- 2 days ago
Seth and Sean react to breaking news that the Texans have traded OL Tytus Howard to the Browns for a 5th round draft pick and everything that could mean for the Texans moving forward.
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00:00This is huge news from the Houston Texans, who have a lot of work to do on the offensive line.
00:07And we've been saying all offseason, well, the two things that we count on that we think are going to
00:12happen,
00:13Ariante Urshari, probably going to be your left tackle, and Titus Howard is going to have a spot somewhere on
00:20this offensive line,
00:21either at guard or at right tackle.
00:25Well, that will not be the case.
00:27I don't know what he'll be playing, Titus Howard, this season, but it won't be in Houston.
00:32Sources, this is Ian Rapoport reporting this, the Texans and Browns have agreed to terms on a trade
00:39to send starting right tackle Titus Howard to Cleveland in exchange for a fifth-round pick.
00:45Much-needed O-line help for the Browns, plus Howard gets a new three-year, $63 million extension
00:54in a deal done by his representation.
00:58So Titus Howard, who obviously is being viewed as a valuable piece in Cleveland because they're putting their money where
01:04their mouth is.
01:04He's getting several million dollars in new money, is on his way out of the building for a day three
01:11pick here.
01:12What's your initial gut reaction on this?
01:16My initial gut reaction is excitement, just because I feel like with everything that we heard from D'Amico at
01:25the Combine,
01:26most notably just that he said that they've got to get better on the offensive line.
01:30He said specifically we have to improve at offensive line and running back.
01:37They've now, very shortly after that statement, they've torn down one of the other guys who is a high-priced
01:43guy on your team
01:44and that the overhaul on the offensive line is hopefully going to be more aggressive than it was last offseason.
01:51But I think last offseason, you can see where, okay, it was going to be a two-year deal.
01:57We're going to get rid of three of our starters from 2024, and now we're going to get rid of
02:03another one of those guys,
02:05clear up a little bit of cap space, and start, again, filling in with guys that either make more financial
02:10sense
02:11or with youth and guys that you can build on in the future.
02:15So as long as they're aggressive about it in free agency and in the draft, I'm kind of excited about
02:20it.
02:21And it looks like they genuinely mean business.
02:24Yes. Okay, I'll get into the financial part of it in a second.
02:28It's interesting what you said about D'Amico, and this is D'Amico talking to Judy Batista last week
02:35when he was very open about O-line and running back and needing to improve there.
02:39Are they improved by letting Titus Howard go?
02:42Not in the short, not immediately, no.
02:44And I think that I've always been okay with Titus, and you know how I feel about offensive linemen.
02:50Like, if you're competent, if you're good, if you're solid, as long as you have five guys who are competent
02:58and solid,
02:59you get a synergistic effect.
03:00So I've always been fine with him as part of the bunch.
03:04I've never looked at him as a guy that's a bell cow or that, oh, yeah, that's exactly the kind
03:10of play you want out of him.
03:11So at his price tag and as he's getting a little bit older and everything else that goes with it,
03:18I'm cool with this move, but with the huge, huge asterisk of, but you've got to put together an actually
03:25solid offensive line.
03:27And we don't, Nick hasn't demonstrated that he can necessarily do that yet.
03:32This is directly from Texans Cap, and I think he's okay with me reading this on the air because I
03:37just asked him,
03:38hey, what are the cap ramifications?
03:40I'm sure he'll have an article out about it.
03:42If you don't follow Texans Cap on Twitter, it does a great job covering stuff like this.
03:47They're absorbing $23 million in dead money, but there is a cap savings,
03:53an initial cap savings of a little over $4 million, a net cap savings of a little over $3 million.
03:58I don't know what the difference is between those two.
04:00Just know that they've opened up a few million in cap space.
04:04Probably the bigger part of this isn't the financial part because that's a few million bucks in a world where
04:09the cap is now over $300 million.
04:11I think symbolically this is the biggest thing.
04:14It's like, okay, Titus was the last vestige of whatever the old, you know,
04:19aside from Juice Scruggs and Blake Fisher are still in the building from 2024.
04:23I mean, there's still Jared Patterson still around.
04:25But as far as guys that at least perceive to matter greatly right now,
04:30Titus Howard was the last vestige of that.
04:32I'll tell you what, honestly, and I think part of it is at the Combine last year,
04:40D'Amico had said there needs to be a culture change in the offensive line.
04:43And sometimes it's not as quick or as expedient to just, you know,
04:47change everything immediately and expect the culture to change.
04:50I mean, Trent Brown last year, at least twice,
04:53I heard Trent Brown talk about how the O-line play wasn't good enough.
04:58We're not, this isn't where we want to be.
05:00We need to be better than this.
05:01And it's not like I'm looking at Trent Brown as the guy that's the linchpin to having the right offensive
05:06line or anything.
05:06But I think it's notable that Trent Brown's a guy who's played on championship caliber offenses.
05:12And I just don't, I don't, I don't remember when I heard Titus Howard say, man, we're not,
05:17we're not doing well enough as an offensive line.
05:19Right.
05:19It was going back to the Laramie Tunsil days and everything.
05:22If anything, those guys were, you know, defending themselves against the criticisms of poor play.
05:30Well, on social media, they were doing it.
05:32Right, right, right.
05:32You know, like that's the thing.
05:33It's one thing to get asked the question.
05:36And you're, you know, in the moment and you're verbalizing, you've got time to think before you hit send on
05:41those tweets, man.
05:42And I just know by virtue of some of the stuff that filters through in articles written about the Texans
05:46and everything, I can tell.
05:47Look, man, I can tell when O-line are trying to feed their O-line propaganda to the media.
05:52And I hate, I hate offensive linemen that are media puppets.
05:56Like they just, they're litigating through the press and anonymous quotes and everything about how, no, they're actually playing pretty
06:05well.
06:06And there was, there was a lot of that on the Texans offensive line as they weren't playing well for
06:10years of various things getting dropped in the media about how, like, oh, no, this actually isn't that bad because
06:16such and such and such and such.
06:17So in, in recreating a culture on that O-line, I think this is a little bit of that.
06:24That, I don't know if Titus, it's not his fault necessarily.
06:27It's just, he's, he's never been on a genuinely solid offensive line in the NFL.
06:31He doesn't know what it actually looks and feels like.
06:33What do you, what do you read into this?
06:35So the, the tweet that I just put out there for me and Rappaport, speaking of social media, the tweet
06:40I just put out there, the tweet I just read on the air announcing this trade.
06:44And again, if you're just getting in your car, the Texans have moved on from Titus Howard.
06:48They've traded him to the Browns for a fifth round pick.
06:50The Browns in turn gave Titus a three-year, $63 million contract extension.
06:58Titus' agent retweeted that with two kind of like firecracker, fireworks emojis and the word boom in between two fireworks
07:08with the tag of at their, their agency.
07:13I like it.
07:15I like it when that tells me that he was agitating for a new contract.
07:19Yeah.
07:19And I think that he wants to be treated like he's an offensive tackle.
07:23I'm not a guard.
07:24I'm not a two-way player or whatever.
07:26The Browns probably said, yeah, you're our right tackle forever.
07:29Well, they're tearing everything down up there.
07:31The one thing about, the nice thing about this trade is that there is not a single person out there,
07:36including in Cleveland, who's going to say, oh, man, you traded with the Browns and the Browns gave them a
07:41long-term deal.
07:42That means that they know something more than you.
07:45No.
07:45That's not how people look at the Browns organization.
07:48If they had done this, if the Rams or somebody like that had done this, then you'd be sitting there
07:54saying, oh, man, crap.
07:55What do they know that we don't?
07:57Where, okay, if that's how the Browns want to proceed, then cool, good luck with it.
08:02But it doesn't make me feel any worse about the trade.
08:04Okay, people weighing in on the base power text line.
08:06So let's react to some of these, Seth.
08:08Again, the big news this morning just happened 15 minutes ago.
08:11Titus Howard is no longer a Houston Texan, traded to the Browns for a fifth-round pick.
08:16And I've got a question about this stuff, but I want to let some of the people weigh in here.
08:20On Titus, I'm excited.
08:22This shows they mean business, but it's easy to let people go.
08:25It's harder to find and add good talent.
08:27Especially for the Texans on the offensive line.
08:30Right.
08:30And that is true.
08:31The pressure is really on Nick Casario now.
08:33Because Titus Howard was not a bad football player.
08:36It's not like they're moving on from somebody who's easy to move on from.
08:39Hell, you could argue that at the price range he was in, it was easier to move on from Laramie
08:44Tunsil than it was to move on from Titus Howard.
08:46Because Laramie, albeit a better player than Titus Howard, was A, more expensive.
08:52B, you know, I think there was way more of the, you know, kind of just the, you know, the
08:57fashionista part of Laramie than it was.
08:59I think Titus had a little more dog in him than Laramie did probably.
09:03And Laramie was a false start machine too.
09:05And he was also somebody who was, I think, incorrectly appointed a captain of the team.
09:11Titus was never a captain of the team.
09:13So, look, yeah, it's harder.
09:17The Texans have not, there's a reason they're going through their second teardown in two years of the offensive line.
09:23Yeah.
09:23They've not done a good job of staffing that.
09:25Right, right.
09:25Yeah.
09:25So, the skepticism is warranted.
09:27And I do think part of the, I think what you see a lot is that, man, people say that
09:36Casario doesn't do a good job drafting offensive linemen or recognizing talent.
09:41I feel like that's a little bit unfair just in that he's only drafted three offensive linemen in the top
09:49three rounds.
09:50And it's that, that, that's not a bunch.
09:54Ariante Urseri has worked out, I think.
09:56Kenyon Green's the worst example.
09:58Yeah.
09:58Juice Scruggs is another.
10:00So, Juice Scruggs and Kenyon Green.
10:02Blake, throw Blake Fisher in too.
10:04Oh, and Blake Fisher.
10:04Gosh.
10:05Okay.
10:05Excuse me.
10:05Four.
10:07Okay.
10:08It's one out of four I feel good about right now.
10:10Yeah, yeah, yeah.
10:10It's that Ariante Urseri I feel good about.
10:13Three I don't feel good about.
10:15Yeah.
10:15Those are the guys you have to judge it on.
10:17Now, that's still, it's not a huge sample size.
10:19Yeah.
10:20And that's where I'm not, I don't think it's 100% fair to say, oh, Casario doesn't know how to
10:25recognize talent in the offensive line.
10:27Because you're not going to get a great hit rate on offensive linemen in the first three rounds.
10:31But, if he didn't have Ariante Urseri, it would be that he hasn't drafted anybody that you feel good about.
10:37No, that's true.
10:38In the top three rounds.
10:38No, that's true.
10:39And this is my feeling on those four.
10:41And we'll get back to Titus here in a second.
10:43But as long as we're on this, this actually is important because Titus played right tackle.
10:48And I don't know if this is any indicator how they feel about Blake Fisher.
10:51You know, so does this open up a spot?
10:54Do they feel they watch Blake do that sixth offensive lineman thing last year?
10:58He was better than he had been in his rookie year.
11:01And certainly training camp was a disaster for Blake Fisher last year.
11:05My feeling on those four, obviously Kenyon's, you know, Kenyon's a sunken cost.
11:09I think the book is practically closed on Juice.
11:13I feel like the book is still open on Blake Fisher.
11:16You know, he's still got two years left on his rookie deal.
11:18Like, like open.
11:19You know, I'm not saying he's going to start.
11:21But I feel like they found a role for him last year, whereas they didn't for Juice Scruggs.
11:25Yeah, where he is right now, I mean, you want to give a guy three years to develop.
11:30And he was a classic guy that people looked at him when he was drafted as, okay, well,
11:35probably should have stayed in college for one more year, put on some strength and everything.
11:39Maybe he'd be a top 15 pick.
11:40Yeah.
11:40He doesn't look like, if anything, if anything, when I had heard that he had kind of transformed
11:46his body this year in his second year in the NFL, I showed up at training camp and I
11:51thought like it looked like he transformed his body by getting the flu or something.
11:55He just didn't look, it didn't look like he had a better body composition or anything
12:00like that.
12:01So I don't know, maybe injuries played into it.
12:04I wasn't, I wasn't overly thrilled with the stuff you put on film as the sixth offensive
12:09lineman.
12:10There were times in that Chiefs game where he was just getting destroyed.
12:13And it was a very limited number of snaps.
12:16So, so we'll see.
12:17Yeah, we'll see.
12:19I love that.
12:20You brought this up during the break.
12:21Like, does this potentially, maybe one of the things they're thinking about is trading
12:25for Trent Williams.
12:25That's my, yeah.
12:27Like that was my next thing I was going to say to you is like, does this, this feels like
12:31one of those things where there's another move coming.
12:33Yeah.
12:34Right.
12:34And so what do you think of that?
12:36What do you think of?
12:37So Trent Williams, I would expect that if Trent Williams were to get traded to the Texans,
12:42he would get a new deal that looks something like a Daniel Hunter deal.
12:45Like short term, lots of guaranteed money.
12:49But Trent Williams at his age, as he's approaching 40, can kind of make a decision year by year
12:54whether he, whether he wants to play again or not.
12:57I think that, I would love that.
12:59I would love it.
13:00Might mean Ariante here so he moves the right tackle.
13:02I'm cool with that.
13:03It's that Trent Williams is still playing like one of the very best offensive tackles in football.
13:08Yep.
13:08And he's got, he's, he's got the kind of attitude in the way that he plays both as, as a
13:15run
13:15blocker and a pass blocker that he's like, he's, he's everything you want in terms of
13:21grit and toughness.
13:22I think there's, man, there's so much reaction to this right now.
13:24Okay.
13:24I think there's, there are two potential moves that I see this move and I go, okay, could
13:30this be what's next?
13:31One of them is what Seth just said.
13:33Could they be, could this be the precursor to another move to go get a tackle?
13:38Um, the other, and specifically Trent Williams, the other one, and I've seen a couple of
13:43people, uh, text this, and this was like next up on our list of topics here.
13:49Do they just take that fifth, send it over to Detroit and bring in David Montgomery as
13:53a running back?
13:53Oh yeah.
13:54Cause as the scuttlebutt over the weekend was that Montgomery Montgomery, there was a report
13:59that Montgomery wants to be traded.
14:02David Montgomery responded that to, did I tell you that?
14:05Um, so whatever, for whatever it's worth, people have talked about David Montgomery as
14:09a guy that the lions have to make some tough cap decisions.
14:12They might trade him in fifth, a fifth round pick was what was floated.
14:15Yeah.
14:16I think that he's got two years left on his deal at between six and 7 million a year.
14:20I, yeah, I'd be, I'd be really excited about that.
14:23I'd be excited about that.
14:24And yet I would still want them to use, uh, uh, a pick on a running back in the first
14:29three
14:29rounds.
14:30I don't think you're done with David Montgomery fixing that running back.
14:34I think that what it does though, is it sends you into the draft where you don't, you might
14:40not feel like you have to draft a running back.
14:41As desperate.
14:42Yeah.
14:43And that you can come by one if you need another one via trade or whatever.
14:46I think you go into the draft thinking, man, right now, the way things are shaking out,
14:50it looks like there's a real good chance that at the back end of the first round, there's
14:55going to be a lot of enticing offensive tackle and interior offensive line prospects.
15:02And this it's shaping up to where this draft, the Texans might be in a spot where obviously
15:09they're not going to get the marquee guys at the top of the draft, but there might be
15:12some good guys that they feel comfortable drafting in on mass at the back end of the
15:18first round and early in the second round.
15:20I don't think they're done.
15:21I, I, and I'm saying that I don't mean there, I, I don't think this trade of Titus
15:25Howard to me is not a vacuum thing where it's like, they look at this deal.
15:29This is a good day.
15:30And I mean, I think they looked at this deal, look, this deal and said, we need to do this
15:33deal.
15:33But I feel like there's another deal coming, whether it's flipping that fifth for something
15:38else or whether it's going and finding Titus's replacement imminently before free agency
15:44gets started.
15:44Look, there's teams that are going to be cutting guys over the next seven days, Seth.
15:48And we know one of the things that Nick Casario loves to do is take day three picks and say,
15:52no, no, no.
15:52Whoa, whoa, whoa.
15:53Don't cut him.
15:55Here's a seventh round pick.
15:56Here's a sixth round pick.
15:57Hey, here's a fifth round pick.
15:59And you give us him in a sixth.
16:00That's what they did with CJ Gardner.
16:02Johnson hadn't always worked out, but we know that he likes doing that.
16:05So I do think that it's a huge move for the Texans because Titus is one of the few guys
16:10that's been here pre Nick Casario.
16:12The only guy that's left from when Casario got here is Kami Fairbairn.
16:16That's it.
16:17He was the last, Titus was the last, you know, non-specialist to still be in the building
16:24here.
16:24So this is a huge move for the Texans.
16:26I just think, I think there's more coming and it may come quickly.
16:29I think also, okay, this happens right after the combine, which usually two things happen
16:35at the combine.
16:35One is everybody's kind of, they're around, they're face to face.
16:38They can have some conversations.
16:40Guys get ideas, but also the Texans interviewed all of these prospects and of the offensive linemen
16:46that they interviewed.
16:47I think that a lot of those interviews I'm, I'm guessing went really well.
16:51I think that they might've identified some guys that they maybe confirmed what they were
16:55hoping to hear in the interview or what have you on offensive linemen and that they feel
16:59like, okay, you know what?
17:01This guy's, these guys, we got multiple guys here that we feel good about and we can get
17:05them to keep rebuilding this offensive line.
17:07Yeah.
17:07And we, and it looks like we're going to be able to get them.
17:09We're in a spot where they're going to be, or at least we can maneuver around and get
17:13to them.
17:13Now we've had other people suggesting other things here.
17:16There are reports, literally the tweet right below the Titus Howard tweet on my timeline
17:22is Adam Schefter saying the chiefs have informed Jawan Taylor that he'll be released at the start
17:28of the league year.
17:30Now could you want now Jawan Taylor is a $20 million tackle also like Titus Howard, Jawan
17:36Taylor, like Laramie Tunsil is a false start machine.
17:39If you want more of that in your life, he's, he alongside Laramie Tunsil were the poster
17:46children for the, the false start where they're trying to get a jump.
17:51They're trying to get a jump on the snap count.
17:53So they just ignore the snap count.
17:55Yeah.
17:56Yeah.
17:56And I don't, you know, I, I, I, I'm not here to give an educated side-by-side on Jawan
18:02Taylor and Titus Howard.
18:03He's not as good as Laramie Tunsil.
18:04Like he's, he's a, so if you want just all the frustration of a Laramie Tunsil, but with
18:10not as good a player as Laramie Tunsil, then by all means, get you on.
18:13Is he a better player than Titus Howard?
18:18Probably.
18:19Is he about that same level as Titus Howard?
18:21I think he's probably better in pass protection, but he's not a, he's not a great run block.
18:25He's better in pass protection.
18:26Cause he gets a jump 90% of the time when it doesn't get called Laramie Tunsil too.
18:30Like he's awesome.
18:32There's a part of it where guys like Trent Williams get fewer than five false starts per
18:36year.
18:36Like they do it without trying to cheat all the time.
18:39Yes.
18:40You know, like that.
18:41Yeah.
18:41And I think that I think with Jawan, I just don't think he fits the ethos of what they want
18:47to do.
18:48I don't either.
18:48He's not, he's not, he's not tough and physical.
18:51I'm bringing it up.
18:52I'm bringing it up because we've got people saying, Hey, what about a seventh to the chiefs
18:56for Jawan Taylor?
18:57Cause they're going to, you know, cause now there's this one week window.
19:00No, no, no.
19:01I think, I think you don't trade Titus Howard away at his high salary just so you can bring
19:07another guy in.
19:07Who's probably come to expect being overpaid.
19:10It has been part of a problem on the, the, the chiefs offensive line has been bad the last
19:15couple of seasons.
19:16Yep.
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