Payne & Pendergast

TEXANS - DOLPHINS PREVIEW: Need to be sharp against a desperate squad | 'Houtopia'

From 'Houtopia Football Podcast' (subscribe here): Sean previews a key matchup coming out of the bye with the Miami Dolphins. They're playing much better with Tua back, so the Texans better be ready to bring it. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Duration:: 33m
Broadcast on:: 13 Dec 2024
Audio Format:: other

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Find the perfect shoes for you and yours at a DSW store near you or DSW.com. ♪ ♪ ♪ We have a podcast ♪ ♪ Diving, diving, deep ♪ ♪ Diving, deep into all things ♪ ♪ Texting both on and off the field ♪ ♪ Here's Sean Pendergast ♪ ♪ Welcome, welcome ♪ ♪ So you told me that ♪ ♪ ♪ - Hey everybody, welcome in. It is a, here we go. It is a Friday edition of the Cutopia Football Podcast preview edition. We haven't done one of these in a couple of weeks. Because of the bye week, but we're gonna preview the Dolphin's game, give you my prediction on the game as well. We'll do it six pack style storylines, people that matter in this game, things that intrigue me, and maybe they intrigue you as well. This will be a nice quick type podcast to get you ready for Sunday's game. My name is Sean Pendergast. If you're new to the podcast, I am one half of Pain and Pendergast on Sports Radio 610, 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. Weekday mornings. You can get us on the radio on 610. You can get us on the Odyssey app. We have a YouTube and Twitch channel as well. A lot of ways to consume and listen to the show. If you can't get up early, 6 a.m. for the show. We've got a rewind feature on the app that you can rewind. If you happen to come in midway through the show, we also podcast the show, set our podcast numbers for the show are really, really good. So we thank everybody who is subscribed and downloads the Pain and Pendergast podcast on a daily basis. We appreciate that very, very much. I appreciate everybody who's downloading this podcast. To that end, you can see at the bottom of the screen here. If you're watching on YouTube, subscribe, rate, and review, whatever you can do to help those numbers. We love that. If you enjoy the podcast, definitely give it a rating and a review. If you don't enjoy the podcast, I'm recommending less that you give a rating and a review, but I want to operate with integrity. If you hate me, then feel free to tell me so. Either way, subscribe. That's the biggest thing that helps. I hate listen to a lot of things and subscribe to a lot of things that I hate listen. Maybe that's just me. So that's what I would love to see you do, is subscribe, rate, and review. And also, we do a mailbag episode. We're back to a normal week because there's a game on Sunday. So there'll be a recap episode that you'll see either late Sunday night or early Monday morning. Hopefully have a Texans win over the Dolphins, and then we do a mailbag episode every Wednesday. If you'd like to send me an email about anything, Texans in particular, but anything else is fair game. H-O-U mailbag at gmail.com. H-O-U mailbag at gmail.com. If you're watching on the stream, you can see it at the bottom of the screen right there. H-O-U mailbag at gmail.com. All right, so let's get popping here with this Dolphins game. And we're going to get to the six pack, the pregame six pack in just a second, but just to lay the groundwork here. The Texans can wake up Monday morning, AFC South Champions again. Of course, they won it last year. They were leading the AFC South during the regular season. Exactly zero minutes. They, well, unless you count after Tennessee lost, is it Tennessee? No, Jacksonville lost to Tennessee. They clinched the division for them. They didn't play a single minute. We put it this way. The Texans didn't play a single minute last season in first place in the AFC South. They won the division because later in the day, there was a loss for later in the weekend because they played on Saturday night the Texans did last year. So they had to wait around for a night, one sleep, and then they wake up, watch one game, poof, your division champs. Congratulations, Texans. If they're able to clinch this thing now, it would be the eighth division championship since 2011. It's kind of interesting that the Texans tend to win these things in two-year pockets. And then the next season, historically, is horrible for some reason. So I'm rooting for them to win the division, but I'm hoping that ultimately, they break the string of win the division, win the division, shitty season. That's a bad thing, man. 2011, 2012 won the division. 2013, picking first in the draft, 2014 that year. 2015 and 2016 win the division. 2017, DeShawn Watson tears his ACL. You go four and 12. And then 2018 and 19 win the division. And then the next season, Bill O'Brien's fired four games in, and he's completely ransacked the house by trading DeAndre Hopkins and giving out a bunch of shitty contracts. And the COVID year hit, and then the Texans really went into into the valley. We don't need to relive that. Let's just clinch this division and then keep winning divisions for years and years and years. That would be a suitable replacement. So the magic number is two. If the Texans are able to win this game on Sunday against the Dolphins, which we'll talk about here in a second, and the Colts lose to the Broncos, which I am predicting will happen, then the Texans will clinch the division. And then that sets an interesting chain of events in place that we'll dig into more when the time comes. It's a lot of hypotheticals, but the Texans bottom line could be in a position come back Christmas game, where they just can't move anywhere else in the standings. You know, they're two games back of the Steelers and Bills for the two and the three seeds right now. They did beat the Bills earlier this year, so they do have a tiebreaker. So if you're trying to climb up and get home-field advantage potentially in subsequent games in the playoffs and improve your seating, then I get that. The Texans most likely will be the four seed as the least of the four division winners. I would expect they're going to finish the season, probably nine and eight or 10 and seven, and they would be the four seed in the AFC. The interesting thing will come if after the Chiefs game that the Texans are three games back of the Bills, the Steelers, you know, the Chiefs are way out in front of everybody right now, and they are stuck at the four seed with two games to go. I think that's going to get very interesting to see what the Texans do in that Christmas day game against the Ravens. That's four days after playing the Chiefs and just the third game in 11 days against a very, very physical team. I would guess they're going to play it like a normal regular season game, even though they can't change their fortunes at all, but it'll certainly open themselves up to a lot of criticism if they were to play a bunch of guys and anybody's significant were to get hurt in that game. That's what makes it so interesting. Let's see what's on our plate right now though. It's the Dolphins and the Texans. Noon on Sunday, 9am Texans countdown gets started right outside the stadium, southeast corner of the stadium on a huge stage. Me and Seth Payne will be doing the pre-game show. Feel free to stop by, say hello, say Merry Christmas, whatever it is you want to do. We love seeing people out there take pictures, the whole thing. So that's it, 9am kickoff is at noon, and then Clint Sterner and I will have the post-game show following the game, leading into Sunday Night Football. The Texans as of a few minutes ago are a three point favorite. That's the biggest this spread has been really since the beginning of the season. I think my guess is the spread was bigger. The look ahead line was bigger on this game when the Dolphins, when there was some uncertainty about Tua playing in it. It may be the spread moved beyond a field goal. Four or five points, whatever it may be. Honestly, if anybody other than Tua's playing quarterback for this team, the spread should be 10 or 14 points because their backup quarterbacks are dog shit. The Dolphins that is so, but the spread right now is three. So these teams are viewed as basically equals on a neutral field. Obviously, the Texans are eight and five, but it's not a super impressive eight and five. Their point differential this season is only plus 20. When you think about businesses that are selling through the roof like aloe, all birds or skims, sure, you think about a great product, a cool brand and brilliant marketing. But an often overlooked secret is actually the businesses behind the business, making selling and for shoppers buying. Simple. For millions of businesses, that business is Shopify. Nobody does selling better than Shopify. 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And that's frankly, one of the big criticisms of Mike McDaniel is he can't beat good teams. One in 14, I think the record is against teams with a winning record. So that plays into, I think, a perception of the dolphins that they're a little soft. Now, I don't view the Texans as one of these teams that should just be cashing in a win over the dolphins by any means. I think the Texans are eight and five. I think they're lucky to not be six and seven maybe or seven and six. I don't think the Texans have played up to their record this year. I know all they care about is they're eight and five and that's fine. But if I'm handicapping this game, I think these two teams are very evenly matched, especially considering that the Texans are going to be missing two key pieces on defense with Aziz al Shire serving the first game of his three game suspension and Jalen Petrie. That news just came down literally as I was checking my email before recording this, the team officially put him on injured reserve. The news had come down earlier this week that he was going to need surgery. They finally went ahead and sent in the paperwork and Jalen Petrie is on injured reserve. So that's kind of where we are. Health wise other than the al Shire suspension and the Petrie out for the season, the Texans are getting better health wise right now. They've welcomed some guys back. Fully fought Acosse is practicing. Once again, Daniko Autry who missed the game. He's back practicing. And then obviously as we've talked about on this podcast, Christian Harrison, Kenyon Green. Not officially activated yet, but I would expect, I would hope that at the very least Christian Harris, Kenyon Green, I can go either way. We'll see what happens along the offensive line this week and who they start at left guard, Juice Grugs is going to be out for a couple games with a foot issue. So they are juggling some things right now. But by and large, about as healthy as you can hope to be at this juncture in the season if you're the Houston Texans. So let's get into it. The pregame six pack, the six, well really five storylines are people that intrigue me about this game. And then the sixth can is always the prediction. So let's get to it. Can number one, the matchup that intrigues me the most in this game and should intrigue people that are casual viewers of this game. Nico Collins, who I think you can make a case when healthy has been the best wide receiver in football this year against Jalen Ramsey, who's not quite what he wants was, but he's still good once as he ever was to quote the late great Toby Keith. In other words, Jalen Ramsey is still a pretty damn good football player. They did pay him like a premier player this offseason. Jalen Ramsey is still a very good possible future Hall of Famer. And if there's one thing we've learned this season, the barometer for the Texans offense and really the straw that stirs the drink, the one that and the guy they rely on when everything else fails, when everything's breaking down, there's number 12. It's Nico Collins. The five games without Nico Collins, the Texans were dreadful. They were two and three, all sorts of offensive issues. The eight games with Nico Collins, they're six and two and Collins leads the NFL and receiving yards per game right now. We'd have a whole lot more if they didn't commit penalties on some long touchdowns that he had as well. To Nico compared Nico to Andre Johnson this week in a press conference, and that's a comparison I had made last week, is that the similarities between the two are striking. Now, I think, now Nico's a freak. Andre's like from another planet. Nico is from the freakiest part of our planet. Andre's from another planet, but in terms of the function that they serve in this offense with the route tree, the fact that they can get deep. Even though they don't look physically like guys who are burners, they are both Andre especially. He's super fast, can get deep, perfect on the play action crossing routes, perfect when everything breaks down, missile screens, whatever it may be. Nico Collins can do everything you ask a wide receiver to do, plus block, plus practice, all of those things. He is the 2024 version of the Texans of what Andre Johnson was, and I think the personalities are very, very similar. Hell, Nico even had a shopping spree for kids at a toy store. Dre used to do that, may still do that, but that was his big charity endeavor every year. It was a big shopping spree for kids at a local department store. Nico did that very thing last week. It's not as annoying as Dylan Rayola cosplaying Patrick Mahomes. It's not annoying at all. You know what I mean? It's not like Nico Collins goes around impersonating Andre Johnson. Like that goofball Dylan Rayola, the quarterback at Nebraska does with Mahomes. That's just creepy and uncomfortable. This is just a nice coincidence that Nico Collins happens to be Andre Johnson 2.0. So the matchup of Nico and Jalen Ramsey is going to be a great one. I'm hoping it's reminiscent of the days when Jalen Ramsey, and when he was a Jaguar, he used to go at it with D-Hop all the time. That'll be a huge, huge matchup to watch in this game, and does Nico Collins keep his streak? Does he keep his average above 100 yards? I think he does. I think he has a big, big game against this dolphins defense. Cam number two, this is the first game life without Aziz al-Shire. Not the first game in the season where they haven't played without Shire. He missed a few games earlier this year, but the first game of his suspension since tattooing Trevor Lawrence to the Jacksonville, the Everbank field turf, two weeks ago. So now with al-Shire out, and now you've got Jalen Petri out as well, you've got to worry about the middle of the field. And who was it? It was Aaron Rodgers who talked about Aziz al-Shire, and when you're scouting the Texans, you've got to find where zero is because he just poses such an intimidating presence. It's not just a dolphins game, it's the next few games. Those are teams that love to eat across the middle of the field, whether it's tight ends with the two tight ends in Baltimore in a couple of weeks, whether it's Travis Kelsey and Noah Gray. John and Smith had a really good, really good last month or so for the Miami Dolphins. And then obviously all the stuff they love to do with Tyree Kill and Jalen Waddle crossing the field. No disrespect to Neville Hewitt or Henry Toa Toa Dain Aziz al-Shire in terms of the speed to be able to hang with certain guys, but the intimidating presence as well. So I think that's an issue for the Houston Texans, especially tight ends, man. John and Smith has been really, really good for the Dolphins of late. So anxious, concerned about the first game of Aziz al-Shire suspensions against these teams coming up in particular. Can number three, the chunk plays? Look, the Texans have a good defense. They're very talented, they're very productive. They defend the run decently, not fantastic, but decently, 4.1 yards per carry. They're on the right side of average. They allow the six lowest passer rating in the NFL. They allow the lowest completion percentage in the NFL. These are all things that you hear and you go, "Wow, this must be an amazing defense. There's one big problem. They give up a ton of big plays and a ton of touchdown passes." And the big plays that they allow are too far lesser teams than this version of the Dolphins. They've let teams hang around in games. Some teams even beat them in games because they've allowed huge plays. The Tennessee Titans come to mind immediately as to a game that they lost because of big chunk plays. The Colts were able to get four massive chunk plays in the season opener, but the Texans were able to counter that because the offense was moving the football in that game. Big chunk plays are a problem. The Texans are sixth in plays of 30-plus yards allowed in the league right now. That's an issue. And the problem here is the Dolphins, you know what they generate? Big chunk plays. They've got elite speed on that team. Devon A. Chain, the running back out of the backfield. Tyree Kill is the most explosive player in the NFL over the last few years. On the field, explosive off the field too. I don't know if anybody can confirm for me. Is there a 12th kid now that Tyree Kill has had confirmed? I can never tell anymore of these aggregators. They tweeted something out about Tyree Kill having another baby mama yesterday. I never know if these things are true. I know at least several of the kids are actual Tyree Kill offspring, but anyways, explosive on the field. I get audited just thinking about the child support builds for Tyree Kill when he's done getting 30 million a year playing football. This is the best paying job he's ever going to have. That's for another time and place. But they've got to cut down on the big plays the Texans do on defense. And if they're going to win on Sunday, they've got to turn this into a game where they make the Dolphins work for every yard. That's why I'd be surprised if they came out and, you know, stingling in Laster against Waddle and Tyree Kill. And they're just manning them up and following them everywhere. That's a recipe to give up 45 points. I ain't going to see a lot of zone, you know, with some, you know, man concepts sprinkled in here and there. But I think it's going to be way more zony this week and keep everybody in front of you. Ben, but don't break. You know, this might be a good weekend to have the whoever the Dolphins field goal kicker is. I can see a lot of Ben, but don't break going on out there with the Texans defense. And I'm totally cool with that. All right, can number four in the six pack by week discoveries on offense. Did we learn anything in the self scout about this team offensively? I couldn't believe when I saw that the Texans are tied for 11th in scoring in the NFL. It does not feel that way. The level of criticism of this team in this defense does not feel like a team who's in the upper third of scoring offenses. I'm sorry, criticism of the offense does not feel like this is an offense. It should be in the upper third in the league and scoring and yet they are. They're scoring nearly 24 points a game, which is remarkable when you consider that in most games, they just don't score in one of the two halves, at least touchdowns. So some of that I can start to where I've been somewhat critical of Bobby Sloak about his rhetoric and how he's tried to frame this thing with a more optimistic view than what we see with our own eyes. I can kind of get what he's saying, which is when you get sustained in a game, sustained success that's confined to a half like that, and then it just looks totally different in the second half, then there would be a tendency, I think, to say, man, just keep doing the same stuff. You guys can score consistently in the first half of games. Why not in the second? Now, the Jacksonville game was the reverse. They only scored six in the first half, but they scored 17 in the second half. Let's be clear, though. Other than the Patriots game, none of these games are offensive explosions that make you nervous or scared of the Texans' offense. I know they scored 34 in the cowboy game. Seven of that came from the defense. So I'm not going to act like a 27-point performance is an outburst of some sort, but I can kind of see where Bobby Sloak's coming from. Obviously, the issue for the Texans has been the offensive line, allowing 42 sacks. Most of the damage in the run game to me has come from Joe Mixon's individual brilliance, and not because they've just got this system working. I think there's a reason why Joe Mixon gets all the carries, and it's because he's the only one that they trust to run the football right now. So that's a little scary. So what did you discover during the bi-week? And Bobby Sloak wasn't going to give up any specifics, but he was very clear. A ton of self-scouting went on, and there are a lot of things to be optimistic about. According to him, now he's been saying that all year. We'll see what happens on the offensive line. No juice scrubs. It looks like we may see Zachary Thomas, a waiver wire pickup from New England, play some left guard. I've not watched any of him playing left guard. I let Seth Payne do that heavy lifting. And Seth was, I would say mildly optimistic about him playing guard, you know, just not over the moon or anything like, excuse me, anything like that. But from what I could gather from Seth on our show this morning, it didn't sound like it was going to be a total disaster, which unfortunately, that's the bar at left guard right now for the Texans, not a total disaster. Welcome to the NFL, sir. Here's your starting left guard spot. Well, how did I get here? Well, you're not a total disaster. So I'm hoping that that Bobby figured some things out and that they can get some balance scoring here and actually scoring both halves of games. I do think if they if I were to pick a half to, to have my outburst against the dolphins this week, it would be the first half because I think this is a team that is a little soft. I think if you get up a couple touchdowns on them, while they have the firepower to get back in the game, I could see this being a team that might, that might open up a little bit of a can of quit. Now they've still got heavy incentive to play hard in this game. They win this game. They're seven and seven and you get one or more of those eight and five wild card teams at five, six and seven that lose on Sunday. And now the dolphins can really talk themselves into some things the last few weeks. I just don't think very highly of the culture, their team and the toughness of their team. I like Anthony Weaver on defense a lot. They're defensive coordinator, but Mike McDaniel is the one who's the tone center and the way they've played against good teams and the way they've turtled in certain games. That's, I think they're a great front running team. You know, I think back to that 70 to 20 win over Denver last year. Like, I mean, if they get up on you, they're, they're into it and they'll pile it on. But I think the opposite can happen. So I'm not too worked up about, Hey, must score in the second half of this game. I'm way more about get a lead score on them earlier at home, crowd in the game, keep the crowd in the game and keep the gas foot on the gas pedal. And then I think you, I think you can, you can choke them out at that point. So that's can number four, can number five, I just think it's interesting. The other little incestuous angles of the coaching tree here going on. Dimeko Ryan's and Mike McDaniel going against each other to me is super interesting, both Shanahan staff guys. We know it's Dimeko that coordinates the, the defense for the Texans, even though he's a head coach. And similarly with Mike McDaniel, he's the one pushing the buttons on the offense for the dolphins. This should be a fascinating, fascinating coaching match up. And especially not just the personalities involved in that they have a history, but all the things McDaniel likes to do with all the motion and all the movement. And what Timiko described is all the eye candy that the Texans have to have eye discipline in this game. Going to be a fascinating matchup. And then Anthony Weaver coming back to Houston where obviously he was a player for a few years. He was on the coaching staff for several years as well, including the last season here in 2020 as a defensive coordinator where it did not end all that well for anybody that season. That was the COVID season that was awful. That was terrible. And I felt bad for Anthony Weaver that year because while the Texans were doing everything to invest resources on the offensive side, silly things like trade Hopkins and trade for branding cooks. They did nothing defensively to address anything. You know, they gave Eric Murray a contract, you know, they, they just, it was bad. Like he just, he had, in my opinion, just not great personnel on that side of the football. So maybe there's a little something in the craw for Anthony Weaver wanting to come back and show some things as a defensive coordinator now for the Dolphins. I'm really happy for Anthony Weaver that he's back on some head coaching hot lists. Bill Belichick crossing himself off head coaching hot lists and going to UNC may help some people out in terms of openings and whatnot. Although who knows, maybe nobody was interested in Bill Belichick in the NFL. So, but I'm happy for Anthony Weaver. And I'm very excited to see that McDaniel versus D'Amico matchup and see if D'Amico's messaging gets through to his team this week. I know every week, I'm sure he accentuates, don't give up the big plays. Do that? Does it get through to these guys? Does the bi-week help? Is this a matchup where having that extra week to get ready and rejuvenate and recharge more than anything else? Do we see that? Do we see an out of the bi-week used in Texas? And so sixth catch is the prediction. I say yes, but barely 27, 26 final score Texans beat the Miami Dolphins. That's my prediction. I'm not going to say that it's a hyenie fair bearing last second field goal or anything like that. But I think 27, 26, this feels like a close game between two very evenly matched teams. And that's what I'm going to go with. So there you go. All right, appreciate everybody tuning into the podcast. Appreciate my producer, Anthony Irwin for getting it out to all of you on a timely basis and a reminder to all of you too. If you haven't yet, subscribe to the podcast, give us a rating and a review as well. We'll have a recap of the Dolphins game coming up on Monday morning. It'll drop probably late Sunday, early Monday, you'll have it. And then a mailbag episode again, a reminder houmailbag@gmail.com is the email address. We do the mailbag. We do the mailbag and drops on Wednesday, records sometimes on Tuesday. Best to get your questions in by Monday or early Tuesday, if you want them to be in the mailbag. But send them in, man. This is going to be fun. Final four weeks of the season are here. This season is flying by right now. And we're into the really, really difficult part of your Houston Texans fans. So let's go get it. Let's get it together. Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas to all of you. Appreciate all of you listening to the Utopia football podcast. Enjoy the games. Have a great week. Looking for a financial institution that has fewer fees, better rates, and gives back to the local community. As one of Colorado's largest credit unions, Belco offers great rates on products like our free Boost Interest Checking and lower rates on loans, including our home equity choice line. Bank virtually any time anywhere through our online banking and our mobile app. Becoming a member has never been easier. Visit belco.org or stop by any Belco branch. 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