- 13 hours ago
A big win over the Colts sparks plenty to unpack. ITL breaks down the key takeaways, including a genuine appreciation for this surging defense
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00:00You're Houston Texans 7-5 after beating the Indianapolis Colts 20-16.
00:05You're in the loop here on Sports Radio 610 on a victory reaction Monday for the fourth time in a row.
00:12How you doing, John?
00:13Man, I am doing great.
00:14Long weekend for a lot of us, a lot of our listeners, and boy, it was fun to cap it with that yesterday.
00:21It is interesting, though, because as I'm watching this game, and I want to know how you guys feel listening,
00:27and, of course, you guys here, Figgy and Reggie, didn't you feel like it was going to be a given?
00:35There was never that, oh, they're going to find a way to lose this feeling.
00:38You know, it was almost a given, and there's a reason for that.
00:41Yeah, that's a great point, and I guess I had not examined my feelings in this game.
00:45Examine your feelings with us.
00:46713-572-4610.
00:48That's the number to text.
00:49Also, appreciation to the Mo'Karam injury lawyers for the live stream.
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01:00Chat with us.
01:00Chat amongst yourselves.
01:02We always love that, especially as we examine how we feel.
01:05I had not really thought through my feelings in that game.
01:08I think, you know, during games, taking notes, trying to, you know, take notes of things that are happening, check stats, see what's happening.
01:15I hadn't really stopped to examine my feelings.
01:17And, yeah, I think the way that this defense played, I think the way early on that it felt like the offense was moving the football, long drives, things of that nature.
01:26Well, maybe not early on.
01:27Early on, there was some.
01:28Yeah, not early on.
01:30The rest of the game.
01:31I guess once they kind of settled, I guess is the way that I'll say that.
01:34I didn't look at the Colts and go, oof, here they come.
01:37And some of that is because the last few weeks for the Colts had established a feeling that, oh, this is not the Colts team that we begrudgingly got to a point of respecting, right?
01:48We hadn't got, oh, they're the number one offense in all the NFL, and we just kind of have to deal with that because it's happened over six or seven weeks.
01:55The last four weeks had told us, hey, maybe we can pump the brakes on that and then win this defense that is all world comes out there and looks so good on first down versus them, puts them in third and long situations.
02:05I go, okay, I'm not worried.
02:07Daniel Jones got a whole special pad made for his fibula or his shin to make sure that his fibula don't crack open during this game.
02:15All of those things come up, and I'm like, yeah, I'm not necessarily super afraid that the Colts are going to break this thing wide open.
02:21Did you guys, did you feel the same way?
02:23No, it's the defense, and that's what needs to be talked about here.
02:28But we live in Houston, man.
02:30I mean, we're used to like, okay, how are they going to blow this?
02:32You know, okay, how is this going to end up bad?
02:35I never had that.
02:35I was getting some texts, especially toward the end of the game, you know, hey, they're going to mess around.
02:41One of them, I remember, was they're going to mess around and lose this thing.
02:43And I was like, not really.
02:45No, it was a different feeling.
02:47And the reason is, the reason I wanted to bring that up is because this defense, as we've talked about and as we've known now for a long time, is that good
02:55and is going to find a way to make a play at the end despite everything, you know?
02:58Without question.
02:59Yeah, I mean, they are the stars of this football game.
03:03Shout out to Kalen Bullock, right?
03:07Kalen was on, I don't remember what show he was on, but remember going into this where his stance was, he might have said the quiet part out loud.
03:15I think that whenever we, in the National Football League, whenever you have somebody in front of a microphone, everybody knows that talking about your opponent, you got to be complimentary.
03:24You can kind of hint at what the actual reality of the situation is, but you still got to do the sandwich method.
03:30Are you familiar with the sandwich method?
03:31Good, bad, good.
03:32Yeah, there we go.
03:33We can say something good on the front end.
03:34We might say that real or whatever we actually want to say in the middle, and then we make sure we follow back.
03:38But, you know, one more good thing here so that you can part on that.
03:41They are a high-scoring offense.
03:42Yeah, Kalen Bullock didn't do any of that.
03:44He was like, hey, man, if we stop Jonathan Taylor, that's the only thing we need to do.
03:46And, you know, it was probably fair to go, hey, man, you're not going to take account of some of the other things that are happening there.
03:52And you know what happened?
03:53They slowed down Jonathan Taylor, and that Colts offense did not look like it had much teeth.
03:59It had some, right?
04:00It's an explosive offense with some of the receivers that they had, and we saw that.
04:04Alex Pierce getting a few, Josh Downs getting some stuff.
04:07One of those was a nice corner route.
04:08How many third-down conversions is he going to have?
04:11But even with you saying that, like, there was not an abundance of third-down conversions for the Colts.
04:17Well, he had two back-to-back, and he had one called back, I guess, a penalty.
04:21Or else it would have been three straight, and that's it.
04:22Right, and you feel those notable ones.
04:24They were three of ten on third-down.
04:26The Colts had been better at third-down in this last recent stretch of them slowing down.
04:30They'd been poor.
04:31That was one of the places they needed to win at.
04:33They did.
04:33Slowing down Jonathan Taylor was one of the places that they needed to win at.
04:37They did.
04:38He didn't have, I can only think of off-top, maybe one or two.
04:42A reception and a couple of runs.
04:44Explosive runs.
04:44His long was 12 yards in this game.
04:46Fantastic, fantastic effort by the tip of the spear for this Texas team in this defense.
04:51Yeah, no, no question about it.
04:52And this is where, you know, we talk about everything that the ends are always doing,
04:57whether it's Daniil Hunter or Will Anderson Jr. or whatever.
05:00But the whole time, you know, D'Amico Ryans and Matt Burke are talking about all three levels.
05:05All three levels.
05:06This was an all-three-levels game.
05:08You know, especially early on, they had a couple of pressures off the edges.
05:11But the sack came from settle up the middle.
05:14It was really lined by...
05:15Toa Toa had a terrific game, you know, in coverage and tackling and hitting.
05:19Boy, he was taking guys' heads off.
05:21A lot of them were, including...
05:23I'm going to bring this up now because I will forget if I don't bring it up now.
05:27Hey, Aziz.
05:28Why are you doing that?
05:29What are you doing, my boy?
05:31Like, for what reason did you feel the suplex, old boy, in that moment?
05:34Like, there was...
05:35The whistle...
05:36Correct me if I'm wrong.
05:37The whistle had blown or maybe it was about to blow.
05:40And I think I get it, right?
05:41Yeah.
05:41Play through the whistle is what you want, especially for someone of the aggressive nature of Aziz Alshair.
05:47Suplex, though?
05:48But if you didn't...
05:49In fact, they penalized that 10 times out of 10, usually.
05:52He got away with it.
05:53I'm just like, Aziz.
05:54Yeah.
05:54Buddy.
05:55If you didn't see the number, you would have already known it was him.
05:57Why is it always him?
05:59Well, yeah, because...
06:00He's the greatest guy, you know, all this other stuff, but just always in the middle of those types of players.
06:03The only other dude who's suplex on this team and that I think of is Neville Hewitt.
06:07You remember when he did that?
06:08Not this year against the Bills, because obviously he's not on the team, but last year.
06:11Yeah.
06:11He just came out of nowhere.
06:12In fact, that was more of an RKO, just the way that he ran up and tackled.
06:16But no, again, the fact that we even have an opportunity to kind of joke about a moment like that
06:22typifies just how incredible the defense handled this, even with the explosive possibility.
06:28You know a name that was not brought up a lot during this game, and maybe a secondary defender in this was illness?
06:34Tyler Warren did not get busy in this game.
06:36Yeah, he had, what, two catches, I think?
06:38Two that I remember that were significant.
06:39One touchdown, maybe three.
06:41Tyler Warren had three catches for all of 22 yards, one of those being the touchdown.
06:46That's it.
06:46Yeah.
06:47That's it.
06:47Yeah, he was sick, but who cares?
06:50And that's why I go back to, like, you think, okay, Texans dominate again.
06:54By the way, the Texans have now held opponents in five of their last six games to the teens.
07:01You can't get to 20 on this team.
07:03Five out of the last six games.
07:05Now, one of them was lost, but still, that's what this defense is doing.
07:08Even if you're a team that had constantly gotten to 20, I believe that was the first time the Colts were held into 20.
07:12Yeah.
07:13This season was not.
07:13They were, and so, you know, you talk about the edge rushers, Derek Stingley was all pro, you know, all pro Stingley 100%.
07:22Yeah, no catches when he was, in fact, he wasn't targeted very often.
07:26Like, no, once, and it was an incompletion.
07:29Correct.
07:29In 28 coverage snaps.
07:31So, you know, it was just like the entirety of this Texans defense.
07:35It was a thing of beauty, and it does tie into, you know, we're all trying to look at big picture after these games.
07:42You know, what does it mean?
07:43Where are they going?
07:44There's nobody.
07:45I said this last year.
07:46In this segment, I mean, last week.
07:48In this segment last week, after last week's game, there's nobody that can beat this team that you feel can beat this team flat out.
07:56Like, nobody scares you.
07:57Wait, offensively versus this defense?
07:59Because of this defense.
08:00Nobody.
08:01Nobody left on the schedule.
08:02Yeah, nobody left on the schedule without question.
08:04I was like, let's do this.
08:06You want to do this thing?
08:07Let's go ahead and do the thought experiment.
08:08Yeah.
08:09We can open this thing up to the league, right?
08:10Because nobody on the remaining schedule between the Chiefs, especially with the kind of up-and-down nature of their offense, doesn't scare me.
08:18Obviously, the kind of reverse gauntlet, as I'm thinking of it, with the three games in the middle of your remaining schedule,
08:27with the cards, the Raiders, and I even throw the Chargers in there, especially with the news of Justin Herbert having a hurt hand.
08:37I can't remember if it was a fracture or not, but he had to put on a special glove to finish out that game.
08:41I look at them, and I go, none of those offenses particularly scare me.
08:44And you just saw what the Colts have for you.
08:46You just saw it.
08:47But if we open this up to the league, is there a team that you look at the offense and you go, scares me versus this defense?
08:53Not in the AFC.
08:54I mean, you've already seen what some of these teams, the Patriots are going to be mentioned.
08:58I don't know about that.
09:00There's really nothing about the Patriots that I feel like they're going to light up the Texans or whatever.
09:07Broncos, you faced them.
09:08Obviously, you held them, even though it didn't turn out necessarily the way you want.
09:12In the league, I mean, did the Bears scare you?
09:15No.
09:17I mean, I think that that would be a good matchup.
09:19It would be a good game.
09:20I mean, I think the only thing that I could start getting to the possibility of quote-unquote scare is having to then consider how much better the defense needs to be better than the opposing offense in order to make up for what the offense is going to bring.
09:34This is a game in which the offense scored 20 points, right?
09:37And we've talked about it at times.
09:39We're like, hey, can we take that up, right?
09:41The idea being, okay, can you entirely drum out, drum out that opposite offense?
09:48That's where I go, huh, I'm a little interested versus the Bears because I think that Ben Johnson has done a great job kind of figuring some things out there.
09:54But yeah, even there I go, I'm not afraid of them in just a neutral vacuum within the context of you also have to then go outplay them with your offense.
10:02Some thoughts have to come up.
10:05But again, not really afraid of them.
10:06That has been one of the better offenses this year.
10:09Yeah, but there's another thing that came out of this game, and it relates to the defense, that I think is very important.
10:14Early on in this game, you felt as if the Texans offense was going to screw it up, right?
10:22There were penalties, like ridiculous penalties.
10:26There was C.J. Stroud off.
10:28You know, he basically proved to be just rust because he started to find a groove.
10:33The offense was really misfiring early on in the game.
10:37And then as they progressed, Stroud got a lot better.
10:41Woody Marks on the run game, especially Woody Marks, got a lot better.
10:44The offensive line got a lot better.
10:46I was a predicting, et cetera.
10:48I think we kind of found what this ever-elusive identity of the offense is.
10:54Yeah, C.J. Stroud said that post-game.
10:57He said that he felt like the offense had found their identity.
10:59I think he was talking not just in this game, but obviously in the stretch that Davis Mills also had.
11:04And I'm not entirely sure of that.
11:06I think that they found something that could be somewhat sustainable, but I don't know that I could inherently lean to it.
11:11Or maybe it has.
11:11Maybe this is, do you feel like you agree with C.J. Stroud and his assertion that this offense has found some sort of identity?
11:17Well, he wouldn't agree with the way I would characterize it.
11:20But I do agree that they found an identity.
11:22Don't screw it up.
11:24Don't screw it up.
11:25Is that identity?
11:25Yes.
11:26Their identity.
11:27Because think about how you felt in the first quarter of this game.
11:31It's like you knew the defense was going to play well.
11:33I mean, it's just a given at this point.
11:36But you're like, oh, man, they're going to mess around and throw an interception, which he did.
11:41They're going to turn the ball over.
11:42There's going to be some short field that the Colts take advantage of.
11:46And they were screwing it up.
11:47They were screwing it up in the first quarter.
11:49Let's just be honest.
11:50After that, they started really being much more methodical and diligent with how they were running things.
11:56They ran the ball much better.
11:58They didn't screw it up.
12:00And they got to what D'Amico Ryans has said.
12:02I've said, you and I have said 24 all along.
12:04They got to 20 points and they won the game.
12:06The identity of this team, and this is not a backhanded compliment because they're starting to embrace it.
12:10Feels kind of backhanded.
12:11No, but he's embracing it.
12:12He being C.J. Stroud, you know, being smart with the ball, taking advantage, making plays when they're, you know, available and all that.
12:18But their offensive identities don't screw it up.
12:21That's kind of the New England way, though, right?
12:22Yeah, don't screw it up.
12:23Yeah, just kind of.
12:24Yeah.
12:25At points in the New England way of going about things that was.
12:28And when they didn't, there was no, getting back to how we started this segment, there was no doubt in my mind that they were going to win this game because of the defense and the offense was not going to screw it up.
12:37Yeah, once they got to that point.
12:39And I think there's more numbers that I want to dig into when it comes to the way that C.J. performed in this game.
12:45But it did feel like at some point there was an acknowledgement.
12:48I think we saw the acknowledgement for him that, hey, let's just kind of stick to what works, right?
12:54Kind of get the ball out quickly, more quickly.
12:57Get the ball to where it needs to go.
12:58Because, weirdly enough, early on in this game, there was a lot more shots than I had anticipated early.
13:05And that was just kind of an opening script, kind of, we want to see if we can catch him out early or something.
13:12But it was like, it felt out of place.
13:15It almost felt like, and I don't think that this was inherent because it would require more people.
13:19It almost felt like C.J. came back and he was like, we're going back to taking shots because I like taking shots.
13:22And at points in this game, they kind of felt, he realized, in overthrowing and throwing an interception and not really hitting his receivers.
13:29All right, let's pull this back down and just get back to dumping the ball off, getting the ball to where it needs to go.
13:34And, oh, all of a sudden this thing becomes more methodical.
13:36You're moving down the field.
13:37You're matriculating, as some folks would say.
13:39Also, if we're going to talk about not screwing it up, I think that there needs to be credit given to the idea of being able to run the ball fine.
13:47And I know that me saying fine sounds like a knock on them.
13:50But that ties in with the identity.
13:52Run fine.
13:53Run well.
13:54Don't screw it up.
13:55Don't turn the ball over.
13:57My goodness, we're going to talk more about what he marked this week and today, of course.
14:00But I thought he put together an incredible performance.
14:04That was a bad ankle injury.
14:05Yes, that's what I was going to say.
14:06That was not like, you know, just a little tweak or that was bad.
14:10I'm kind of curious what this update is going to be throughout the week.
14:13Yeah.
14:14That's how bad it looked.
14:15Yeah.
14:15He went to the locker room.
14:16Yeah.
14:17Right, and that sounds like, oh, yeah.
14:18But he hurt himself.
14:21They looked on the field.
14:21They put him over to the sideline.
14:23He went to the blue tent.
14:24And they looked at him.
14:25Then they took him to the locker room.
14:27Yeah.
14:27That is a third degree of, you know, evaluation on this.
14:31And if it was like he just went to the medical tent, maybe I go, all right, he tweaked it.
14:34They took him to the locker room, which I imagine means that they needed more advanced tools than what are available on the sideline.
14:41And possibly shots of some sort.
14:43Yeah.
14:44And with all that being the case, you could get him back out on the field.
14:48And he was limping after runs.
14:49Visibly limping.
14:50Yes.
14:50And yet still, one, effective.
14:53But two, he was also still real aggressive.
14:55Like, he was running in to do, in time.
14:57Finishing runs.
14:58On that final drive, I believe, when you're trying to, you know, or maybe not that drive.
15:02I'll need to go back and find what drive.
15:03But I remember there was a specifically time where swing pass goes out to him on the right side.
15:07And he's going to look for contact.
15:09And I'm like, dog, just get to the sideline.
15:10That's right.
15:11No, I think it might have been the end of the first half.
15:13Like, hey, get to the sideline, big dog.
15:14Like, just go ahead and take this.
15:16But he was, he still has that mentality.
15:18Like, he deserves a huge big ups for thugging out that ankle injury.
15:22But also, not changing the mentality at all.
15:24He didn't allow that to scare him or change his demeanor.
15:27He still ran the ball hard.
15:29He ran with physicality.
15:30He had that swarm mentality in the way that he played football.
15:32All that, yes.
15:34And also, when you're injured like that, a lot of times you get a little loose with the ball.
15:38You know, you maybe, you know, have a turnover or drop the ball or whatever.
15:42He was finishing runs.
15:44He was doing all the things you just mentioned.
15:46I thought he was definitely, you know, a game ball guy.
15:49No question about it.
15:50Did we find out who had the game balls?
15:52I don't know.
15:52Because I saw, I know that we've made it a kind of a point, especially on the four-game win streak,
15:55to go, hey, let's see what D'Amico said in the locker room.
15:58And I think the video just gave us his speech, which was kind of cool.
16:01It was reminiscent, thank you, for me, of a coach who's like, we are just in business mode.
16:10We are going playoff hunting now, which is beautiful because that's where you are.
16:14You're 7-5.
16:15You're technically still on the outside looking in, but that's a Colts team.
16:18And we'll talk about that here shortly.
16:20That's a Colts team that the way that it's trending and the way that the remaining schedule looks,
16:25they might be on the outside looking in.
16:26And in fact, it feels likely that they're on the outside looking in here.
16:30And you are poised incredibly well.
16:32You've worked your way back into a place where you're poised to go and get into the dance
16:36and be the scariest team in all the A's.
16:38Yes, they are.
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