- 2 days ago
Seth and Sean dive into the roster moves Nick Caserio has made this season. Which worked, which didn't, and which are still up in the air. Are they starting to look better?
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00:00are nick casario's moves in the offseason some of them starting to to look better um the there
00:08are there are moves that he's made that the die is cast and he will not come back from those moves
00:13the cj gardner johnson trade slash restructuring of his contract was a bad move uh cam robinson
00:21signing him to a one-year deal to at the time be your left tackle now they hadn't drafted
00:27ariante ursuri yet so that move at the time neither of those moves we were criticizing at the
00:32time hell we were excited about cj gardner johnson it just didn't work out for a variety of reasons
00:37and they paid him eight million bucks to play three games but at the time it was that cam robinson was
00:42also he was at least from our perspective okay good bridge tackle if you do he's he can start for you
00:48now if you draft a guy and he's not ready to go yet he can be your bridge tackle and then also
00:53maybe a draft a rookie and he looks good but he can be your swing tackle yep he has none of those
00:58things right he is uh he is currently playing for another football team he's a cleveland brown right
01:02now and i think he's starting for the browns and the other thing with cam robinson was you restructured
01:08or i don't know if you restructured it but you paid him a lot of upfront money in his deal so you
01:13paid cam robinson you know nine million bucks for half a season that he didn't really do anything for
01:18you and cj gardner johnson you could argue he you paid him seven eight million bucks to lose a couple
01:22games for you with some of the things he was doing out this is the thing that i've um it people
01:27don't seem to like this when i say it but i 100 believe it whether it's nick casario or anybody else
01:32like taking a flyer on somebody um and whiffing sure it's bad it's when you sign a free agent to a
01:41five-year deal and he's and he's atrocious and doesn't work out for you that's the really really
01:47bad thing um like when you sign a bunch of guys to one-year deals a bunch of american work out sure
01:53and none of these the cam robinson was annoying because they traded him away seemingly just because
01:59cam robinson didn't like the idea of not starting that annoys me i would just say you know deal with
02:05it big boy you know like uh that's right that them's the breaks you chose to come here check still
02:10cash yeah so who knows exactly what went on there um but the like the cj garner johnson look the guy was
02:17just a valuable part of a super bowl winning effort with the eagles yeah they knew they had
02:21their eyes wide open about the downside risk of them but it was a it was a relatively manageable
02:26risk for a guy like that and they cut ties as soon as it didn't work out wasn't doesn't make it a good
02:31move or anything i just those aren't fireable offenses a one-year deal for a free agent isn't a
02:36fireable offense no they're they're not so the moves so the and lake and tomlinson has not worked out
02:41again i think that falls into the category you're talking about seth where some one-year deals work out
02:46some don't i think i do think that the lake and tomlinson won the fact that he was anointed the
02:50starting left guard to start the season was problematic the that he was anointed and it felt just so
02:56much like shack mason yeah almost that all right shack mason was a guy that casario had prior
03:01experience with so you bring him in he's old he's not the same as he used to be and you give him a
03:05new contract that was a bigger sin yep because they gave him that new contract lake and tomlinson
03:10hey domico's got prior experience with him but he's old yeah yeah and they come in and but that
03:15making him the starter and letting it play out for the first half of the season with him rotating with
03:20juice scrugs that's that's the bigger sin in my yeah there it's four million bucks it's not a thing
03:25it's going to kill your cap but i think those are the three moves that the die is cast on those i think
03:31else is either still up for debate or has been solid like i think ed ingram which led us to this
03:38conversation the trade for ed ingram for a six-round pick really good move um i think e.j speed for
03:44what they're paying him he's on a one-year three and a half million dollar deal that's been a good
03:49move bringing back sheldon rankins on a one-year five and a quarter million dollar deal it's been
03:56an excellent move and i think the rookie class as a whole is emerging appropriately for where they
04:01drafted all of these guys you know i so i think that that stuff has been to me inarguably good
04:08stuff that's been done with this it's the yeah and the one-year deals um i just it's it to me it's
04:14kind of like when people get upset about sixth round or seventh round draft picks yeah like you
04:19know it's it's not in the grand scheme of things it's really not that big a deal you got to look
04:24at it almost that's a genuine that's the batting average part of it that you're not going to bat a
04:28thousand on it but are you are you taking too big a risk in doing any of it and are any one of these
04:34going to do you under i think the upside of guys like ed ingram ej speed and sheldon rankins this
04:41year outweighs the downside of cj gardener johnson cam robinson and lakin tomlinson okay because you
04:46but when they cj gardener johnson you were already you were adding him to a secondary that was already
04:52really good and solid with the one question mark at the one safety position but that's still far better
04:58the their secondary was far better and deeper than most teams could ever hope to have and so it was
05:04a it was a little bit of a bonus flyer that one didn't hurt as much um that it didn't work out yep
05:10agreed um the as far as the moves go that i think are still underneath the microscope you know still
05:16suspect i would say um absorbing christian kirk's final year of his deal with the jags i mean you brought
05:23you brought in christian kirk they were going to cut him in jacksonville so you sent them a seventh
05:27round pick and said we'll pay him the 16 million this year that was one year but it was way more
05:32exorbitant i'm more critical of that one given that especially he had a recent injury history and
05:39yet again he's added on to that injury history he's missed games so i now him as a bridge guy on a
05:46one-year deal for jalen noel i'm cool with that i just wonder exactly let me ask you this yeah
05:52cooper cup yeah he ended up getting what a three-year deal in seattle year 45 million yep and
05:58it's worked out he doesn't have great production but he's been kind of part of jackson smith and
06:02jigba becoming one of the best receivers in the league he's missed a few games lately i know he's
06:07already missed a few games yeah i guess man this is a tough one i want to say i still we'll see how
06:13the season plays out christian kirk had a had did some good things last week yeah um uh like i think
06:21i'd still rather have christian kirk on a one-year deal than cooper cup on a more exorbitant yeah i
06:24think so too i think so too i think i think they're both at a stage where you just can't count on them
06:29for more than 10 or 12 games it made more sense for the seahawks to take more of a risk just because
06:35they didn't have as you know they didn't they needed to fill their wide receiver lost route so did
06:41the texans but they obviously planned on doing it in the draft yep they did yeah they drafted a
06:45couple guys too um where are you on the whole sequence of events at the center position as it
06:52pertains to nick casario the other draft drafted juice scrugs in the second round a couple years
06:58ago same draft you draft jared patterson who's also an interior guy played center for you and then you
07:04sign jake andrews uh off the street he's got two years left on his rookie deal so he's not a ton of
07:09money he's a minimum salary relatively minimum salary guy but he's played like a relatively
07:15minimum salary guy nobody's clamoring for an uh you know we have to explain to anybody that you're
07:20not allowed to extend his contract right right um you know it's a great way to put it jake andrews
07:25had come in here and been playing like crazy we'd have people saying like you got to extend him now
07:29and we'd have to say well actually by the rules of the cba you have to wait in a year before you can do
07:33that yep um nobody's saying that it's not a conversation or a debate topic so that's the
07:40part about the offensive line and i'll go back to that oh and three start where the offensive line
07:44performing as poorly as they were was part of the problem and you might say well yeah but they had
07:48injuries right if you have if you have a deep offensive line the injuries aren't a death blow
07:54yeah the way they have been with the texans the some of it is the strategy is hey you gotta build it
08:01overtime and be sure that you're not overspending and that you can get a lot out of an offensive
08:08line that's average you can actually have a good offense with an average group of offensive linemen
08:13if they're really well coached we're starting to see that potentially be the scenario but you only
08:20i it's it's that it's a continuation of a years-long process of not having a good offensive line and you
08:27ended up losing the first three games of the season partly because of it every given year
08:33don't know i can't i can't say always well like hey the long-term approach is good no the texans have
08:38lost they've lost the benefit of the doubt when it comes to long-term approaches on the offensive line
08:44so that i just still can't i can't excuse them just using the first half of the season as some kind
08:52of petri dish for who the offensive line should be if the season ended today if the season ended today
08:58and you had to look at the offensive line through the off-season lens i think you go we're set at
09:03left tackle ariante iris is our left tackle of the future we're set at right tackle titus is going to go
09:09back out to right tackle i don't know if you can count on trent brown i probably should have put
09:12trent brown's one-year deal you know that ended up being a really good deal yeah he's he's making the
09:17minimum right now yeah trent brown yeah that was a and that was kind of probably what casario looked
09:22at as a it's a very it was kind of like the um cam acres signing yeah because cam acres is coming
09:28off an achilles tendon who knows what's going to happen trent brown's coming off of a teller tendon
09:31tear for a 375 pound guy yes that's that's hard for offensive lineman to come back from teller
09:37tendon tears especially when you weigh 375 pounds that was a very good low risk high reward so far so
09:42far yeah that's yes it's only been a couple games so i can't put him in the same bucket with
09:46sheldon rankins and yeah but that move is looking like a really good move so far but i would say if
09:52if the season ended today i and in the offseason we're starting i would say okay we're set at left
09:57tackle i would say that titus howard we're he's got a year left on his deal you're gonna go back out to
10:03right tackle we're gonna try to re-sign ed ingram to be our right guard to a reasonable deal and then
10:10i think you go into the offseason saying we still need another guard and we need we need two more
10:14interior offensive linemen here we've still got work to do uh on the offensive line and we'll see
10:20we'll see if they fill it either via free agency or or via the draft you know trent brown i guess i'm
10:25gonna i'm gonna personally pull for him a little bit and that he's got his incentives are he gets these
10:32escalating 150 000 bonuses if he plays 30 of the snaps he gets 150 000 okay if he plays 40 and he
10:42gets another 150 000 i think his max really would be have to be 50 right because he took over did he
10:49take over right at the midway he knows a little after i think okay i think it was that titans game
10:54maybe i think it's i think he's been in there for three games even the bonus structures are the max he's
10:58going to get in bonuses this year would be three hundred thousand dollars that's a if he ends up
11:02playing out the rest of the season a tackle is a hell of a contract assuming he plays well yeah
11:07from the texans perspective yeah yeah and what if this is the level of play that we get out of
11:11trent brown the rest of the year we're laughing about that signing right i mean it's yeah i don't i
11:16still have to look at good the the fact that the texans are in the situation they're in where they've
11:21just been constantly experimenting with different lineups and different roles for the guys on the
11:26offensive line i just it was a horrible offseason strategy i don't care where you are like the fact
11:30that you started off 0-3 the fact of the offensive line and the offensive line remains an issue more
11:35so than some of the stats show because the texans they're operating partly the the reason they're
11:41getting rid of the ball so quickly it's not just because nick cayley wants it to be death by a thousand
11:46cuts it's that they they have to get rid of the ball quickly they don't fully trust that that
11:52offensive line can hold up in five-man protection i would say the what well we a couple people
11:58texting what about nick chubb how do you guys feel about that's i think he's just another one you
12:02throw in that gaggle of one-year deals and go okay he's been all right that was another one you know
12:06what it'd be it'd be nice if we knew exactly what they thought about or felt about joe mixon's injury
12:12situation uh because if nick chubb was just extra insurance but you figured that mixon was definitely
12:19going to be back i think it's a great signing if you were planning on nick chubb being one of the two
12:25guys that you had to have healthy and that still even as he's doing it isn't performing all that
12:31great that's a bad strategy you're on a ledge running back wise right now yeah you know you you
12:36and you went into the i'll say the other thing is that you're still giving damian pierce a chance
12:40going into this season yeah like that's that experiment has failed yep and i that's the one i'm
12:45least patient with because i just watching in training camp two years ago i i didn't get it i
12:51didn't know why i thought for sure i thought it was i was aghast that they didn't trade damian
12:58pierce in training camp in 2024 um based on what i was seeing in in practice he was going down on any
13:05kind of contact at all like i just didn't see it or get it um but i figured all right well they
13:10see something that i don't turns out they did not no no they did yeah they were not seeing anything
13:15that they what they thought they were seeing they were not actually was a mirage he is gone now i
13:20guess the big wild card would be what they and this doesn't really affect you at all in 2025 but what
13:27do they end up doing with the draft picks that they got for laramie tunsel in next year's draft you
13:32know the biggest the biggest asset you got from laramie tunsel trade which not a lot of texan fans are
13:38complaining about you know as as as below average or mediocre as the offensive line has been this
13:44year i don't see a ton of texan fans clamoring for laramie tunsel to still be here which is a
13:49very strange thing considering he's a pro bowl left tackle but i think we're all close enough to
13:53the to the situation what that that line room looked like last year to know why well the and
13:57ariante ursory looks like he's gonna be a very solid left tackle no question so that part of it's
14:04worked out and he is the opposite of air of laramie tunsel when it comes to accountability
14:08when it comes to appetite for run blocking all of those things he's everything in terms of football
14:14character that laramie tunsel is not yes and i think that helps um the biggest asset you got from
14:20that trade comes in april when you get washington's second round you get you have their second and
14:27fourth round picks in the upcoming draft that second round pick is shaping up to be a top 40 pick in the
14:33draft right now yeah the commanders are not a good football team this year they're falling apart
14:38they are they are so that that pick is going to be you know that's hey look if you were to ask jack
14:43easterby it's basically just a cheaper first round pick right that's right that's what they got they
14:49got the 40th overall pick when they traded deandre hopkins it's everything that you want in a first
14:54round pick except for the lower probability of the guy actually being good that's right that's right
15:01uh that's uh no i mean obviously yeah it's still it's a very good it's a great it's a very valuable
15:06pick if you've got first half of the second round a valuable jaden higgins type of pick well that's
15:10just gonna say no it's a valuable pick it's gonna i think it's gonna be in the high 30s low 40s somewhere
15:15nick has had good draft picks in that range in the last couple drafts it's you drafted higgins with the
15:2134th pick you drafted ursory with the 48th pick you drafted lassiter with the 42nd pick two years ago
15:28the only one of those he's had two second round picks in each of the last couple drafts the only
15:32one that is not working out right now is blake fisher but the other three have been in that range
15:37where your commander's pick is going to be and i think they they they picked at least two future
15:43foundational players in lassiter and ursory and hey higgins i think has a chance to be
15:48something nice as well
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