Is The Texans' Offensive Line Ruining C.J. Stroud?

KILT-AM / SportsRadio 610

Payne and Pendergast received quite a few texts from Texans fans concerned about the offensive line turning C.J. Stroud into the next David Carr. Is this a legitimate concern?

Transcript

00:00Simply put, the O-line is ruining our offense, ruining C.J., and ruining our season.

00:06When are Nick and D'Amico going to wake up and make some changes?

00:09I don't know what changes exist in-house other than sticking with Kendrick Green or hoping

00:14that Jared Patterson's brain gets better and putting him in there.

00:18This is a big, this is no doubt a big four or five days coming up for Nick Casario here

00:24as the GM of this football team.

00:26You put this team together to compete with the big boys, and they're not competing with

00:30the big boys right now.

00:31There's a whole, and the whole thing is too, and I know that D'Amico's going to say in

00:36an effort in a group operation that yes, the offensive line deserves criticism, and that's,

00:41but they're going to say, okay, it is also a group effort.

00:43There's all, there is, there are things that the running backs, the tight ends, everybody

00:47else needs to do better.

00:48That first sack by D.J. Reed, I mean, Mixon ran right past D.J. Reed and didn't recognize

00:55that it was blitz.

00:56Because like, Mixon's got, C.J.'s looking for Mixon, Mixon's on an angle route.

01:01You got to get your eyes on C.J.

01:02You got to give him your eyes, because by the time C.J., you know, C.J. recognizes that

01:07it's corner blitz, but he's looking for Mixon, Mixon's still executing his cut.

01:12Like, no, get your eyes around on C.J.'s shroud.

01:16Give him an option.

01:17So it's, and I, Joe Mixon does great things as a runner and did great things last night

01:23in the first half, at least, but there's, it's multiple little things like this.

01:27That, there was no, there was no blocker for that corner blitz, which is what happens when

01:33you send corner blitzes sometimes.

01:35The running back's got to get his eyes back on C.J. and give him an option.

01:39But C.J.'s got no, C.J. had none of it.

01:41I just, uh.

01:43So we're here for you, man.

01:45We're here till 10 o'clock for you guys.

01:47And keep texting in to the 5-Hour Energy fan line.

01:50The texts, and we're getting a ton of texts today, a ton, um, the, the, one of the big

01:56things that I saw last night, Seth, I got tweets from people.

02:00We got calls about it on the post game show.

02:03It was mentioned a few times and I'm seeing it today.

02:06And this, this is long time Texan fans that are feeling this and, and, and I don't know,

02:12I don't know that I'm feeling this way necessarily yet, but I understand the draft young quarterback

02:18and they get shell shocked because of poor offensive line play.

02:23And I'm seeing the name David Carr quite a bit over the last 24 hours.

02:26The concern that C.J. is reminding me of David Carr in the seasons where he was getting his

02:32head bashed in.

02:33And I know it's a very nuanced thing with David Carr and all the sacks that, yeah, the

02:37O-line was part of that, but David held onto the ball a lot, all those things.

02:41But undoubtedly you can, you can certainly hypothesize that a big reason David Carr wound

02:47up being a failure as a franchise quarterback in the NFL was because he was getting destroyed

02:52back there early on in his career.

02:54CJ is getting at least over the last window here of a few games, he is getting destroyed

03:00physically and maybe psychologically to that level right now.

03:05He's getting destroyed and, and there's not a lot of options that I think Sloak is giving

03:10him to avoid getting destroyed that when you, when the offensive line, because like with

03:16the play we just discussed, the DJ Reed blitz, there's not, there's not an answer, but sometimes

03:22when there's going to be a blitz where it's three defenders on two blockers and that's

03:26just the way it goes.

03:27But CJ had no options at that point.

03:29There was nobody that was open or even looking for the ball downfield by the time he got

03:33into rest and, and certainly not over the middle.

03:37And some of that just ends up being okay.

03:39When Nico Collins comes back, at least you've got slants over the middle.

03:42Is anybody else incapable of running slants on this football team?

03:46Are they that decrepit in the wide receiving core right now?

03:50But it's, it's across the board and this is where it falls back on Bobby Sloak.

03:56I don't have, there are a lot of teams out there in the NFL right now who don't have

04:00Nico Collins and Stefan Diggs on their, in their receiving core.

04:04Lots of them, pretty much a hundred percent of them don't have Nico Collins or Stefan

04:08Diggs in the receiving core and yet they managed to score more than 13 points against the Jets.

04:14Some of them even score in the second half.

04:16That, yeah, that's the one I'd like to see the, the, the Texans scoring in the second

04:21half.

04:22How many teams have scored actual touchdowns in the second half without Stefan Diggs and

04:27Nico Collins?

04:28Quite a few.

04:29I'm going to track that this weekend.

04:30I'm going to, I'm going to count up how many teams this weekend scored touchdowns without

04:35Nico Collins and Stefan Diggs on their roster.

04:37Cause this is the first weekend that we haven't had either of those two guys, you know?

04:41So I'm going to see what that, what that looks like and see if teams are actually able

04:44to do.

04:45I don't know if I believe you on that, Seth.

04:46I, until I see what happens this weekend in the NFL, I don't know that I totally believe

04:51you that teams can score touchdowns without Stefan Diggs and Nico Collins.

04:55Listen, look, I'd love to just think that anybody could line up and, and, and win a

05:00game by scoring 13 points, but it's hard.

05:03It's hard in the NFL.

05:04It's hard to win these games, you know, I've heard 13 is plenty.

05:07Sure.

05:08I've heard it's hard to win.

05:09And as you know, as I say, it's hard to win in the NFL.

05:12And yet somehow 16 teams every weekend, man, every week it happens, pull it off.

05:16It's incredible.

05:17It's like, it's almost, it's like trying to find the, you know, solve an unsolvable equation

05:21or something.

05:22And yet every single week, 50% of the teams usually will win a game.

05:26Sometimes there's a tie.

05:27Sometimes there's a tie, which is a semi win, but nevertheless, but are you, are you concerned?

05:34Is there any validity to bringing up the car are bringing it up within the context

05:39of CJ Stroud is going to get ruined here.

05:42Do you have a concern?

05:43I forgot about David.

05:44That's okay.

05:45Do you have concern that you, you were a teammate of David cars.

05:47You watched it up close.

05:48Do you have a concern that, that, that if this continues, that CJ now is the magic,

05:54the magical quarterback that we saw as a rookie is all of a sudden ruined in some way.

05:58I don't think he's going to be irreparably damaged or anything because I've, he's already

06:02shown good pocket presence and awareness.

06:04I think I worry more about quarterbacks, especially coming out of college who never have a chance

06:10to develop any kind of a pocket awareness.

06:12I think CJ got a lot of that already and has developed a lot of that.

06:16I think right now there's, there's times where, and this falls back on Bobby Slowick.

06:23I think there's too many times where he doesn't have answers.

06:27So there are times like in the play we were just talking about, he really didn't have

06:30any answers on that corner blitz.

06:32It was going to be unblocked and he didn't have any answers for where to go with the

06:36ball.

06:37So he's going to have to scramble.

06:38And like, that's where the double whammy of bad offensive line play, plus just the quarterback

06:44not having that many options and they don't want them to do that much pre-snap.

06:47We've heard CJ a couple of times in the last couple of weeks, talk about how we'd like

06:51to be able to do more pre-snap.

06:53I think probably along the lines of diagnosing blitz, run some, run some hard counts to maybe

06:59sniff some things out.

07:01And part of it is, I don't know if they're just kind of trying to bring them along slowly

07:05as a younger quarterback and not put too much on his plate.

07:09But I think part of it too, is it's hard to run hard counts at home or on the road when

07:12you can't trust your offensive line to, to hold the water.

07:17No, no.

07:18Startless night.

07:19Congratulations.

07:20Yeah.

07:21Yeah.

07:22He's back.

07:23We're back to full, full board Laramie.

07:24Yup.

07:25Interesting suggestion on the text page.

07:27Put Patterson at center when he comes back, put Kendrick green at left guard and see how

07:31that works.

07:32Patterson was a viable center last year when he played those first eight games for a rookie.

07:38You know, for the first eight games, I'm not saying he was Jermani Dawson or anything like

07:41that.

07:42Plus I don't look, I don't think juice grugs, juice grugs.

07:47I need to see with competent guard play next to him because the center, a center in a lot

07:52of regards is only as good as his, his, who he's got next to him.

07:58Yeah.

07:59Good center is either using or feeding guys to him.

08:01And right now, like there's no part of, there's no part of juice grugs that needs to be feeding

08:05a block to Kenyon green or anything.

08:08So I need like, I don't want to mess with it too much.

08:11I'd rather have juice grugs continue to get snaps at center and if, and have Patterson

08:15at left guard, even see how that goes or, or they trade for somebody, a veteran they

08:19can trust.

08:20Yeah.

08:21We'll see next four days, man.

08:22Trade deadline.

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