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00:00We knew what the stakes were of this game.
00:02Myself and Figgy accurately called it a must-win.
00:05Lopez was, I don't know, half-stepping over there somewhat.
00:07But you came in 0-3.
00:11This was for multiple reasons and not just for a victory.
00:14It feels like you maybe answered or at least said something
00:18to a lot of the questions that you had.
00:20And so the larger question I want to have
00:21as we get into this general conversation here, John Lopez,
00:24did this feel like a turning point for the Houston Texans?
00:28Short answer, yes.
00:30And I know some people are going to talk about the Titans
00:33and the yeah buts and all that.
00:36But to me, Reggie, it's the how as much as anything.
00:40We can talk about numbers and stats and all that.
00:44But how they did this to me mattered a lot.
00:47Because let's go back to, I don't know, early in the third quarter,
00:51midway through the third quarter.
00:52How were we feeling about this team?
00:55How were we feeling about this team?
00:57What was it?
00:586-0, missed a field goal, really could have been a tied ball game
01:03if the Titans had an adequate kicker and all that.
01:06This thing could have gone.
01:07I mean, it was going.
01:08We went into the game like, if they don't win this game,
01:12it's going to be, all hell's going to break loose.
01:15That's right.
01:15You know, all hell's going to break loose.
01:17And for about two and a half quarters, it was going that way.
01:21It was an awful, awful performance.
01:24Very much just the crowd, the Ryder Cup.
01:28I think I told you guys during the press box at one point,
01:31the Ryder Cup was louder than NRG Stadium.
01:33Oh, yeah.
01:33I felt real bad for the DJ on staff at NRG Stadium because he plays some bangers.
01:38Myself and Pete Scott noticed it at one point.
01:40And I wrote this in my football game notes.
01:42I was like, he played TV off by Kendrick Lamar.
01:46Usually, I guess the people going.
01:47Yeah.
01:47Crickets.
01:48Nothing.
01:48It was like there was not juice for a good.
01:52I was in that building.
01:53I was like, look, man, no environment is going to do this for you.
01:56You got to do this on the field.
01:57Right.
01:57So at that point, it's going off the rails.
02:01It is going off the rails as an organization.
02:04Forget the team and the whole organization.
02:06As an organization.
02:06As an organization, it's going.
02:08Because imagine.
02:09Imagine had it gone the other way, like the things we'd be talking about.
02:12And then, you know, the reason that I am, you know,
02:16absolutely in line with your question of was it a turning point?
02:20Because it was such an impressive flip of the switch
02:24that you could almost see, forget almost,
02:28you could see things starting to click.
02:31And in particular for C.J. Stroud, but really for this entire team.
02:34Keep this in mind as well.
02:3538 drives this season going into the fourth quarter.
02:39Okay, 38 drives.
02:40Noted.
02:41They had scored three touchdowns.
02:43Then they scored three touchdowns in a row on three straight drives.
02:46In the fourth quarter.
02:47Yeah.
02:47That is what's significant today.
02:50That's as night and day as it gets.
02:51Yes.
02:52Three for 38, all of a sudden we go three for three on the backside of that.
02:58Yeah, yeah, yeah.
02:59That's definitely something solid.
03:00And you know what?
03:01If we're talking about potential turning points,
03:03if not just specific turning points, you talked about C.J.
03:06It felt like he was okay to a certain point,
03:10just kind of getting through it to some degree.
03:12And you even have what was a very clear missed shot
03:15on a wide open booty button naked Dalton Schultz down the seam.
03:19And he misses that by a mile, in fact.
03:21It wasn't even just like he was a little off.
03:23Missed it entirely on the timing of it and the touch of it.
03:26And then with all that being the case,
03:28we get to a time where you've got to stay scheduled.
03:32This is the only way for this offense to be effective.
03:35Second and 20.
03:36Third and 20.
03:37Or sorry, second and 30.
03:39Second and 33.
03:40Yeah.
03:41And you're like, oh, God, here we go.
03:42Yeah.
03:43And then this play comes out of nowhere to really turn the tide.
03:48C.J.
03:49The gun.
03:49Second down and 33 from the Houston 18-yard line.
03:53Woody Marks in the backfield.
03:54C.J.
03:55Looking.
03:55C.J.
03:56Lucks the ball downfield left side and caught.
03:58Nico left side.
04:00And he's got it in Tennessee territory.
04:04You need a first down.
04:05Just go to number 12.
04:06He gets it for you.
04:0938-yard play to the 45-yard line of the Titans.
04:13I'd have to pull a Muhammad Ali on Snead right about now if I'm Nico.
04:18I'd turn around and ask him, what's my name?
04:21Every time he hit a guy in the fight, he's asking him, what's my name?
04:24He kept calling him Cassius Clay.
04:26He knows him now.
04:28He does.
04:29Sure does.
04:30He does.
04:31That play changed everything.
04:32Yes, we're on Reaction Monday.
04:36Some people used to call it Over Reaction Monday.
04:38Let's do it.
04:38I don't think it's an overreaction.
04:40I think that play changed everything because you saw what happened from that moment forward.
04:43And C.J.
04:44Stroud got his swag back, man.
04:46100%.
04:47Yeah.
04:47100%.
04:48That's one of the things.
04:49When you talk about a turning point, that was a pass with touch and perfectly placed right
04:56in the bucket.
04:56There was a number of those.
04:57Obviously, you get the touchdown to Jaden Higgins.
05:01Touch.
05:02Great accuracy.
05:03You started seeing the C.J.
05:04Stroud that we had been talking about.
05:06A lot of people had criticized him for not seeing when you had opportunity.
05:11I'm not going to Schultz.
05:12But other than that, C.J.
05:13Stroud was phenomenal in this game.
05:16I mean, what did he ultimately finish?
05:1822 of 28.
05:19233 yards.
05:20Two touchdowns.
05:21A passer rating of 125.1, which I believe is third best in his career.
05:27So, not only did this like, all right, we're just going to wash away some of the stink
05:31from C.J.
05:31of the last year and a half, or the last few games.
05:35The last year and a half.
05:36I mean, going all the way back through his career, this is one of the best games that
05:40he's put up just statistically managing what was happening on the field and getting the
05:45ball where it needed to be.
05:45And from that moment, Sean Pendergast tweeted this out, and I made note of it.
05:49But before that pass to Nico Collins, C.J.
05:53Stroud was 13 out of 17 for 100 yards, 5.8 yards per attempt, and a 90 rating.
05:58After that, 9 of 11, 133 yards, two touchdowns, 12.1 yards per attempt, and 156 rating.
06:06I'm telling you, that moment is one that we're going to go back and look at and realize that
06:12that was a moment that it, I'm not going to say things finally started to click, because
06:15I think he knows what he's, he's known what he should be doing.
06:18But the confidence level and the trust in himself, and learning, you know, making the call to
06:26make the changes at the line of scrimmage, you could easily argue, I know for a fact,
06:31because they talked about it after the game, the Jaden Higgins touchdown, that was C.J.
06:35at the line of scrimmage saying, oh, you're going to play tight?
06:38I know exactly what to do.
06:39Boom, boom, boom.
06:39There's the ball.
06:40The ball placement specialist that he called himself was back.
06:44I think, personally, I think that Nico Collins was a change at the line of scrimmage.
06:48I think they were probably going to look for something else.
06:52Second and third, three, probably trying to just, you know, get a little bit of yardage
06:57back.
06:57He saw Snead come up and play Nico tight, little eyebrow raise or whatever it was, and there
07:03you go, fade right for the big play.
07:05Which, I mean, that's what we've been looking for.
07:07And I'm interested because I do want to circle around to something that you brought to mind,
07:12but we've been looking for some explosive out of this offense.
07:16One of the big gripes for me, and I imagine for some other people with this offense, is
07:20that everything seemed to be looking just within the, you know, five to seven to ten yard at
07:27max route, like depth.
07:29Everything is like safety blanket depth, as I'm almost calling it at this point, where
07:32you're, here's Dalton Schultz in the flat area.
07:35Here's, you know, getting some quick outs in some places.
07:38Like, it felt like that was everything that was happening.
07:42And so you end up in a place where you finally see some things go downfield and attack downfield.
07:47That felt very valuable.
07:49Yeah, but that was a product, that was a product of, we heard it during the week, D'Amico Collins
07:55meeting with CJ Stroud, talking about things.
07:58You know, you know, Nick Cayley and the offensive staff were trying to, trying to get CJ Stroud
08:04back to the confidence in himself to make those plays and make those calls.
08:08I think in that moment, that's where it all, that was one play that changed a lot, perhaps
08:14changed everything.
08:15Maybe it was a turning point for the season.
08:17But that one play was a product of everything that was going on behind the scenes, and that
08:21was huge.
08:22Sports Radio 610, Houston Texans breaking news.
08:29Yeah, Houston Texans breaking action today.
08:32The Texans doing a little reacting of their own.
08:35They're linking up again with the Cleveland Browns, a team that they're familiar with doing
08:38deals.
08:38In this instance, they're trading left tackle Cam Robinson, the big free agent acquisition
08:44that they got, they trade him to the Cleveland Browns for, according to, I believe this is
08:51Jeremy Fowler and Jeremy Fowler.
08:54I think Tom Pilsero had it first.
08:56Sixth and seventh round pick swap in 2027.
09:00So late round pick swap is ultimately what has gotten from the one year free agent that
09:05you had signed.
09:06Cam Robinson will be traded away from the Texans to the Cleveland Browns.
09:10Your initial reaction, especially once we saw Cam Robinson was inactive going into this
09:14game.
09:15A healthy scratch, a big miss for Nick Casario, $14.5 million contract, I think 12 guaranteed.
09:22So no other way to put it, just a swing and a miss on Cam Robinson.
09:26And that's one of the things that we will probably have to revisit because Casario's had his weird
09:31moments, his bad moments.
09:33But, you know, they're cutting bait with him.
09:35They're cutting bait with him now.
09:37Yeah.
09:38That, again, I think that's a swing and a miss.
09:40In some ways, covered by the fact that you did draft Ariante Urserine, he demonstrated
09:44himself capable of playing left tackle at a certain level.
09:47He had a better game himself, even though one of the small things that defenses continue
09:51to do still showed up in this game and needs to be tightened up.
09:54He did look good, including, I mean, there was like an outside, there was an outside sweep,
09:59like a wide run that was like, oh, I did not realize this was a thing that the Texans were
10:03allowed to do, where Ariante Urserine is out in the head.
10:06Probably could have made a little bit better block in space.
10:08I mean, big boy rumbling in the space, just getting guys that was valuable enough.
10:13Shout out to Ariante Urserine making this line better just off the strength of him, you know,
10:19showing up at an earlier timeline than I think some maybe anticipated.
10:23But yeah, Cam Robinson now gone.
10:24I think that this does help.
10:26And it does suck that all you get back is like a late round draft pick.
10:29But I do wonder how much of that money, if all of it is just going away from you, so
10:33that maybe helps erase some of the harm of that deal.
10:36It does.
10:37But I think, you know, you mentioned something a second ago that I think is big when you were
10:41talking about this offense and this offensive line performance.
10:45I mean, D'Amico has said it.
10:46You don't, the whole offense is not predicated on taking your shots and taking risks and all
10:55that until there's an opportunity to do so, as we've talked about with Jaden Higgins and
10:59Nico Collins.
11:00It's very deliberate.
11:01No negative plays.
11:02D'Amico has said that repeatedly.
11:04The offensive line was by and large clean.
11:08No penalties, et cetera, yesterday are very few.
11:11So I thought the style with which they played reflected that they're good with the offensive
11:18line and their philosophy and approach.
11:20So are you buying in at all to what the offense is doing, both on the mantra that this offense
11:27requires itself to stay on schedule and to, you know, stay clean, right, operate cleanly,
11:32and then you can see some of these good things happen.
11:34And on top of that, are you buying into the idea that with the steep learning curve that
11:39this offense seems to have, that maybe they're settling into it?
11:42Because again, you mentioned it felt like CJ, well, we know for certain CJ made a check
11:46on one of the touchdown passes.
11:47One of the other big plays that we saw early on that Nico Collins, 38 on the left side that
11:53we mentioned, felt like that as well.
11:55Does it feel like the explosives are going to come from CJ himself knowing when is the
11:59time to take a shot?
12:01100%.
12:02100%.
12:03The offense, we talk about margins in this game and in sports in general, how small they
12:10are.
12:10I think the margins are even smaller with the Texans.
12:13I really do, because they are playing so conservative, run the ball, no negative plays, safe passes.
12:18But what could change that, what could affect the margins being so small, is a quarterback
12:24who can master the offense and can make plays like that when they come up.
12:29But it's really about, you've got to be so incredibly patient on offense.
12:33Trust your quarterback to trust himself.
12:37And so what they're doing is like, safe, safe, safe.
12:40Oh, Snead's playing man.
12:41Oh, who was the quarterback on Higgins?
12:43He's playing man.
12:44They're tightening up.
12:45It was in the slot too.
12:46That was a very interesting kind of slot fade concept that they had there.
12:52And it was just like, all right, now is the time.
12:53And I was so happy to see that slot fade because remember, I had asked Texans cap to do a
12:58little digging for me on Higgins and his effectiveness and in breakers and some of these other things
13:02hadn't been, had been below average for him where he had succeeded, go routes, routes that
13:06kind of break outside like corners.
13:09That's one of those routes that he succeeds on.
13:11And you get him out there doing that against man coverage.
13:14He wins easily and, you know, off the line, great ball that gives him an opportunity to
13:18catch it nice and easy.
13:19And now you're seeing the benefits of that against an admittedly bad team.
13:23But again, the proof of concept is one of the things that we actually needed at this point.
13:27I actually thought of that term.
13:28I actually thought of that term and you were in my head.
13:31It drove me.
13:32It's so hard for any of us in any walk of life to just stay patient, stay patient, stay
13:38patient, stay patient.
13:39Oh, they're making a mistake.
13:42Now we can go for it.
13:43I don't know if I could do it.
13:44I think that's what really changed with CJ Stroud, whether it was talking with D'Amico
13:48or Nick Caley or anyone else on the offensive staff, watching the film, understanding, look,
13:54stay with it, stay with it.
13:55They're going to make a mistake.
13:57They're going to make a mistake.
13:58They're going to give you a shot to take a shot.
14:00And then right when they needed it the most, he did it.
14:03And so this, to me, let me put it very succinctly.
14:06This was a CJ Stroud game.
14:07We can talk about rookies.
14:09We can talk about the defense.
14:09We can talk about a shutout.
14:10We can talk about changing plays, defensive play callers.
14:14Talk about any of it.
14:15It's all relevant, and we will.
14:17This was a CJ Stroud game, period.
14:21That might be the biggest turning point.
14:23The guy who you were hoping to elevate your team seemingly did that in a game, admittedly
14:28against the lowly Tennessee Titans.
14:30But hell, you definitely needed that one.
14:32The journey of a thousand miles begins with a step is one of those cliches I like saying.
14:36And this is one of those very much felt like that step.
14:39Now one in three, Houston Texans team getting a 26 to nothing victory.
14:42A lot of conversation to be had.
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