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Sean and Seth discuss the 5 biggest stories about the Texans to come out so far this offseason.
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00:00Uh, Houston Texans team president, Mike Toman was in studio with us on Friday to talk about
00:06the new team headquarters.
00:07And I was looking at the calendar.
00:08I'm like, all right, we're, we're a month removed from the loss to the Patriots in the
00:14playoffs.
00:15So it's almost like, you know, first 30 days of the, what's happened in the first 30 days
00:19of this presidency.
00:20So what's gone on with the Texans since they lost in the playoffs.
00:25And I would say if I'm, and honestly, part of it was the new headquarters.
00:31It made me think in this fashion.
00:33But the other thing was the tank Dell video that surfaced over the weekend of him working
00:38out and how yoked he is from the waist up.
00:41My God, from the waist up is key.
00:43Yeah, it's key.
00:44It's key.
00:45We'll get to tank.
00:45We'll get, we'll get to tank.
00:47Yeah.
00:47It's very key.
00:48It was a bit of a backhanded compliment.
00:51Um, so I started thinking like, okay, what would have been the biggest story so far?
00:55And, and I think if I were counting them down top five, I would say, and maybe we feel this
01:01more acutely because we were at the hotel with all these guys in San Francisco, but my
01:05God, there were a lot of Texans at the pro bowl games this year.
01:08Yeah.
01:09Yeah.
01:10Six of them to be exact for an event that people decreasingly care about.
01:13It's always still exciting when you find out that your guys are there.
01:17Recognition.
01:18Yes.
01:18That's recognition, particularly, uh, I would say Kalen Bullock and Kamari Lasseter getting
01:24named as substitutes to that game.
01:26Yeah.
01:26And I think both of those guys that are, they've kind of got, um, a little bit of, uh, like
01:32an insider's appeal.
01:33I feel like both of those guys are players that people around the league, film watchers,
01:39ball knowers, if you will, but then players themselves will point out, you know, like a lot
01:47of people have, a lot of other NFL players will talk about Bullock and just how he shows
01:52up out of nowhere, Mao, his range.
01:54You hear the opposing players' offensive, uh, the opposing team's offensive players talk
01:58about Bullock a lot.
01:59And then also, you know, with Kamari Lasseter, I mean, so much of it was that people were
02:05so dismayed by his slow 40 time that they were just convinced in the draft process that
02:10he couldn't possibly be a good cornerback.
02:13And, but he's in a lot of ways, he's, uh, he really shows up on film because of a, he's
02:20a good cornerback and B because he's super, super physical.
02:23Yes.
02:23And it, that just jumps off the screen to opposing teams.
02:26So we've heard a lot of opposing teams talk about Kamari Lasseter and Kalen Bullock, perhaps
02:30more than the national media would.
02:32Yep.
02:32That's number five.
02:33Number four, they made some changes on the coaching staff.
02:36Jake Moreland, tight ends coach, let go.
02:39Ben Bowling was one of the assistant linebacker coaches, let go.
02:42Mike Snyder is, uh, was an off assistant.
02:45Those guys were all let go.
02:47I think it's a, probably a broader coaching staff bullet point because some of the changes
02:52that maybe weren't made that people thought could have been made or retentions.
02:56The retention of Dino Vasso.
02:58That's a big story too.
02:59Interviewed with four teams for defensive coordinator and Dino Vasso has been here for all of Derek
03:04Stingley's development, all of Kamari Lasseter, all of Kalen Bullock, all of Jalen
03:08Petrie, um, you know, he was here before D'Amico was here and he's, he's been, uh, a, a very
03:16critical part of that defense getting to where it is.
03:19You know, Derek Stingley, when, when they announced that Dino Vasso is staying, what
03:22did Derek Stingley said?
03:23He just, it was a tweet.
03:25He retweeted it in the world.
03:26Like best in the world, greatest coach.
03:28Yeah.
03:28Like he, he was, he loves him.
03:30Stingley publicly loves Dino Vasso.
03:32So that's a, that you're right.
03:33That of all the coaching, of all the coaching staff changes and non-changes Vasso is probably
03:38the biggest one.
03:39I think if you look at the two most dominant position groups on the team, the defensive
03:43line and the defensive backs, you feel really good about both those assistant coaches,
03:48Rod, right.
03:49And I know like, you know, you might say, well, I'll go.
03:52Will Anders was going to be good no matter what.
03:53Okay.
03:54Daniil Hunter was already good.
03:55Two things about that.
03:56One is the defensive tackles have consistently played like the best version of themselves.
04:01Yeah.
04:01They're taking multiple guys who have come from multiple different places and they consistently
04:06play their best when they're here.
04:08And the second is that I've just, I'm as a former defensive lineman, I've watched Rod
04:11Wright coach and I'm, I get jealous of, of the players who get to be coached by him.
04:17He really knows his stuff.
04:19Yep.
04:19Yep.
04:19You like it.
04:20That's number four.
04:21Number three.
04:22This is the one we'll spend the most time on tank.
04:24Dell knew that it appears that tank Dell, and this came directly from D'Amico Ryan's
04:30and Nick Casario, Nick Casario on our show last week, that it seems like the expectation
04:35is that tank is going to participate in at least some of the activities this spring.
04:41Yeah.
04:41OTAs, minicamp, whatever that may be.
04:43This is a long cut, but it's a good cut.
04:45And Seth, you said you, you played this on your YouTube channel.
04:47You played this on your YouTube.
04:48I put some highlights of tank Dell from 2024 over it.
04:51And people, a lot of people were, A, moved by the highlights, but B, also were, they liked
04:59this conversation.
05:00Yeah.
05:00They complimented our questions, especially.
05:01Okay, so we're going to play this cut, and then we'll lay out what we saw over the weekend
05:04from tank.
05:05I mean, I think we were kind of like, well, maybe there's a shot at the end of this past
05:11season.
05:12Didn't really work out that way, but he's kind of ready to go here.
05:15I think he'll be able to start, hopefully, in April.
05:18Like I said, he's there training just about every day.
05:21So the big step for him will be once he's out of a rehab mode, when you actually get
05:25on the field and you actually start, let's say, running and cutting in more true football
05:30type environment, what that actually looks like.
05:32Yeah, that's what I wanted to ask you, Nick.
05:33I'm very curious about that, because you guys have access to so much sports science and high
05:38level equipment and things like that.
05:39But are there ways that you can tell with tank, not just like straight line speed type
05:44of stuff.
05:45You can measure that with a stopwatch.
05:46Do you guys have mechanisms to be able to see that he's still got that same change of
05:50direction in Twitch?
05:51Yeah, we're fortunate.
05:52We get a lot of that on the players, and we use it to really, it's twofold, to help
05:56educate them and also to provide some benchmarks.
05:59So as a player is coming back, hey, here was his kind of baseline previously.
06:03All right, here's where he is now.
06:05All right, there's some things that we can do to help modify the training to kind of get to
06:08that point.
06:09So, because in the end, you want the athlete to be in as much balance as possible.
06:13I think sometimes you might find maybe there's more of an asymmetry right to left.
06:17Okay, what can we do to help?
06:18But you do, you have information.
06:20And the good thing about tank, he's been with us from the beginning.
06:22So you can see how fast he was running his routes.
06:24So here was his miles per hour.
06:26Here was his sum of metrics.
06:28Here was his force plate jump or whatever we're measuring.
06:31All right, then where is he now?
06:33So it'll be probably a slow-moving target, but you do have some benchmarks of information
06:39because we have a lot of data in our system, which we can utilize.
06:42What are the early signs?
06:44Are you able to discern anything yet?
06:45Overall, I mean, he's probably not quite to where he was, but he's trending that way.
06:51Was there a moment at the end of the season where you guys had to break the news to him
06:54that, like, man, it's just not going to work out?
06:57No, I think he kind of, you know, knew at some point, like, all right, and then he kind
07:01of transitioned his mindset as well.
07:03And like I said, his attitude was really good.
07:06I mean, he's obviously disappointed, but he was doing everything he can.
07:09And as soon as the season was over, I mean, he had a big smile on his face, like, all
07:13right,
07:13like, I'm ready to go, which is great.
07:16So he's not discouraged.
07:17Tank's a great kid.
07:18I mean, you guys have been around him.
07:19So we'll see how it goes.
07:20Not going to lie.
07:21That was a pretty good two minutes of radio right there.
07:25Well, the part that I think people find most interesting, or at least I do, and you did
07:31a good job of asking this question, was about the date and the GPS monitoring and everything
07:36like that.
07:37And then, you know, and one thing that Nick mentioned, too, was the strength disparity
07:42from one leg to the other, all of that stuff.
07:45They've just gotten a lot better at being able to measure and diagnose that.
07:48And those are the kinds of things that can, when you do throw somebody back out on the
07:54football field, and it looks like in workouts they're okay to go, and it looks like in the
07:59weight room they're strong and everything, that's when you could get re-injured, as if,
08:03yeah, a guy's actually just been able to mask it pretty well, and he's trying real hard,
08:09but there's still a lot of imbalances.
08:11I feel better about it with Tank, partly just because of the modern technology they have
08:16to be able to assess that stuff.
08:17Okay, so this begs the question, there was a video that Tank himself put out over the
08:22weekend.
08:23What was it?
08:23He was carrying two dumbbells by his side.
08:25It's just called a farmer's walk.
08:27Farmer's walk, okay.
08:27Yeah, you're walking with a couple of dumbbells.
08:29Yep.
08:29So it's kind of like a whole body exercise, because you've got to use your core and your
08:34grip strength and everything else to keep walking, and it's a dumb exercise that looks like,
08:39okay, what's the big deal with that?
08:41It sucks.
08:41It sucks if you do it long enough.
08:43Yeah, well.
08:43As a former kid that worked on farms, I can tell you, carrying stuff over long distances
08:49sucks.
08:50It's not fun.
08:51Yeah.
08:51Um, so the big, the big takeaway people seem to have with Tank in that video is his legs
08:58are really, really, really skinny.
09:00Yes.
09:00Yes.
09:01Like, really skinny.
09:02That was my immediate takeaway, too.
09:04To the point where I ended up just, I spent way too much time looking at Tank Dell's thighs
09:09this weekend.
09:10More so than I usually do.
09:11Did you go back and look at his thighs from before the knee injury?
09:15Yeah, well, through his, through his, uh, pants, you know?
09:19Yeah, yeah, yeah.
09:19Like, highlights.
09:20And it was, I had to do a little bit of the x-ray vision, imagination thing.
09:23But, he's always had ridiculously skinny legs.
09:27Of course.
09:27To the point where you worry about him.
09:28Yes.
09:29He's just, you look at him and you think, yeah, he looks too small to be on a football field.
09:32Right, right, right.
09:33Some would argue that maybe that's why he suffered a couple season-ending leg injuries.
09:38Because his legs are so skinny.
09:39Yeah.
09:39The hard part was, a lot of people said, wow, there's a leg size difference.
09:43And I'll be honest with you, the problem in trying to figure this out is that he's got
09:48a full tattoo sleeve on his right leg.
09:51Yeah.
09:52And then his left leg is the one where he injured his knee in 2024.
09:56Yes.
09:56And there were some angles where I thought his left leg looked definitely skinner than his
10:00right leg.
10:00And then there were other angles where I, I couldn't really tell a difference.
10:04I think that if you were, I, for me personally, yes, I would love his legs to put on some
10:11more
10:11strength and, and muscle mass and what have you.
10:14I just don't think that where he is right now is necessarily all that different from
10:19where he was before the injury.
10:20I don't either.
10:21I don't either.
10:22I'm always optimistic on these things.
10:24So I'm like, you're wrong about his knees.
10:25Hey, by the way, second biggest story, CJ's new haircut, first biggest story, Texans new
10:31headquarters.
10:31So those are just to round out the top five.
10:33I think tank, I think tank is the third biggest behind the haircut of his best friend, CJ Stroud,
10:39the third biggest story based on engagement and whatnot.
10:42I want to pay off on what we talked about earlier.
10:44Sean and I were talking about search engine optimization before the show.
10:47And as we always do is, uh, and, uh, yeah, saying Houston Texans in the first seconds actually
10:54really helps you with the search engines for people like our, our listeners who are, you know,
10:59looking for Houston Texans content.
11:01And if you want us to stick around for a long, long time and be the best in the world,
11:05we need
11:05to execute.
11:06And that's what we did.
11:07We said Houston.
11:08Same thing if we say Houston Rockets or Houston Astros.
11:11Yeah.
11:11We're going to, we're going to say a lot of Houston Astros.
11:12We're going to say Houston a lot.
11:14Yeah.
11:14That's right.
11:15Just Houston.
11:15Just Houston.
11:17Houston, Houston, Houston.
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