- 2 days ago
Seth and B-Scott kick off the show by talking about the breaking news coming from Ian Rapoport that the Texans have re-signed OG Ed Ingram, discuss the team extending TE Dalton Schultz over the weekend, and moving on from RB Joe Mixon at his request.
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00:00We've got relative breaking news for a lot of people that haven't checked their socials or anything yet this morning,
00:06which is that as we enter the legal tampering phase of free agency,
00:12today Ian Rappaport reports that the Texans have agreed to terms on an extension for one Ed Ingram.
00:20So we get Ed Ingram back into the fold on a three-year, $37.5 million deal,
00:26$12.5 million per year, which is below what I think the people were looking at.
00:32All right, man, if Ed Ingram's going to get $15 million a year or so, that might be too rich
00:36for the Texans.
00:37So the Texans getting Ed Ingram for less than what a lot of people have projected him to get.
00:42And a guy who has familiarity with the system, obviously, had the best year of his career last year.
00:48Very, very good in the run game.
00:50A lot of nastiness, a lot of swarminess to him.
00:52Work in progress still and needs to clean some things up in pass protection.
00:55But I like this in that, man, all right, of the three interior O-line pieces that you're worried about,
01:03you've got a guy that I like and I think they're still upside in,
01:07but is a solid NFL starting offensive lineman.
01:09You can focus on center, you can focus on guard,
01:11and then obviously they're going to be looking to upgrade at the tackle position,
01:16sometime either in free agency or in the draft.
01:18Yeah, I think for me, Seth, I did have this fear that Ed Ingram had priced himself out of the
01:24Texans market,
01:25kind of as you were alluding to earlier.
01:27So I am a little bit surprised by the number, but I'm obviously glad that they get Ed Ingram back,
01:33because for me, when we talked about there being four holes on the offensive line now with the trading of
01:39Titus Howard,
01:40I think we were doing that with the assumption that Ed Ingram was either going to be difficult to retain
01:45or that they were just going to have to flat out find another solution there.
01:49And so now, you know, you get like a week past the Titus Howard trade,
01:54and they've brought back Ed Ingram.
01:57They've re-signed Trent Brown.
01:59And you're starting to kind of look at it and say this narrows down to really two positions
02:04that are really major in, I think, free agency, which is center and guard.
02:09You could still maybe get a tackle, but you're looking at center and guard, I think,
02:13as your biggest priorities and perhaps a tackle in the draft.
02:17So it might have been overblown to how many openings and how many guys they actually had to try to
02:23bring back
02:24or how many spots they needed to fill, considering that Ed Ingram was more in their market than I actually
02:30realized.
02:31So this was actually a pretty good thing.
02:32Another thing I thought about, Seth, was, you know, for as much as we criticize how things went for the
02:38Texans
02:38with their offensive line this past year, they did come away with at least three guys
02:45that you feel like could maybe start for you that they're bringing back.
02:47The rookie who's going to be a second-year guy in Ariante Ursary.
02:51Obviously, again, they've re-signed Trent Brown, and now they've re-signed Ed Ingram.
02:55I'm not saying that all three of those guys are going to start.
02:58I suspect two of them are, at least two of them are, in Ursary and Ingram.
03:02We'll see what happens at right tackle.
03:04But, you know, for all the consternation, there were three guys that they brought in last year
03:08that they felt were starting caliber players for them that they're bringing back again this year.
03:12Yeah, and I think that if you look at two things going on with the potential free agents on the
03:19offensive line,
03:20the centers are getting snapped up and or re-signed.
03:25Like, the B.S. guy, however the hell you pronounce his name, that gets signed by the Chargers
03:31because he was released by the commanders already.
03:34And then Conor McGovern was the big news over the weekend, too.
03:37Conor McGovern, the center for the Bills, ended up re-signing with the Bills.
03:41Really leaves Cade Mays out there as the one free agent center that a lot of people are high on.
03:47So we'll see if the Texans go after him, but there are a bunch of guards.
03:52They're really – there's a boatload of viable starter plus or just solid starters available in free agency at guard.
04:01I'll be disappointed if the Texans don't sign one of those guys.
04:04There aren't as many solid offensive tackles available in free agency.
04:08So I get it if they feel like, all right, we're going to go with Trent Brown,
04:12and then there's somebody in the draft that we're going to take that maybe works out,
04:16maybe starts as a rookie, but we at least have a mentor in him at right tackle.
04:21So it's – for – yeah, for having as many question marks as you potentially do,
04:26I'm starting to feel okay about an upgraded offensive line next year.
04:31Even – and that includes with the loss of Titus Howard.
04:35The Texans, I think, they want to have some nastiness and some swarminess on the O-line.
04:41That's not Titus Howard's game.
04:42That is Ed Ingram's game.
04:44Ed Ingram's a nasty dude.
04:45Yeah.
04:46And that's what we want on offense.
04:48We want the nastiness on offense to start to look more like what it looks like on defense.
04:53Yeah, between what's getting snatched up, as you mentioned,
04:58and just like the fact that they've brought back Ed Ingram at this clip, at this price,
05:04man, it'd be really disappointing.
05:06And we'll talk about our free agent wish list or our legal tampering wish list in the next segment at
05:12620.
05:13So y'all want to stick around for that.
05:14But it feels like it'd be really disappointing at this point, Seth,
05:18if they don't come away with a big-ticket center or a big-ticket guard.
05:25It might be asking too much for both now that they've signed Ed Ingram.
05:29But you've got to nail at least one of those.
05:31Like, it'd be disappointing to me at this point if it's like, you know, draft these other positions
05:37and maybe you get, you know, like one of these guys.
05:43You've got to get essentially one of the –
05:45Cade Mays, who you mentioned.
05:47I'm going to bring up – spoiler alert, I'm going to bring up Isaac Ciamalo in just a little bit.
05:52The guard.
05:52The guard.
05:53But somebody along these lines, whether it's at center or at guard.
05:57I don't know if you have a preference.
05:59I was listening to Clint on Friday saying that it's got to be center.
06:03Like, if you really want to change the makeup of this run game, it's got to be center.
06:10If you want to take some pressure off of C.J. Stroud, it's got to be center.
06:13To me, it's just got to be the best possible guy at this point.
06:17Yeah, and I think that's the dicey part.
06:20If you say it's got to be center, it's also not the best year to just go out and pluck
06:28one
06:28because there just aren't a boatload of centers in free agency.
06:31I don't – I'm cool with – as long as they get a guard, you know, like Wyatt Teller is
06:38a guy that –
06:38I think a lot of people feel like he's older than he is,
06:42and maybe that's because Joel Batonio is genuinely old and you've got these two guards from Cleveland.
06:47Maybe it's because he's coming from the Browns that people feel like,
06:51I don't know, I don't want anybody from the Browns.
06:53There's a guy that, because he's 31, might not get – might not be expecting a long-term deal.
06:59The Texans love giving out lucrative short-term deals.
07:02A guy like that can come in, and he's a veteran.
07:04He can start immediately, plug-and-play if that's the term you want to use.
07:09That makes Jake Andrews and or a center or somebody you get via trade at some other point viable.
07:16It's just tough to – do you want to get into a bidding war for a center, which is not
07:20a marquee position?
07:22And, like, how aggressive and over-the-top do you want to go on that position?
07:28And I just – I'm skeptical that, A, Casario would want to do that,
07:34and, B, if I'm trying to be as sober as possible.
07:37It's easy to get drunk on the first day of free agency.
07:40It's easy to go spend all your money in Vegas on the first day of free agency.
07:45I get it if they don't want to get into a bidding war for one of the less –
07:50like, it's not a lucrative position that people are generally getting into bidding wars over.
07:56So, again, Ed Ingram, three years, $37.5 million to stay in Houston.
08:03This news broke just this morning right before we got on air,
08:07so that's $12.5 per year for Ed Ingram.
08:11I think we were cautiously optimistic that they could bring him back,
08:16but it's good to see that that figure is nowhere near as close to what we were thinking it might
08:20be.
08:21Yeah, and I think if you look at one of the contracts that was given out this weekend was Sean
08:28Ryan,
08:29who's a kind of versatile interior offensive lineman for the Packers.
08:33Not an awesome offensive lineman, but he got three years, $33 million.
08:37So he's making $11 million a year.
08:40You know, so Ed Ingram's a couple ticks above him in terms of salary.
08:44But that's probably a good and fair amount.
08:47And I think Ed Ingram might have been, if you're seeing dollar signs in his eyes,
08:51might have been reading or hearing about, oh, boy, you could be making $15 or $16 million a year.
08:56He comes back into a system that he's familiar with.
08:58I think he's going to continue to – it's reasonable to expect that he could be even better
09:03with one year of familiarity in the system.
09:05And he could also be better if he's got better guys on either side of them.
09:09And I think this is a smart signing by the Texans.
09:12I don't feel like they stretched themselves.
09:14They didn't prevent themselves from spending money elsewhere with this one.
09:18I think this is a good, solid, if not marquee signing.
09:22But it's one that makes sense.
09:24The first quote I thought of when they re-signed Ed Ingram,
09:28when I found out early this morning they signed Ed Ingram,
09:30was this quote from the gunnery sergeant in full metal jacket.
09:34Private Joker is silly and he's ignorant, but he's got guts, and guts is enough.
09:38Private Joker is silly and he's ignorant, but he's got guts, and guts is enough.
09:43If you insert swarm instead of guts, that's where I am on the offensive line right now.
09:48Hey, Ariante Ursary, I think he's a swarmy type of dude.
09:51Titus Brown, even though he's not capable of moving like a swarmy type of dude,
09:56has a swarmy mentality to him.
09:58He has an appetite for the physical side of the game.
10:00And now you've just got to keep filling in with guys that are more nasty and grimy
10:05and have an appetite for the physical part of the game.
10:07That's where Ed Ingram is.
10:09In the run game, he's very physical, he's very nasty.
10:13In pass protection versus the better defensive tackles, he's had some rough moments.
10:19And I don't know how much better he's going to get.
10:23The one thing that's positive about that, if you want to take a positive from a negative,
10:27is that his weakness in pass protection is that he's sometimes overly aggressive.
10:31And sometimes he's trying to be more physical when maybe you should be a little bit more passive.
10:37You can work with that.
10:39And as part of an offense that wants to be able to run play action a lot
10:44and establish a physicality to set up the play action, you can work with that.
10:49So I'm cool with this signing, as long as it's not the last signing they make on the O-line.
10:53I didn't think it was a coincidence, Seth, that we saw something change in the Texans' offensive line
10:59once you got that combination of Ed Ingram and Trent Brown on the right side.
11:04Like, once Trent Brown joined what Ed Ingram was already bringing for the bulk of the season up until that
11:12point,
11:13I thought once you got that combination on the right side,
11:16the offensive line got a little bit swarmier, if you will, in that regard.
11:22So having those two guys together, I thought, was important for the offensive line.
11:27The Texans, man, they were active over the weekend.
11:30They also signed Dalton Schultz to a one-year, $12.6 million extension.
11:37I'm thinking neither one of us is surprised by this.
11:40Dalton Schultz had perhaps his best year of the three that he's been here so far here in Houston.
11:45So I don't think we were surprised by that.
11:47I think they love Dalton Schultz, his relationship with C.J. Stroud.
11:51You know, I'm not sure how much that matters as much these days.
11:53But there's a good relationship there.
11:57I think Casario's not returning C.J. Stroud's calls.
12:00He's like, who cares if he wants Dalton Schultz?
12:03I like him anyway.
12:04But that's a good move, a good one-year extension with Dalton Schultz.
12:08I keep thinking about the tight end position a little bit beyond Dalton Schultz
12:13because he already gives you, I think, you know, the requisite tight end play.
12:18I just don't think that the depth of that position is quite what you would want it to be.
12:22But Dalton Schultz, isolated by himself, I do like bringing him back for an extra year.
12:27Yeah, and I think, you know, some people raise their eyebrows at the contract.
12:31It puts him as the 10th highest paid tight end, somewhere thereabouts.
12:35By the end of free agency, he'll be more towards, like, the 15th highest paid tight end.
12:40So if you look around the league and if you're paying him, like,
12:43an average starting number one tight end for a football team, I'm cool with that, too.
12:47I think some of the restructures and extensions that people – it was weird.
12:54It felt like after the Daniil Hunter extension, people somehow looked at that as evidence
12:58that the Texans aren't going to spend on offense.
13:01And it doesn't – the math doesn't really justify having that belief.
13:06They actually cleared $15 million or $16 million of cap space on this year's cap.
13:12They're still in really good shape for next year and the year after that with the cap.
13:16So they can get as flexible as they need to.
13:20If they – let's say they did want to just go hog wild and spend as much as it took
13:24to bring Tyler Linderbaum to center in.
13:26And they're very capable of doing that financially without putting them in a huge bind.
13:32We just also know that Casario – Casario's in the position where he's not in a huge bind right now
13:37because he's careful about not getting himself into those situations.
13:42The other thing that people always bring up about that is, well, what about the –
13:45what about the Will Anderson extension or what about a potential C.J. Stroud extension?
13:50Those deals don't kick in if they get extended for a couple years down the road.
13:55So it's just – it's nothing that prevents you from spending money in the next couple years.
14:00So we've got somebody in our YouTube chat.
14:02It looks like Stephen James says that it's too much money for Ed Ingram.
14:06And, again, that was three years, $37.5 million.
14:10I think we both were here saying that we'd like it.
14:12It's actually less money than I was expecting him to get.
14:15Maybe all the money or any amount of money for Ed Ingram was going to be too much for Stephen.
14:20But in my mind, since I was thinking he was going to get more than that,
14:25whether it's actually too much is almost beside the point because it's far less than I thought he was going
14:31to get.
14:31Yeah, I think that anything less than $15 million per year for an interior offensive lineman –
14:36and remember, it's on a shorter – it's on a three-year deal.
14:39So it's not some long-term, you're stuck in a huge bind if it doesn't work out type of deal.
14:47This is reasonable.
14:48I think that if you're worried about the Texans spending too much on guys like Ed Ingram,
14:53then my concern would have been, okay, if they gave him $16 million per year,
14:58like some of the projections had him getting in free agency,
15:01that would have been spending too much to keep one of your homegrown guys.
15:04This is more right in the sweet spot for me.
15:07And, again, look, he's got an element of physicality and aggressiveness to his game
15:12that is exactly what's been missing on the Texans' offensive line.
15:15Their two premium and most high-paid guys the last couple years have been Laramie Tunsil and Titus Howard,
15:21who are not swarmy type of football players.
15:24They're good players.
15:24Laramie Tunsil, obviously, is a very, very good player.
15:27But he's a finesse player.
15:29And ask yourself, all right, does that fit the mold of what D'Amico Ryans wants on his football team?
15:34Titus Howard, solid in pass protection, but not all that nasty as a run blocker.
15:39He'd have his moments, but it didn't look like that's ever what he wanted his calling card to be.
15:45And that doesn't fit in the mold of what D'Amico Ryans wants on his football team.
15:49For a guy that already knows the system, has been here, that Cole Popovich, I'm guessing, likes a lot,
15:56a lot, it's a reasonable amount of money to spend.
16:01How will you remember the Joe Mixon era?
16:05How will you remember the Joe Mixon era with the Texans, that is, specifically, Sid?
16:10Yo, gosh, yeah.
16:10Joe Mixon released over the weekend.
16:12We did not get to talk about this, and we'll get into it more in the show.
16:15But Joe Mixon asked for his release, and that was granted to him by the team.
16:19What say you about the Joe Mixon era in Houston?
16:22Joe Mixon, it'll always feel like, I don't know, the one that got away.
16:29It was a summer romance.
16:31Yeah, fling.
16:32You fell in love with somebody on vacation, or you were working in Nantucket as a busboy or something,
16:38and then you found out at the end of the summer that she had a heroin problem you didn't know
16:45about,
16:46and she just disappeared.
16:47Now, Joe Mixon didn't have a heroin problem, but he did have a foot issue.
16:51That was his heroin problem, was that his foot just won't recover.
16:55Or like a separate family.
16:57Just anything that kept you from pursuing that thing further and beyond, right?
17:02He could never give up his one true love, his mysteriously injured foot, so it was never to be.
17:08It's just the wildest, and, I mean, it's got to be up there with one of the greater mysteries,
17:15certainly in, I think, in the NFL period right now, but certainly in Houston sports.
17:21What happened to Joe Mixon?
17:22Why wasn't he able to play?
17:24The last time we saw him, he was playing, and then he just didn't play again.
17:30I know, that's a great way to put it.
17:32You know what I mean?
17:33The last time we saw him, he looked just fine.
17:35He did.
17:36I know he's in a walking boot.
17:38I don't remember not seeing him look okay, and then it was like, nope, he's gone.
17:43He ain't coming back, you know?
17:44I know.
17:45It'll be, I wonder, I didn't really look around to see, I didn't really see any other fan bases
17:50saying, hey, Joe Mixon's available.
17:52I just, nobody knows a damn thing.
17:55I'll be, that's where, I don't want there to be an epilogue to this story of, hey, turns
18:02out, two months after the Texans released Joe Mixon, he had a miraculous recovery.
18:07And, wow, look at this.
18:09He had a resurgent 2026 season in which he rushed for 1,700 yards.
18:14That would, that would freak me out.
18:15I don't know.
18:15I don't know.
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