00:00Kamari Lassiter, we know he's been running with the ones.
00:03He's had his good moments, he's had his bad moments like a lot of the rookies have.
00:07Man, the footage, the little cut of D'Amico miked up from practice a couple days ago that
00:13popped up with Kamari Lassiter. Maybe he's cheering everybody on like this out of practice,
00:17maybe it's just D'Amico, but this is the one that popped up on social media,
00:21so this is the one I shall use. This is D'Amico marveling at the effort of the
00:26young rookie cornerback. Way to finish! Way to finish! Way to finish, 14! Way to finish!
00:35That kid freaking competing every snap. Love it! Love it! Every snap! Love it! There you go,
00:42Kamari! Let's go! Yeah, that was the Houston Texans Twitter account that put that out.
00:49I think that's the consistent thing that keeps coming up with Casario and Matt Burke and D'Amico
00:56is that they do not shy away from putting praise on this rookie. The consistency is,
01:01I mean, that's what you fear most with a rookie is, all right, is this guy going to get me fired?
01:07Is this a guy that's going to go have five mental errors in a game and let the ball sail over his
01:13head? Not because he can't physically do it, but because he's a boneheaded rookie.
01:19When they gush about a guy's consistency early in camp, it's a really good sign that they trust
01:24him to play and that he's not, whatever their tests they're putting in front of him, I think
01:29they trust that he's going to continue. He'll continue to get better throughout camp as long
01:33as he keeps working, as long as he stays healthy. So it doesn't mean he's going to be all pro or
01:38anything like that. I think you just, you need somebody opposite of Derek Singley that you can
01:41trust. Well, and I think the defense as a whole, yeah, absolutely, on Lasseter for sure. I think
01:48the defense as a whole, as long as we're doing winners and losers here, look, the offense,
01:52league-wide, the story of this team is the offense and Stefan Diggs coming in and CJ Stroud in year
01:57two and all the pieces they have and the continuity was slow at coming back and everything else.
02:02I've been really encouraged by how often the defense has won out here through the first
02:05six practices. It's been very even and I think the defensive line has been a big catalyst.
02:13That's one of those double-sided swords where, okay, yeah, I feel like the defensive line has
02:19played very well, but what does that say about the offensive line? And, okay, how much credit can
02:24I give the defensive line for going against an offensive line that doesn't have Laramie Tunsell
02:28and has a couple question marks still at left guard and center? What exactly am I seeing here?
02:34Am I just seeing a really good defensive line or am I seeing them just beat up on the hapless
02:40Texans offensive line? Because I do, the praise that I've given to Blake Fisher and Kenyon Green
02:45and Drew Scruggs so far is a little bit with a grain of salt. I haven't seen the egregious
02:50stuff that I would worry about, but they all have some work to do. But the defensive tackle
02:55position specifically, just by virtue of the experience and the different body types,
03:01I feel good about them having solid defensive tackles. And you're never
03:07going to have all pros at every single position on defense. It's just a matter of, all right,
03:12are your guys who aren't your studs, are they credible NFL players? And they did,
03:18they loaded it up with a whole lot of viable players that are competing like hell out there.
03:24And the fun thing about having veteran defensive linemen, because they've got four guys who will
03:29be over 30 years old or over on the defensive line this year, a lot of the stuff, a lot of the more
03:34nuanced stuff, the games that they run, and when you're not blitzing, but you're just running stunts
03:40with each other on the defensive line, that's the kind of stuff that gets better with age,
03:44because guys get better at the deceptive part of it. They understand better which pass protection
03:49they're going to get, because you can call that on your own on the field. A lot of defensive
03:52end and defensive tackle work together. And if they realize that it's going to be slide protection
03:57or something, they call the right game for it between themselves. A lot of times they can just
04:01do it with eye contact. So a lot of that stuff that you don't get out of younger players,
04:06they have that and they're working with Will Anderson on all that stuff.
04:09Yeah. As far as the loser side of the ledger so far, I have a hard time finding big ones aside
04:16from guys who've just not been able to be out here. And as I'm going through camp the first
04:20six days and I'm trying to kind of come up with both sides of the winners and losers ledger,
04:25it gets a little boring because I'm like, well, Christian Harris, he hasn't been out here.
04:28Joe Mixon's missed three practices. John Mechie's missed a couple practices. I guess if you're a
04:33guy who's fighting for a roster spot, which Mechie is, then if you're starting to miss practices,
04:39you fall onto that side of the equation. I would say if we're doing six practices in,
04:44the thing about Mechie is that he flashed before he got injured. So I don't think that it's,
04:50it's not like it's a huge setback or anything. I think if I look at the receiving core,
04:54Robert Woods is the guy that I look at as, man, there's a lot of talented veterans and there's
05:00a couple of very promising young guys, man. I mean, you know, when Woods lines up out there
05:05and you've also got Tank Dell and Stefan Diggs, he's not getting a lot of targets.
05:11Some of the guys I've kind of been noticing, I've been thinking, all right, who hasn't gotten a lot
05:16of targets and maybe I've just missed it, but I haven't seen Troy Harrison, the fullback,
05:21get a whole lot of targets that I can remember. And I think just in this, in the modern NFL,
05:28teams love to have a fullback, but he's got to be a fullback who can also be a receiver.
05:32And, you know, it's not like he's going to be the primary choice or anything. And maybe it's
05:36just a simple matter of that. CJ has had too many other options, but that Andrew Beck would be the
05:41obvious loser so far because he's supposed to be in competition with Troy Harrison, a fullback,
05:46but Beck hasn't practiced at all. That's a good one. That's a good one. That kind of flies under
05:50the radar. Nick has said that every time the receiving group gets brought up post dig straight
05:54is that we're going to end up cutting a couple of good players. They're going to,
05:59they're going to wind up cutting at least one guy, maybe two that immediately wind up on somebody
06:04else's team. Like if Robert Woods gets cut, he'll be in the NFL for week one. I'm pretty confident
06:09about that. You know, he'll be on a team somewhere. And then, you know, and you start to look and you
06:13go, okay, well, I think Mechie is going to make the team. I think you're right. It, it,
06:18I'd like to see him out here, but I think he makes the team. And you've still got Xavier Hutchinson
06:23from last year. You've got Skaronic, you've got Steven Sims, who maybe the kick returner
06:27and is occupying a receiver spot. And Robert Woods, there's a lot of guys. They picked up
06:31Quintess Cephas off the waiver wire. I got a lot of bodies, the guys that I'm emotionally pulling
06:36for right now are Kendrick green, the back of the offensive lineman. He's been playing both guard
06:43and center. I actually saw him at right guard at one point when he was filling in for somebody.
06:47And just cause he's undersized, but he's very, very scrappy. Like he does everything that you
06:53an undersized guy does to our Jordan. I'm incredibly intrigued by just cause he's,
06:57he's shown some real flashes, but he's undersized and we haven't seen,
07:00seen him play tackle football yet and haven't seen him go against the ones a lot. So I just,
07:05I'm excited to see him in preseason. Yeah. In game for sure. I'm excited to see him again today.
07:09He looked really good on, on, on Wednesday when we were out here.
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