00:00Man, an interesting piece about a very insightful piece by DJ
00:04Bien-Ami at ESPN. I think they came through on Saturday, maybe
00:07if I'm if my memory serves me, where he was kind of going
00:11through and looking at Bobby Slowick's time, right? The
00:15predictability and lack of adjustments that doomed Bobby
00:18Slowick and the Texans. A really interesting piece,
00:21obviously sourced very well by DJ Bien-Ami about this team and
00:25its offense, particularly last year, but under his tenure, and
00:30of course, Bobby Slowick now on to, you know, working with as a
00:33as a senior passing game coordinator of sorts with the
00:37with the Miami Dolphins. But you know, moves on from here. And of
00:41course, we always say it, man, when somebody moves on, then you
00:44get a little bit more of a flow of information of what actually
00:46happened, people feel a little bit more comfortable telling
00:48you. And I think we got some really insightful stuff in this
00:52piece. And it feels like it moved you in a very particular
00:55way. Yeah, I've been trying y'all, you know, listening to
00:57this show the last few weeks, I've been trying to like, say,
01:00okay, let's temper the bash on Bobby stuff. I'm not gonna try
01:05anymore. Oh, wow. Oh, I say it to his face. I gave the man the
01:12benefit of the doubt. You know, I'm like, everybody does that.
01:14Oh, he's gone now like, oh, we played an uptempo basketball
01:17style. Now we're gonna slow it down. Oh, of course you are
01:19because that sucked, you know, or he was a disciplinarian. Now
01:23we're gonna be more player friendly. Of course you are
01:24because that's how people just automatically, you know, default
01:28to, yeah, that guy was awful. I'm not going to defend him
01:30anymore. Because it seems like that guy was really, really
01:33exactly what we what we speculated that he was. And that
01:36was not very flexible. Certainly not very adaptable to to the
01:42players. Because sources around the league and in that building
01:46and a player, you know, have flat out said, a lot of times
01:50the anonymous quotes, you sort of like, we'll see, you know, I
01:54believe it. I believe that was a strong player. I mean, a player
01:57who stated a strong opinion, when they said, I don't think we
02:01had a true identity of what the bleep we wanted to do. Yeah,
02:04so that's not, you know, that's not just the
02:09sort of like backhanded insult. No, that's direct, right? No.
02:12And I mean, these are things that you could see in that
02:15various people who, you know, cover the scene and watch the
02:18team discussed over that time period. It's just it's
02:20interesting to get like that interior sourcing via DJB enemy
02:25and ESPN to kind of confirm that that's what they felt in the
02:29building. I think that these things can be insightful also
02:31and helpful. Alright, what were they feeling? Right? Or did they
02:34believe in this and then ultimately, you know, just move
02:37on? Or did you see things and I mean, some of some of the quotes
02:40in a segment I like to call reading, we simply weren't good
02:43enough offensively as team source told ESPN, we had all
02:46season to make adjustments and improvements. And it never
02:48happened, which that is a hugely damning thing about this
02:53team. And if you could see it again, like you could see it
02:55time and time again, we didn't see real adjustments until real
02:57late in the season when it's fair to assume that somebody
03:00stepped in and forced those adjustments to be had. Otherwise,
03:03you were in the same place doing the same thing and not seeing
03:06results. And then ultimately, you mentioned that a player told
03:08ESPN quote, I don't think we had a true identity of what the
03:11bleep we wanted to do. And those like those might be the biggest
03:15indictments. And of course, those are the things that I think
03:17people latched on to most from this article. And there's a lot
03:21more in there that I found to be interesting, right? And there's
03:23more quotes that I'll read. But more importantly, like, what is
03:26that then? What does that then do for you in spinning this
03:29forward, right? And trying to make this a positive because it
03:31does feel like in hiring Nick Caley, they found somebody to
03:34at least address those things in particular. Well, one of those
03:36things because I feel like the idea of adjustments feels like
03:39something that Nick Caley will do. I mean, we heard similar
03:42things in his opening press conference, I will say we don't
03:45really have a great idea that there's going to be a solid I
03:49because right now at a very early juncture of you know, his
03:54tenure as the office coordinator, we haven't really
03:56gotten anything near concrete on what this offense will look like,
03:59which is fair. However, it is a space to watch as we go through.
04:03No, we haven't. But you know, we talked about the we didn't know
04:06what the bleep we wanted to do quote, and that's the one that's
04:08grabbing the headlines. The second one you read is the one
04:11that really opened my eyes to okay, everything that I'm not
04:15going to temper anything when it comes to Bobby, he was, he
04:17was inflexible, rigid. And frankly, when they say, you
04:22know, we had all season to make adjustments and improvement and
04:25it never happened. That tells me that CJ Stroud was in the
04:30middle of it, because everything trickles down from the
04:32quarterback. I find it almost impossible to believe now that
04:35CJ Stroud at some point when he was getting pummeled, didn't say
04:39Hey, what if we did this, you know, and and on top of that,
04:44coaches, you know, I think it's a very big tell that Cole
04:48Popovich is still on this on this coaching staff. Because a
04:53lot of times if it was just a complete fail offensively,
04:56everybody would have been, you know, replaced. The fact that
04:59they left Cole Popovich tells me that at least one coach him, and
05:03I'm speculating, but him tried to get Bobby slow it to block a
05:08different way to approach the run game or protections a
05:11different way. And he didn't do it. The fact that he said, we
05:15didn't make all season to make adjustments and improvements,
05:17and it never happened. That points directly to Bobby Slowick
05:20and directly to not being flexible and listening to
05:23people. Yeah. And speaking towards the idea of not making
05:26adjustments, right? I think that there was a lot of things that
05:30were here, including a player saying when teams would take
05:32away what we wanted to do, we just didn't have answers for it.
05:36That is a huge that is a huge indictment, right? There's not
05:39really a great reason for you to have a big brain if that brain
05:42does not give you other answers. And now I think that that some
05:44of that is indicative of being inexperienced, like you don't
05:46have the experience to call upon to say, okay, well, in various
05:49different circumstances, these things have worked. So I will go
05:51to those places. But it is problematic that it did not feel
05:54like you did not have answers. How about this when it comes to
05:57and this was something I think you were strong on another
05:59another excerpt. Stroud wasn't allowed to change protections at
06:02the line of scrimmage, often in Slowick's offense. It was the
06:05center's responsibility. A lot of the calls were considered
06:07basic, according to team source sources, according to a team
06:11source, I should say, as simple as having three offensive linemen
06:14zone blocking one side while the other backside blockers were one
06:17on one in protection against backside rushes. But the lack of
06:19communication within those blocking plans versus stunts led
06:22to free rushes, which is why Stroud faced 52 unblocked
06:26pressures, which was the second most in the NFL, right. And then
06:28of course, Strosser's approach wasn't easy for some players
06:30either, according to a team source as he struggled to
06:33connect with the offensive line. But the woes weren't all on
06:36Slowick or Strosser. Sometimes the players just failed to
06:38execute. And that last part we agree with. But going back to
06:41the first part about the idea of like, hey, the protections at
06:44the line and it being simple, and they're not being
06:47communication within it, like that is so damning.
06:49He treated CJ Stroud from what I can gather and from what we've
06:53heard and speculated about on this show for the last few
06:55weeks, is he treated CJ Stroud like a high school quarterback.
06:59No, you do it this way. Here's your first read, here's the
07:02second we read, etc. And that's not how you should treat a
07:06quarterback like CJ Stroud. And in fact, this holds me
07:10encouraging to me, because there's no way that Nick Kaley
07:14is coming in and saying, oh, yeah, we're going to do that.
07:16We're not going to trust the line. We're not going to change
07:18our blocking assignments. We're not going to trust CJ Stroud to
07:22help with protections and such. It's encouraging because I feel
07:25like he's going to get with CJ Stroud or the quarterback coach
07:28or whomever and say, listen, we're listening to you now. Your
07:32voice is going to be heard and we're going to allow you to do
07:35this, this and this. It's actually an encouraging thing.
07:37But boy, I'm done defending Bobby Slowick. It seems like
07:41it's pretty obvious.
07:41Yeah. And I feel like that's a good way of looking at it. And
07:44of course, if we're willing to take Nick Kaley at his word,
07:46which I imagine we probably are, especially at this early
07:48juncture, it seems like again, player focused approach, you
07:51know, it's going to be not focusing a square peg into a
07:54round hole. It seems like very much a lot of what he said will
07:58combat kind of these things. And so it was really insightful to
08:00kind of get some real confirmation from the interior
08:04of what this is looking like. How do you feel about this,
08:06John, though, before we move on from 7-1-3? I put a lot of this
08:08blame on the head coach. Hold D'Amico accountable, too. He
08:14knew he was who he was, and the character not a good sign. I
08:18don't know that this speaks necessarily fully to Bobby's
08:21character. I feel like that might be a bridge too far. But I
08:24think that, yeah, D'Amico probably has a level of
08:26accountability to be held on allowing this kind of to
08:29operate in the way that it did. But how much is there to be said
08:32for letting that man do what he wants to do as that being while
08:36he's in that position, and then judging him accordingly when you
08:38get to the place?
08:39I think D'Amico would tell you his biggest mistake was he just
08:43trusted Bobby Slower. And I don't see that happening again.
08:47I could see his head in some of these early week meeting rooms a
08:52lot more. Asking coaches and assistant coaches, you know,
08:56what do you think we're doing, you know, being having a better
08:59communication, because let's keep let's keep in mind, he's
09:01the defensive coordinator with Matt Burke. And I'm sure he
09:04spent a lot of time on the defensive side. Yeah, but I
09:06mean, but that's not a job as head coach. If you want to be a
09:10defensive coordinator, that's cool. The responsibility
09:12ultimately still falls all the way around.
09:14I think you're going to see a lot from D'Amico this year
09:16because now it's like he's caught. I think he's called in
09:20the plays on the on defense and all that stuff. He got a lot of
09:23hand in the defensive stuff. But now you kind of got to overlook
09:27everything now.
09:28I think D'Amico will tell you that I think that's going to be
09:30the biggest change.
09:30Yeah, so we're gonna we should see what D'Amico really is as a
09:34head coach overlooking everything rather than I'm gonna
09:37focus on the defense and I trust you to have the offense.
09:40Totally agree.
09:40And it does seem like he's accepting that responsibility
09:43that you know, the hectic nature of trying to do all these
09:45things are, you know, relatively new head coach, I think that
09:48he's learning a man there's there's a lot more to it. And
09:50there's a reason why this job is a job in and of itself, right?
09:53Outside of being a play caller. He's definitely going to have to
09:57you know, answer for or maybe not answer specifically for it
09:59in a way that I think we would talk about, but he's definitely
10:01going to have to account for how to be better at managing those
10:04things and being more, more hands on and more attentive to
10:09what's happening offensively. But I think that look, if we're
10:11willing to take the entry level press conference for what it is
10:14at face value, it seems like some of these things at least
10:17will be there will be a focus and a clear effort to make sure
10:21that these don't happen again, next year for your Houston Tech.
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