this point in the season. And they think that when you look at Bobby Sloeck, I think it would be a huge mistake to fire him in the middle of the season for people calling for his job. I think it's ridiculous because as much as you could say, even last Sunday night, that, you know, the second half was awful. Well, the first half wasn't bad. And they were able to at least get some points, get points. And they're still having some success. I don't believe in firing Bobby Sloeck and I don't believe there's a change needed at play calling. I just think that philosophically he needs to change some things in the way he calls games and look at a different way to do it. But I think that there's still enough talent and he's had enough success with a lot of the guys that are on this roster that I don't think it's the kind of move the Texans should make right now. I'm in a hundred percent agreement. I think it'd be foolish, really, for the Texans to make a change in offense and coordinator at this moment. Now, the big frustration that I think fans have is basically the second half. I mean, it's all been a disappointment. The Texans are 15th in total offense. We expect them to be top 10, maybe even being a top five team. They're scorerings outside of the top half in the NFL. I think it's 17th, whereas, you know, they're all total offense of 15th or total points per game, 17th or 18th somewhere in that area. If you're a believer in the analytics, they're offensive DVOA, I think, slipped to 22. So it's outside of the top 20 in the NFL. So it's been an overwhelming disappointment. But when you look at it specifically, first half versus second half, I think that's where a lot of the higher lies whenever it comes to the fan base in the Houston Texans. And I wanted to go back because last year, everybody like Bobby Slough. For the most part, there was a, there was a, you know, a decent minority that a slow X overrated, Strauss, Kerry, you know, all these things. I did see that last year, but I wanted to go back and look at last year's numbers and compare them to this year's numbers to see if it was correlation, if it was a trend, if it was an anomaly so far this year. So the Texans so far this season in the first half have scored 14.2 points per game. Okay. That number in the second half slips to 8.2. That's a full touchdown. Touchdowns are still worth six, right? That's a full touchdown. The slippage from first half to second half for the Texans is a touchdown. That's absurd. That's a crazy number. And of course, we know the stat they haven't scored an offensive touchdown in the second half. I haven't scored a touchdown period in the second half of the last four games. Although it think, oh, should have had one, a CJ Sprout makes a halfway decent throw. So last year, the Texans in the first half 11.7 points per game in the second half, 10.9. So still worse in the second half, like they are this year, but the gap wasn't nearly as big. How do we make sense of this? It's the same way when you were talking about the point differential and the fact that, you know, you can get a significant plus rating in the first half and then a significant minus in the second half. You look at it and you start saying, well, is the batter's eye bad in the second half? Because, you know, I joke about the, the Astros part of this, but sometimes you're scratching your head going, how does this happen? Is it all simply the fact that they're just not aware of the adjustments coming? And then they don't adjust after they see what the adjustments are because we know that offensively, we know, I mean, we know offensively and defensively that Rogers had mentioned during the Jets game that they adjusted quite a bit at the half that they were going to do things differently. They wanted to take Joe Mixon away in the second half. They wanted to do some things offensively that they saw with the Texans with the looks they were getting. Is it just that the offense isn't adjusting to what the defense is doing? We knew Quinn and Williams was going to have his way with the majority of the snaps when he was specifically being lined up over over Kenyon Green and then his replacements. But overall, it was how they treated the entire defense of the Jets and how they didn't adjust. But that's obvious first half second. They were doing the same thing in the first half second half against Quinn and Williams. But I'm saying, but then you start thinking about that if they're going to clog the middle more, they're going to try and take away more of the lanes for mixing. They're going to really force CJ to try and beat him because they knew they were getting pressure off the edges. Then Bobby's got to adjust. Does he have to move the pocket, does he have to roll him out? Does he have to do some things to create some different opportunities than the looks he was getting in the first half, which weren't great, but they were okay. But he didn't have any time either. And I think that where it comes down to me is that we constantly look at these numbers and what it correlates to is I just don't think there's enough adjustments, whether it be coming out of the locker room at halftime or then once you see what they're trying to do to you and how do you adjust to try and take advantage of other things? Yeah, I think that that's the biggest difference is that, you know, adjustments happen really series to series like I think slow, it's a good game planter. Go watch the first half of the game against the lions, like they're doing some good stuff. They score a touchdown. Yes, on a short film, they're opening possession, doing some good stuff. The Joe mix and big big pass and run on the second possession, they got him down to the three yard line before the juice crugs holding took him really out of touchdown range and had to settle for a field goal. I think he's a good game planner. I think he has difficulty once the defense adjust to what he has set. I think he has difficulty kind of going off the off the fly. I think he has trouble just like seeing the game. I saw was the left tackle that filled in for the starting left tackle Skinner. He went on a podcast. I saw a stress and retweet this and he was talking about how Ben Johnson saw a play where Skinner got whooped like he whiffed got beat really, really badly. I don't know which defensive in was on him and then Johnson was like, Hey, do the same thing again. He used that aggression against them. Like I don't think that slow, it really has that feel where he's okay. Here's the thing that they're changing and this is our counter to the subtle thing that they're changing. Cause they're not, they're not all of a sudden going to go from like a nickel formation to run in three, four, like you have a pretty good idea of what you're going to see, but there are these subtle differences that defenses make. And if you're game planning for the defense and you're doing a good job early, they make a subtle change to what you're doing. And then you're not good at reacting off of that. That's why you see these numbers like the second half scoring being down a full touchdown than the first half. I think he has bad in game feel. I don't think he lets the game talk to him. No, I think the feel is the biggest thing that I was going to say. The adjective I was going to use is because I don't disagree with the game planning aspect of it. From a field standpoint, the one thing I've noticed, we've talked about it previously, I noticed, I noticed again the other night in the last couple of games with Bobby Sloeck. From a field perspective, it's even the times that he decides to pull out a gadget play. It's like when the offense is finally starting to get a little rhythm, they're starting to click a little bit. They're moving it faster and then all of a sudden he tries like a double reverse leaf liquor or something out of the ordinary that ends up being a loss of six, seven, eight yards instead of just kind of continuing to do what you're doing, which is put the defense on its heels and have them be more reactionary than they have to be than they have been because of the fact you're having success. And it lets all the wind out of the sails and you're like, okay, now we got to start deep in our own tear. I mean, like seven, eight yards back from the sticks looking at a second and 15 second and 17 as opposed to continuing to do, which was matriculating the ball down the field. I believe that that's the issue. It's not about the game planning. It's about the field and in game, he lose, he doesn't have the touch and the feel for when to do certain things or how to do certain things as it relates to making adjustments. It's kind of like not to be super like cheesy and cliche, but it is chess. Like if you're sitting down and you're playing a match of chess and I've been known to be called the Branham Gambit from time to time, you're going to adjust based on how your opponent is playing. You can't just go in and be like, this is what we're going to do and be this binary robot and I'm going to do this move and that move and this move and that move and then not adjust to your opponent. You have to take what you are seeing and adapt based on it. It's a dance a little bit. You see what the opponent is doing to you and then you kind of, you kind of dance off of that. You adjust. You have the counter moves off of that. I think he's kind of robotic. I think he's kind of binary. I think he's really good at seeing what a defense has been doing, game planning against that defense, which leads to these first half numbers being high. And I think he has a very difficult to difficult, difficult time reading the game, taking the vibes off of that and then having the little counter moves to their subtle moves to defend them. I think that's what it is. That's my takeaway of what's happened with Bobby Sloe. Here was Sloeic asked whenever he was asked last week about first, second half the adjustments and all that. Here was the answer from Bobby. There's no people like to think there's some secret sauce between the first half the second half. There's all these adjustments that happen. Everybody makes adjustments. We've talked about it before. You know, you have subtle things that happen within a game. There's not one thing a defense is doing in the second half that's different than what they do in the first half. We're not doing our job as well, you know, and that's been an emphasis for us for three weeks. And we got to keep straining on it. All right. I promise you that there are differences. Again, they might not have these wholesale, formational differences where you're facing a nickel and then they're running three, four, like, okay, I get that part. But to say that a defense from first play to last plays, we're going to basically be doing the same thing without subtle changes based on what you're doing to expose that defense is stupid. That's a lie. Well, maybe it's not. Maybe it's serious. Yeah. Maybe it's not a lie. That's what I'm scared of is that's not a lie statement. That's not true. Yeah. That's the lie. But why is that? Yeah. That's the matter. He either misspoke in phrase that phrase. Well, he was trying to say wrong or that's a very scary statement. And that's where I'm at. Hopefully it's not. Hopefully it was just him, you know, doing the media thing and I don't really care what people say to media. Like it's all kind of overrated and they're just going to tell you what, you know, sounds good or, you know, what gets them through the press conference quicker. I don't really put a whole lot of stock into press conference stuff. But if the dude's like, oh, yeah, there's no changes for what a defense. It would kind of speak to the numbers though. It would kind of speak to what the numbers are telling us about this offense. But then maybe it does speak to the bigger picture of, do you have the right guy for the job if that's literally how he thinks about something that we all know not to be true and we're not in any NFL coaching staff, but we can see it when you watch the games and you watch the film and you see the tape, you realize adjustments are being made. As you said, from series to series play to play, but more so specifically when you have the time to go into the locker room and have that, that meeting time and kind of evaluate what you've seen in the first half film, you make changes. You make adjustments and both teams do it to say that they're not as ludicrous. Playing that out a little bit hypothetically, let's say Bobby Sloak meant exactly word for word, what he said. Where's he getting that from? Is he getting that from what he sees from D'Amico? Because we've seen obviously the Texans and I mean, the offense gets all the all the scrutiny, but we've seen the second half against the Jets that go from zero points and pop off and score three touchdowns. The Lions are completely held down in the first half, pop off and you can't stop them. Hypothetically, if what Bobby Sloak is true, maybe he's getting that from D'Amico's not adjusting or making changes in the second half. D'Amico would be the first one to tell you that he's not a huge schemer. D'Amico would say we do what we do and we're going to be really good at what we do, which I mean, that's fine. I have no problem with that philosophy, but he'd be the first one to tell you that he's not this ultra Bill Belichick scheming type of defensive mind, but you still still see these differences for even with D'Amico, like, okay, we're going to pressure a little bit more in this half whenever we're noticing that they are exposing us when we're not sending pressure or they're exposing us whenever we're doing, you know, formation A or play call A. I think D'Amico has more feel than buying us. I think he's got the feel and I think that he's shown that from series to series or maybe just as a trend develops within a quarter that he will do some things differently, that he will bring looks from different angles or, you know, do as it relates to the run pass percentages or how they choose to stop them. I think from a Bobby perspective, it's more like this is the game plan. This is what we set out to do. So this is what we're going to do. And I don't think that whether it's paying more attention to it, not just not kind of grasping it, seeing it, feeling it as we talked about, but I just think that's where the complete breakdown happens. I mean, I hope you're right. But when you look at some of the second halfs with the defense, the Lions, the Jets, the Packers, the Bills, there's a lot of jaguars, there's a lot of second halfs where the defense rather be because they are aren't making adjustments in the second half, have had poor second half. And they did first half. Well, I mean, the Texans as a team are a bad second half team and that's both sides of the ball. They're plus 57 in the first half. Their mind is 59 in the second half. So the idea that the Texans are a bad second half team solely because of the offense is a myth. That's just fundamentally not true. But if I had to call it based on how I see it, I do think that Slovak is more binary robotic, worse it feel than D'Amico is. But D'Amico is not immune to it either. D'Amico is not immune to the criticism either. We played it. Are we, we looked at the numbers last week? What were the differences between the haves offensively and defensively? D'Amico's was greater than Bobby Slovak a week ago. I didn't adjust the numbers this week, but yeah, both play callers are absolutely subject to criticism here. But if I'm going to I test, I do think D'Amico has more feel than Slovak. No, that's not saying much. That's like talking about Branham's dance moves. I got more dance moves than Branham. Everybody does. Yeah, I think that D'Amico's, you know, from the looks he's seeing play to play, I think that he is, he's a lot better at, at quickly adjusting and reading what he sees, whereas I think Slovak is more sticking to, like I said, what the theme was and what the game plan was going into the game and saying, Hey, we almost, I'm hell bent on staying with what we decided we were going to do this week and not saying, Hey, well, they knew what you were going to do. They're trying to take some things away, adjust so that it's not as easy for them to schematically stop you. Yeah. 8, 8, 0, 7 Bobby sounding like Bill O'Brien crying emoji a little bit eight four one zero. All right, thank you, and that's enough, Bill, that's enough was slow at calling the second half in 2023 when this wasn't happening. See, that's the thing is that it kind of was happening. It might have not has, it wasn't as great a discrepancy this year, they're minus six in the second half. But last year, they were close to minus one, like it's smaller, but they were still a worst scoring team in the second half, then they were the first. So it still was happening. It's just, it's magnified. It's still a trend, but it happens in multiple years like that. It's still a trend. On the positive side of that, no, no, yeah, it's, it's grown. It's gotten worse, but yeah, it wasn't, it isn't an anomaly zero eight nine one. Texans are going to have to start scoring 30 plus points in the first half just to win games because they disappear in the second, you might be right. I thought 23 was enough, but you guess so zero eight nine one's right. It's going to be 30. Not 23. Well, that takes away from our theory that the defense is, is really capable of winning games for them too. I think that when you start playing some of the best offenses in football, it's a different story, but I think that more times than not, your defense is fully capable of doing things to help you win a football game and keep you in it. It's just that, you know, when you have the weapons and the fire power of teams like Detroit or you're going to see in Baltimore and Kansas city to a lesser degree, you, you have to, you know, go into that realizing they're going to score 25 or 34 eight eight zero seven. So much will be covered up fixed when Nico gets back. Those high leverage throws are going to Schultz right now. Look, the offense will be better, but Nico Collins is still around whenever the, the offense sputters in the second half. I mean, you're not getting a plus six, first half to second half discrepancy just because Nico Collins has been hurt the last five games. I mean, that offensive line doesn't get solved because Nico Collins is back. And whether you say that, that relates to the passing game of the last several weeks or the running game last week, the fact is, is that regardless, the offensive line still has to be better. No matter if Nico's in there or not, yes, on the off script plays that, that there's a connection there undeniably so that they are, they, they click a lot better than some of the guys that see just been trying to make throws too, but almost every place seems like an off script play because the offensive line isn't holding their own. I would argue though that Nico helps the offensive line more than Nico helps the gap between first half and second half scoring. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Cause I mean, you can have Nico and still be this great offense in the first half and then not be as good in the second half and that's happened. That's happened. This is, oh, this hasn't been a problem only in the games that Nico Collins has been out, whether it's the last five games or whether it's the games that Nico Collins was out last year, a zero eight nine one, definitely not all on Bobby, Stroud play like trash in the second half. See, I agree with this. I agree that it's not all Bobby slow. It is a combination of everything. It's a combination of offensive play caller. It's a combination of not having great pass protection or a great offensive line. It's a combination of yes, the injured receivers. It's a combination of CJ Stroud not playing well in the second half. It's all of it. It's not one thing. We looked at some of the throws that CJ made and yes, it's easy to say the two interceptions were bad. It was bad reads, bad decisions, bad throws, but there were several others throughout the second half that you could highlight and to some degree, even throughout the game, where he, he started to get a little bit too risky with some of the throws he was making. He started, put the ball behind guys instead of what he normally does when he puts it right on the side of the, the defender that he needs to put it where the, you know, the receiver only can make a play on it. He still has a lot of ability, but he's still also dealing with what he's dealt with over the last several weeks, which is every time I get the ball from center, I'm basically getting ready to run for my life in two seconds. And so I think that that's altered the way he's played the position in the last month for four, zero three. Worst thing that could happen is if Gerard Johnson leaves to be an OC somewhere else and you are stuck with this issue again next year. That's a fair point. A three, four, one, Nico is back and he starts scoring a touchdown in the second half every game then we're even Steven, but what if it's the other way? What if Nico comes back and you're scoring that touchdown in the first half and instead of being even Steven, now you're right, it's 12 in the second half versus the first half. Yeah, that's, that's, that's either way. That's bad. And again, that, that's something that regardless of Nico back or not back the offense, if Nico's back, the offense should be better across the board, but you have to rectify the bigger problem, which is the discrepancy in the fact that no one can really figure it out. That's why I said the batter's eye. No one can really figure out and put a finger on exactly why it's happening unless it is as simple as saying Bobby's not making the right adjustments as the game goes on in the second half because otherwise you got to be able to have some glaring reason, injury, lack of production, a guy not doing his job, what the defense is doing to you to explain why in the second half they're so blatantly worse than they are in the first half. 713 780 ESP and HRMP listener line 7137803776 whenever we come back. We can wait on this 713 723776 rockets wizards last night. Rockets are rolling. Huh? Would you call what they're doing a role 713 7803776? It's the bees ESPN 97 five and ESPN 92 five guys, we go to the break. We got another big weekend of sports coming up. We've got lots of sports to get it to. There's always NBA action now college basketball starting to heat up lots of great match ups on the college side tonight. 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