- 5 minutes ago
In case you missed it — and honestly, it was easy to — the Texans offense suffered a pretty significant blow yesterday, and what it means for C.J. Stroud and this squad could be huge.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Happy trails to Jakob Johnson.
00:01The fullback was released in order to clear space for Cody Schrager,
00:06the second-year running back out of Missouri, to join to the roster.
00:12Mind you, I believe he has one carry when it comes to his career,
00:16one running back carry, and the rest of his plays have been on special teams.
00:20Make of that what you will.
00:22But it feels like John Lopez, that this is some level of indication
00:26of a not-so-quiet, but kind of quiet issue that the Texans are dealing with,
00:31which is running back depth.
00:32Yeah, I'm sure you get the same emails I get.
00:35You know, Texans, transactions, and then you scroll through it.
00:37Okay, who got waved, who got practice squad, you know, et cetera.
00:40I looked at this one, and I went, okay, this is maybe a little more significant
00:44than a lot of people will give it credit for, because you mentioned it,
00:48Cody Schrader in, off waivers, so that means he has to go to 53.
00:52That's important. He's going to the 53-man roster.
00:55Which I imagine is why Jakob Johnson ends up being the man who takes the fall.
00:58I mean, you have a lot of quote-unquote running backs.
01:01Obviously, you have two guys who are essentially fullbacks,
01:03and maybe they were like, all right, we can maneuver this, we can massage this.
01:07But, yeah, I think that's why Jakob Johnson ends up being the guy.
01:10But it signals Nick Chubb.
01:12There is some concern about Nick Chubb.
01:15I was looking at some stuff from some of the doctors and orthopedists I follow
01:18regarding Nick Chubb, and it could be anything from, well, maybe nothing.
01:23I mean, maybe he'll be back to a week, two weeks, depending on the severity of his rib injury
01:31or whatever his torso injury is.
01:36So that's why I'm saying this might be bigger than you think.
01:38If Nick Chubb is out and you got Cody Schrader on the 53,
01:43he's going to be a guy that you could turn to.
01:46And that means you got Woody Marks, Daria Gumbawale, and Cody Schrader.
01:50I don't know how that makes you feel, but it doesn't make me feel great.
01:54Oh, no, it doesn't make me feel great.
01:55I see you on the YouTube page making note of the fact that Cody Schrader was a beast at Mizzou.
02:01He was.
02:02I agree.
02:02He was really fun to see.
02:03To this point, he has not gotten, I guess, a chance at this level to really run the ball.
02:10The tough part about it is you need guys that you can depend on, right?
02:13You've got guys, in theory, that you could hand the football to.
02:16In, I mean, Daria Gumbawale, in theory, you can hand the football to him.
02:20In fact, you did it in this past game, and it went pretty well.
02:23Shout out to the blocking that gave him an opportunity and churning them leg, getting a touchdown.
02:27You could hand the ball to British Brooks, in theory.
02:30There's even a question of, what does that say about Jawar Jordan on the practice squad?
02:34And the possibility of him being elevated, because it feels like he rarely, even in his seasons here,
02:39rarely gets an opportunity to actually apply his trade in a real way.
02:43Well, go ahead.
02:44I think that all of that points to the idea that you have guys in theory,
02:47but I don't know that you have guys in practice.
02:49And so, even with this, where you have more bodies,
02:53I don't know that you have real, real, actual answers to a question that's clearly been mounting.
02:58As you see, Woody Marks carry the ball 26 times in this football game.
03:03Right.
03:04After he had to leave, you know, he left the game that came back last week,
03:07dealing with an injury.
03:09You saw him leave the field at one point during this game.
03:12He looked like a different kind of injury.
03:14Yeah, a different kind of thing that he was dealing with.
03:16And with him just, like, carrying so much of the load as, admittedly, a guy that is tough,
03:21and I will sing the praises of him being tough,
03:23but it's not necessarily built like a guy that you just batter into the opposing team.
03:27Right.
03:28They battered him into the opposing team with a team that, running back-wise,
03:31you don't have a lot of depth on.
03:34This is kind of a building crisis for the Texans, I'm going to say.
03:37That's where I was going.
03:38I called it significant.
03:39I'm not going to say, oh, my gosh, the sky is falling.
03:42But let's keep this in mind.
03:43This is a team, and you will hear from D'Amico Ryans today talking about this.
03:47We're going to run the ball.
03:48He kind of echoed what we've been talking about.
03:50I know I've said it, you know, about they don't care.
03:52One yard, two yards, one yard, one yard, five yards, whatever.
03:55They're just going to keep running the ball.
03:56You'll hear from him talking about that.
03:58They're going to run the ball.
03:59They're not going to stray away from that.
04:03So my question is, how do you approach it?
04:06Again, Schrader is on the 53-man roster.
04:09Who knows where he's going to end on Sunday, but he's on the roster.
04:13So how do they approach this?
04:16Because I'm with you.
04:17I think they're going to lean heavily, even more so, on Woody Marks.
04:22But then what?
04:24Then what do you do?
04:25Well, and the thing that is scary about leaning heavily on Woody Marks is, I know that I've done a lot of the, he clearly can take it.
04:33He can handle the responsibility of that role.
04:38But for how long is the question?
04:40Because, I mean, I don't want to traffic too much in the little guy gets hurt type thing.
04:44Because I think that we try and quote-unquote common sense it, and it goes contrary and counter to what actual evidence shows.
04:52Like, big guys get hurt too.
04:54It's the car crash sport, as you know I like to call it.
04:56However, now especially that it is very clear, you are going to make the playoffs unless you do some real scary stuff down the stretch.
05:05You got four more football games where this has been established as the way that you kind of do things.
05:12Is it 20 carries a game for him there?
05:14And then what is left in the tank with him being, you know, a soldier and everything for the next, hopefully, four games in the postseason, right?
05:23Like, this is something that you have to consider when you're giving him 26 carries.
05:28Hell, I went and looked at it because I was curious.
05:30Yeah.
05:3026 carries, do you know how many games Joe Mixon last year, and obviously Joe Mixon missing is a big thing in this year, but Joe Mixon last year, right?
05:38Joe Mixon, who was the bell cow last year, and it was like, oh man, he's a workhorse the way that they're giving him.
05:44Do you know how many times he ran, or he had more than 26 carries last year?
05:48How many?
05:49Single, solitary time, which was week one against the Colts.
05:52Oh, that Colts game, yeah.
05:53Where it was just like, yo, feed him the rock and absolutely, you know, tickle the tonsils.
05:57But like, that's Joe Mixon that we were talking about last year, and you have Woody Marks now doing that late in the season,
06:05and it feels like, I don't know how much reprieve he's going to get because Nick Chubb is dealing with that rib injury,
06:09and clearly, to the degree that you needed to bring in somebody else, and Cody Schrader.
06:13Cody Schrader hasn't had much experience in the NFL.
06:16Do they trust him to jump in in a new system immediately and go and tote the rock?
06:20We'll see.
06:21Is Dare Agumawale going to get more opportunities, or are they going to lean more on Woody Marks?
06:25Are they going to bring up Joe?
06:26Like, these are all questions that I have, and honestly, the thing that I think is probably a reasonable thing is to find someone else to share this.
06:33The thing that I think that they might do is just keep giving Woody Marks the ball.
06:37Well, this is where I'm going to sound crass and insensitive, but when it comes to running backs, the NFL traditionally is crass and insensitive.
06:44Sure.
06:45I don't care.
06:47Run him.
06:48Run him.
06:48You know, I know it sounds awful, but at this point, he's your best option.
06:53He's your best running back.
06:55You know, we'll worry about the long-term effect or whatever later, and you know this is true.
07:00Sure.
07:01Just run him 20, 25 times, because I don't like – I like that option better than the other options until I see maybe Schrader, you know, do something,
07:09or we know what Agumawale can do.
07:11I don't think they have a lot of confidence in British Brooks, and Nick Chubb is injured?
07:15Until that whole dynamic changes, hey, Woody Marks, you're carrying the ball.
07:20And I hear you on the longer scale, because I do think that the callous way of looking at things is one of the –
07:28it's the reason why it persists in the NFL is because, hey, man, you're paying for this dude very minimal on a rookie deal,
07:33and this running back position is one that takes a toll on the guys that are actually doing the job.
07:40And so you get the yards out of him early before you really have to pay for the carry, so to say.
07:44That's kind of the expression.
07:47On the YouTube page, why is Reggie sounding super alarmed?
07:50Things are fine.
07:51Here's the thing, right?
07:54I think that you could see a potential breakdown within this season, at which point you're not doing the, oh, it's fine, we'll figure this out later.
08:00No, though, that is a possibility.
08:02He's hurt.
08:02That's a this year type thing, right?
08:04Like, he's hurting for sure, right?
08:05I know that players talk about there's a difference between hurt and injured, right?
08:09And he's just playing hurt or whatever, hurting or what have you.
08:13But at what point does that become problematic?
08:16And I think that you need to think in a longer scale, a longer-term thing.
08:20But the problem is, and the reason why I'm sounding super alarmed to get back to the comment on the YouTube page is,
08:25this is all necessary to get them over the hump, right?
08:29It would be one thing if it was like, oh, we got room to spare, and so we can dial this back.
08:32Like, so that, you know, oh, Woody Marks not having to go three yards in a cloud of dust at the end.
08:37We can do without that.
08:39Did it look like you could do without that?
08:40I don't know if necessarily.
08:41Now, of course, you've got a few games, at least two games against teams that do not feel like that same.
08:46That's the good news.
08:47That don't feel like that same kind of challenge that you've had the last few weeks.
08:50However, the way that this offense operates, I'm still not certain that you can just do without Woody Marks toting a whole bunch of the load right now.
08:59And that's the reason why this pops up for me in my mind.
09:02And I go, is this an impending crisis for them in the running back room?
09:06Or is this going to be one of those things that's just kind of a little bit of an alarm, but you can go ahead and push through it?
09:10I'll say it.
09:12You miss Damien Pierce?
09:14You miss Damien Pierce?
09:15I'm sure they probably kind of do.
09:17I mean, Damien Pierce is a little bit, right?
09:20I guess a little bit.
09:21Just because of the style?
09:22Does he not fit in the bucket of these other dudes that you technically have bodied with, but I don't know if it actually answers the question.
09:27But just in this situation right now, you would like to have maybe somebody be a backup to Woody Marks that's not Darre.
09:37Even four carries.
09:38And look, it's not going to happen, but what I'm saying is he knew the system.
09:43You knew what you were going to get.
09:44It wasn't always going to be great.
09:45But so, you know, it is interesting.
09:48You say kind of a burgeoning crisis.
09:51I think the reason that you're not overstating that, and to the texture's point, have you not seen how this Texans offense operates?
10:00Have you not heard D'Amico Ryans?
10:01They're going to run the ball, Reggie.
10:03They're going to run the ball.
10:04I think he said on the coach's show, and again, we'll hear that, 30 times he goes, that's perfect.
10:10You know, he said, that's what we want to do, 30 times.
10:14Well, they're going to run the ball 30 times, you know, and Woody Marks, I say just put him out there for 25 of them, 26 of them.
10:21I think the other thing to be worried about is, you know, Woody Marks go down, not for the game or anything like that,
10:28but because he went out not that long ago, but he came back.
10:33No, that's it.
10:33That's the worry.
10:34Once he go down, then it's the Daré game at this point.
10:38Yeah.
10:39Yeah.
10:39And so that's one of the things that I'm looking at.
10:42There's a couple of, like, secondary things that we're trying to do.
10:45I think a lot of people on the text line, again, 713-572-4610, making mention of Joe Mixon.
10:53And we haven't gotten any additional updates.
10:56I imagine if you're going to get Joe Mixon back by the end of the season,
10:59now is about the time when you need to see him being activated for the practice window and ramping himself up.
11:06And I ain't heard anything just yet.
11:07Well, the latest update was Nick Casario on these very airwaves saying,
11:12yeah, remember when I said three or four weeks?
11:13Yeah, that wasn't it.
11:14So even he kicked the can down the road.
11:16Yeah, we might as well just get rid of that, man.
11:20Like, I'm not holding my breath for no Joe Mixon return this year.
11:23No, that's where I have been.
11:25But especially with the playoffs, like, if you get Joe Mixon back for the playoffs, I wouldn't be upset.
11:30It's just, hey, the time is ticking down even there to get him ramped up and ready to play.
11:34And on top of that, I think you made an interesting note, which is Jakob Johnson, who has been released,
11:39had a particular role on this team that you might be losing, at least in the short term.
11:43I think he still probably returns to this team.
11:45But in the short term, you're losing that role.
11:47And what's that?
11:47Yeah, the Stover push.
11:48The Red Rover Stover.
11:50I'm going to stick with that.
11:51But Jakob Johnson and British Brooks were the guys that did the push, and they did a really good job.
11:56It was largely successful.
11:57So that's another interesting thing, how you're going to play that.
12:00Yeah.
12:00I'm interested to see how they handle this.
12:02It's not existential, I don't think, but it is something that we absolutely need to watch
12:07because that move, I think, told us a little bit something about what they're dealing with depth-wise.
12:12And you've put a lot on Woody Marks at this moment.
Be the first to comment