- 22 minutes ago
Lopez used to call J.J. Watt “the masking agent” for covering up shortcomings in the Texans defense late in his career, and now he’s seeing a similar dynamic — at a lower level — with another player on this team. ITL debates whether one standout is helping hide deeper issues and what that says about the roster as a whole.
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00:00But back in the day, you used to call J.J. Watt the masking agent?
00:02I did, and this was not obviously when they were really good,
00:05but toward the end, toward the Deshaun Watson years,
00:08he was so good that he would mask a lot of shortcomings on the Texans defense.
00:14Sure, a lot of good players do that.
00:15I think that's one of the reasons why people are frustrated with C.J.
00:18is they feel like he's not masking enough.
00:19Yeah, and so I kind of thought about that when I was looking at this offensive line.
00:25Now, look, Tay Ussery is not J.J. Watt's imagination.
00:31Who says? Clearly he's going into the Hall of Fame.
00:33Okay, but let me ask you guys this.
00:35Ussery, by pretty much any account, had a really good rookie year.
00:38Yes.
00:39Right?
00:40Have you looked at the other offensive linemen?
00:43Yes, all the time, dude.
00:44There's no concern with the offense and such.
00:48Now, look, they're going to have some personnel things
00:51that they're going to have to do along the offensive line.
00:53Without question.
00:54Is Tay Ussery masking just how bad, and this is a conversation that came up last year
01:00and will come up again, is he masking just how bad Nick Casario
01:05and this pro scouting staff has been just identifying offensive linemen in general?
01:13I think so.
01:15Let's just go through this.
01:16All right.
01:16So, Blake Fisher this year, largely bad, had a couple of moments,
01:21but was kind of relegated to just a blocking tight end that really wasn't even a good blocking tight end.
01:26He was fine.
01:27And when you look at it.
01:28Aggressively fine.
01:29Yeah, he was aggressively fine.
01:31So, that's Blake Fisher.
01:32Wasn't he a second-round draft pick?
01:34Yeah.
01:34That sounds correct.
01:35Yes.
01:35Yep.
01:36Jarrett Patterson couldn't beat out Jake bleeping Andrews and couldn't really get on the field until he had to.
01:46That one I would probably give a pass on because he was a fifth-round pick, right?
01:49I'm just going through all his – okay.
01:51And on top of that –
01:52I would probably give him a pass on that.
01:54I wouldn't say he blown that pick.
01:55I'm glad you said I know what you –
01:57This also feels a little bit like Pet Cat because Jake Andrews,
02:00with the relationship that it feels like he had with Cole Popovich,
02:03and they lean not on his actual physical play, although I'm sure he was good.
02:09I'm good, barely.
02:10It was more about his – the way that he helped kind of organize what's happening,
02:15the communication that they lean on.
02:17Now, that's part of playing the position, to be fair.
02:19So, maybe you say that that's why he beat out Jarrett Patterson,
02:22but I also do think that that factors in when we talk about it.
02:24I'm glad you said that, though, Figgy, because I'll just say this first before I get into the particulars.
02:30Early-round picks, late-round picks, doesn't matter.
02:33Nick Casario has drafted seven offensive linemen since he's been the general manager here.
02:38All right?
02:40So, he's drafted seven.
02:41Only one is a starter.
02:44That's Ursary.
02:45Three are gone, including a first-round pick.
02:47So, of the seven draft picks he's had, there's basically one.
02:52We mentioned Blake Fisher.
02:53We mentioned Jarrett Patterson.
02:55Whatever happened to Juice Scruggs?
02:58He in there somewhere.
02:59That was a second-round pick.
03:01Another second-round pick.
03:02He in there somewhere.
03:03Now, let's go to the guys that he brought in.
03:06Ed Ingram, how are you feeling about that?
03:08I felt – well, I notoriously did not feel very good about it at the start.
03:12Felt a lot better about it during the season, and towards the end, I've cooled a little bit.
03:15Because the play seemed to trend down a little bit, and I would hate for you to come back next season
03:20and invest again in Ed Ingram and then find out that the trajectory that you saw continues.
03:26I think that that ended up being a good value addition.
03:29I think that was found money.
03:31Yes.
03:31Because I think when he brought him in, I think all of us think, like, oh, it's just somebody – a debt piece or something like that.
03:38Yeah.
03:39And we mentioned how, I guess, King and Green got shipped off.
03:44You had some other pieces that just didn't work out where he ended up winning the job.
03:49But I think he brought him in as the starter or anything like that where he's seen something nobody else saw.
03:55I think that was more found money.
03:57I mean, Ed Ingram didn't look particularly good with the Vikings the year prior.
04:01Right, right.
04:02Yeah, I thought that was actually a good found money circumstance.
04:04Yeah.
04:05Then we didn't even mention Cam Robinson, you know, gone.
04:09That was just a bad signing, man.
04:11All right.
04:11And I became a big fan of Trent Brown.
04:13But did you realize that in the last six seasons, Trent Brown has started more than nine games exactly once?
04:19Yes.
04:20That was one of the reasons why we're like, oh, word, Trent Brown is what we're doing here.
04:23So, like Ursary, hey, look at Tay Ursary.
04:27You didn't mention Lake and Tomlinson.
04:28Lake and Tomlinson as well.
04:30There's another one.
04:31Yeah.
04:31So, between the draft picks and the acquisitions otherwise, whether it's free agency or whatever, we got Tay Ursary and we're all happy about that.
04:39But he's kind of a masking agent.
04:42They need, tell me if I'm wrong, this is the number I put on it.
04:45I think they need five, maybe six offensive linemen this offseason.
04:51Oh.
04:51When you consider depth, when you consider starters, which really Titus Howard and Ursary are probably the only locks, I guess.
04:58Yeah, those are the only ones that I would look at.
05:00I think they need to figure out what they're going to do with Juice, what they're going to do with Jared Patterson.
05:04Yeah.
05:05Because that's part of my equation.
05:07They might be moving on from guys like that.
05:09And if that's the case, look at the depth chart.
05:11Look at the depth chart.
05:12I know you have it in front of you.
05:13I do now.
05:13Yeah, five, maybe six offensive linemen.
05:17I think that might be a stretch.
05:19I'm okay with Jared Patterson as a depth piece.
05:22Blake Fisher is a little bit dicey, but I mean, he's under contract.
05:25So I think that you could be fine with that.
05:30Juice does not feel like he's been of great use for you.
05:35If I'm going to be entirely honest.
05:36Ed Ingram, Trent Brown.
05:38Trent Brown?
05:39I think they're going to bring him back.
05:40Trent Brown can remain as a competition.
05:42Trent Brown, without question.
05:44I don't think he's a starter.
05:45I think that you definitely need.
05:46All of those names don't scream, hey, they solid.
05:50We don't need to look at that position.
05:52How about Blake Fisher?
05:54I think he's gone.
05:56He could be.
05:57Yeah.
05:57That's four right there.
05:58I mean, but he's still under contract, though.
06:00We can agree on four they need.
06:02Still under contract.
06:03And the path of least resistance is, he remains as a depth piece.
06:08If King and Green could be gone, I don't think his job is safe.
06:12I wouldn't be surprised if he was gone.
06:13I agree.
06:14No, I don't think that's the case either.
06:15I don't think it's a stretch.
06:16We just named four.
06:18Without question.
06:18No.
06:19I don't think it's a stretch to say they need five, maybe six offensive.
06:22When you look at the depth.
06:22Yeah, I think five, six is a stretch.
06:24I think you get to four, and I'm like, okay.
06:25And that's already a big deal.
06:27I'm not trying to undercut it, but I think that's a big deal.
06:29But with that being the case, and I will give the optimism here.
06:33You could be mad if you don't want to be optimistic in this case.
06:36Is there an argument to be made that Ariante Urshiri represents some level of shift here, though?
06:43Because some of the guys you're talking about as acquisitions,
06:46there's also an acknowledgement that they were bargain bin shopping.
06:49Yeah.
06:49Right?
06:49So, how good of the expectations did you expect when you were shopping in the bargain bin?
06:53And this was the problem that we rose.
06:54Like, I'm not saying this in the defense.
06:56You know why you're shopping in the bargain bin?
06:57We said this on the front end.
06:58This is why you don't shop in the bargain bin.
07:00Yeah.
07:00But, so, I'm not going to knock you then that the results are bargain bin largely results.
07:05Ariante Urshiri is a talent that they got in the center.
07:09He was a starter all the way around at one of the most difficult positions.
07:13And he also felt like he fit as a body type and as a play style, the style that they were moving towards,
07:20where I don't know that some of the other players that they have drafted before fit, even body type-wise.
07:27And I wonder if this is, if he might be some level of representation of a step forward in their evaluation process.
07:33I'm not.
07:33I know this is an optimistic view, but is there any chance that you can see that?
07:36Obviously, there's a chance, but I'm not optimistic or pessimistic.
07:39Okay.
07:39I'm saying Nick Casario and his staff's evaluation of offensive linemen.
07:44You talk about Tay Urshiri fitting, you know, the profile.
07:46Yeah.
07:46And the other guys were in the bargain bin.
07:48They still brought in Lakin Tomlinson and Cam Robinson.
07:50They did.
07:51You know, and all these guys that just did not work.
07:53Yeah, they decided to go for quantity versus quality.
07:56They went into the five below, and they picked up a whole bunch of things, and they're like,
08:00we'll see how many of these things work.
08:02Mm-hmm.
08:02In the circumstance.
08:03And then you got it below, you got a below average offensive line, which was a step up
08:08from your putrid offensive line.
08:09Yeah.
08:09The year prior.
08:10There's definitely a step up that needs to happen.
08:12And I think that there will be, but it, and this is, again, another one of those frustrations
08:16that popped up listening to Casario talk on Wednesday is I don't think that this is something
08:22that he's going to neglect, but if you were just going off of what he said on Wednesday,
08:26it did sound like something that could, they could easily neglect.
08:28Well.
08:28That is something that I can't get.
08:30I think, I think where I am with it is, it is, it is priority one.
08:34You know, people can talk about running back and tight ends and, and whatever, uh, another
08:38weapon, uh, et cetera.
08:41Priority one is the offensive line.
08:43And since Nick Casario has been here, there have been far more.
08:48Lost when it comes to the draft or, or free agent acquisition in the offensive line.
08:55That, that, that's what I'm saying.
08:56Like you can be optimistic as optimistic as you want.
08:59Sure.
08:59The record is very, very clear in the draft and in free agency that, that it's either
09:04patchwork.
09:05Uh, it's a, it's a, it's a sort of a, a temporary fix or it's draft picks from the first round
09:11through the sixth round that were just not, that didn't work out outside of nursery.
09:16No.
09:16The masking agent is what I'm saying.
09:18Right.
09:18And I, I, I'm just trying to offer a counterbalance.
09:21I think I'm a lot closer to where you are than the point I'm putting forward here.
09:25But the point I'm putting forward here is if you, you have to try and address this,
09:29right?
09:29This off season, whether it's draft pick, not whether, when you get drafted, because
09:33it, oh my goodness, can you believe a draft that you go into with eight picks at various
09:38different levels, four top 100s and you go, yeah, I didn't really get around to like a
09:42third rounder.
09:43Yeah.
09:44And there's no, there's no way that would happen.
09:45I was going to say, how, how would y'all feel if they get past the second round?
09:48I would drop cuss words on air.
09:49No, no, no O-line.
09:51I would drop cuss words on air.
09:52No, I just said it, Figgy.
09:53This is priority.
09:55Number one is the offensive line priority in both free agency and the draft.
09:59And that's the thing that, that, that level, when they go to that level, that'll be what
10:03remains to be seen.
10:04But even looking at this team in the way that we were hoping that they would address the
10:08off season with this offensive line coming in, you knew that it was a multi-year plan.
10:12You don't overhaul an offensive line in a single, single, single year, singular year, but
10:17they're going to need to, they're going to need to have hits.
10:18And I think that's ultimately what you're coming to the fact that you can have a masker,
10:22a, a, a, a, you know, a masking agent, as you put it, is a good thing, right?
10:27Because that means that you hit it, but you ultimately, and I think what you're speaking
10:31to is, it seems like there's just not a lot of confidence that they will.
10:34Well, that's what I was going to ask you.
10:35What is your confidence level?
10:36Well, I'm not that confident yet, man, because yes, he did hit with ursery, but what about
10:42the other ones?
10:42Yeah.
10:43Like that's, that's one offensive lineman right there.
10:46It's four drafts.
10:47He's had four drafts now.
10:48Yes.
10:49You know, I can't, I can't say, I can't defend him.
10:52Yeah.
10:52I can't sit here and say, yeah, I'm confident he's going to get the right ones.
10:55He got one, right?
10:57Yeah.
10:57That was it.
10:58Yeah.
10:58Right.
10:59Including a first rounder, you know, that's gone.
11:01Yeah.
11:01Again, just, just, you can even say I'm playing devil's advocate in this moment in a draft
11:06that we acknowledge was not actually like a crazy deep offensive line draft.
11:11He got, he got your starting left tackle of the future in the second round.
11:15And so I wonder, are they getting better at this?
11:18Now that's a question and not a assertive statement, but are they getting better at this
11:22than the numerous, and I will say numerous obvious misses that's happening.
11:26And then on top of that, one of the things that we acknowledge with any talent, whether it's
11:31quarterback all the way down your roster is that drafting is one of it and developing
11:34is another.
11:35Are they in a better circumstance to develop that talent to make sure that it works?
11:38Well, that's exactly what I was going to say next.
11:40So, you know, the one thing I am confident in, I do feel like if they, no matter who they
11:45draft and maybe it's not quite as good as somebody who went behind them or whatever, we'll
11:49find out that all that later.
11:50I do think if he leans more heavily into, into Cole Popovich, maybe those draft picks become
11:56better because Cole Popovich, you know, for all the things that we talk about with
12:00this offense, I think he proved himself.
12:02Yeah.
12:02You know, I think he proved himself that he can get the most out of these.
12:05That is a positive thing.
12:06If you want to come up with something positive, if you think that's a positive thing, if you
12:11get some real talent in there and let Cole Popovich kind of work.
12:16Yeah.
12:16Yeah.
12:17And I think that that's likely what's going to happen.
12:19And that, again, if I, I would like to find some optimism with this team, if I'm going
12:23to do that, I think that I have to do, especially because they have, they have heaped praise
12:28upon Cole Popovich and I think it's deserved.
12:29You could see the fundamental approach that has clearly gotten better from years prior
12:34that has to remain the case.
12:35And hopefully if you do that, you get it better from the eight, three, two, what exact position
12:39on the offensive line do you want them to address center and guard, but guard, guard is
12:43number one.
12:44I started with those, I started with probably the secondary one.
12:46It's guard number, number one, because you can, you could use one or two starting guards
12:51depending on where you want to put Titus Howard.
12:53If you have Titus Howard sliding back out to right tackle, which I'm actually starting
12:57to debate on, then you have to have, I think you need two starting guards.
13:02Well, if, if you move Titus Howard and you're like, you are now just the left guard now,
13:06buddy, this is where you live, which I actually am starting to believe that that might be the
13:09better place for him.
13:10I do too.
13:10Then you probably, you need a right tackle as well as a right guard.
13:13You could probably keep making it with the center that you have in Jake Andrews, but
13:16I would also love an upgrade there.
13:18You need, I understand though, that you can't go in with the, with the grocery list and
13:21expect all of it to get answered.
13:23But you do need, no, I think you do need this.
13:25Not, not, you know, maybe luxury.
13:27You need competition at center.
13:28You need competition at right tackle and you need a brand new right guard.
13:33Strong.
13:33I strong agree.
13:34Right guard.
13:34I need an answer.
13:35Three right there.
13:35Yeah.
13:36Yeah.
13:36So it's, I would like three starters in any case, whether it's two,
13:40two guards and a right tackle or center or start.
13:43Yes.
13:43Yeah.
13:45No, no.
13:45Center guard, right tackle, or all the entirety of the interior.
13:50Got it right.
13:50But yeah, you have to hope that the idea is Ariane Territory isn't simply a masking agent,
13:56more of a, a, a turn in the trend that had been poor offensive line evaluation and development
14:02for this Texans life.
14:03Cause you can't deny that portion of it, but that's absolutely there.
14:06All right.
14:06You're in the loop here on sports radio, six 10.
14:09So who's the best center of the draft.
14:10We will have to find that out.
14:11I'm going to be honest.
14:12I have not dug into, I've looked at one mock draft to this point yet, but that's going to
14:16be the benefit of the, the C the months that we have rolling up to all April.
14:20When we have the 2026 NFL draft.
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