- 14 hours ago
Seth and Sean discuss the Texans signing S Reed Blankenship, but not bolstering their offensive line at all on the first day of the legal tampering period. Are they being too chill about this?
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00:00and i'm struggling to maintain my sanity i don't know if you remember sean two years ago
00:04you and i got into it with the uh midday show pretty hardcore about uh just how much we should
00:11judge the texans inactivity on the first day of legal oh i do remember that yeah and uh and you
00:17know in the loop was very much about this is a failure this is abysmal you and i were preaching
00:22patience but i i'm gonna be honest with you i was nervous i was nervous during that first 48 hours
00:28when i was preaching patience and uh and the texans weren't doing a whole hell of a lot other
00:33than re-signing some of their own guys yeah on thursday of this week this first week of free
00:38agency okay of 2024 the texans would acquire daniel hunter uh-huh by a free agency and they would
00:45trade for joe mixon they would trade for joe mixon which is almost like free agency because he was
00:49gonna get cut loose by the bangles in april okay so that was in april which is the ninth week
00:54of
00:54free agency or so they traded for step on digs april 3rd aggressive offseason but it took some
00:59time it took some time to get there right okay i'm glad you did that research because i was thinking
01:02the same thing as you yesterday as i was seeing some people freak out over kate mays going off
01:07the board oh my god kate mays is off the board that was kind of the first kate mays is
01:11the center
01:12from the carolina panthers who signed with detroit um that was i was following everything yesterday
01:17we were flying amy and i were traveling back from las vegas yesterday but we spent we spent a lot
01:22of time
01:22in the vegas airport and we had wi-fi on the plane so i was able to follow everything as
01:26it was unfolding
01:27plus it's a two-hour time difference everything started flying off the shelves at nine o'clock in
01:31the morning in vegas yesterday um the kate mays one was the first one that i started seeing some
01:38some uh you know some some nick casario shrapnel from texan fans like okay what are we doing what
01:44are we doing and it was the way it was reported you know tyler linderbaum goes off the board and
01:49he's
01:49making nine million dollars more per year than the previous highest paid center and that was an easy
01:55one for me to say okay well we do not we do not need to be shopping at the dior
01:59store uh this is
02:00that's that's all right that's a that's the crazy stupid money that people spend in the first flurry
02:06of 27 million for a center is not that's that's that is asking the dior store to find something
02:13customized for you just right you like that's beyond deal but that's crazy cade mays goes to
02:19the lions for eight million per year on a three-year deal and that seems very reasonable and very
02:24affordable and that's when i think people started to get nervous myself included because those were
02:29probably the two best centers available in free agency and you're left wondering well all right um i i
02:37guess we're just gonna either sign a journeyman veteran or run it back with jake jake andrews or
02:41whatever it might be and then draft the guy yeah and then the guards start going off the board but
02:47not there's still a good chunk of veteran guards out there and i'm not as nervous about that i am
02:53kind of nervous about running it back with jake andrews at center i am too i i admittedly i am
02:57too i
02:57felt some of that too with text whatever texan fans were feeling i felt some of that too and at
03:02the
03:03same time i did like you think back to two years ago when there was no activity on the first
03:08day and
03:09there there were people including uh john lopez freaking out over that um i'm glad you did the
03:15research because i was trying to remember about the deniel the deniel hunter signing was obviously
03:19the big one from that go around and i'm like okay was that during legal tampering or that so that
03:24actually that actually came later yeah yeah so that came that came a little bit later um yeah i mean
03:30it would be it was the same obviously the timeline it would be two days from now yeah it is
03:34when they
03:34ended up making the you know no i just couldn't remember if it was the next day or not i'm
03:38glad
03:38you did that it was thursday of the yeah it was the 14th day i remember the mixin one because
03:43that
03:43was the day they were unveiling the new uniforms and everybody was talking about joe mixin at that
03:48little gathering uh at the media because they they traded for mix and then immediately gave him a
03:53a three-year contract right after that yeah yeah that was yeah people dial back their enthusiasm a
03:59little bit in 2024 yeah actually uh i just found on stress and he had uh he had an article
04:04from last
04:05year uh at texans commenter yeah where he ran down the i mean it if i remember correctly and i
04:11have to
04:11go back and look at my tweet history and everything i mean it felt very similar to this year so
04:17far in
04:17that uh you know they they re-signed dalton schultz before free agency began first day of free agency
04:24yeah they re-signed kaimi fairbairn and eric murray to mainstain stability des king remember
04:31des king yeah and it wasn't those were the only signings for the first three days yeah people were
04:37po okay so are people i i don't sense that people are as po this year as they were two
04:43years ago that's
04:44my own sense i maybe i'm off base on that there there are people very anxious about the offensive line
04:49right now i uh no and frankly i think that people are more agitated about the line right now because
04:55of what had the debacle last year yeah where they didn't they had a muted attempt at rebuilding
04:59and they went out and they had an open tryout on the offensive line for the first half of the
05:04season the ed ingram signing came down at a time where i'm sure you guys talked about it a bunch
05:07yesterday um the sheldon rankins re-signing also came down like those feel those feel a little more
05:15next level than some of the other re-signings you just went through from two years ago so maybe this
05:19is
05:19you know that put it this way if ed ingram were a free agent from another team if he weren't
05:25a guy
05:26they were retaining do you think people would feel i think people like the ed ingram the sense i get
05:31is
05:31people like the ed ingram re-signing it's right in that kind of sweet spot where we thought his price
05:35tag would be it's well i think that okay if he was a signing from another team yeah perhaps but
05:40again
05:41that's where uh okay so that would mean okay if they let ed ingram go and then they re-signed
05:49another
05:49guy who's kind of rated at the same place yeah because you go through and i'll like brandon
05:54thorns a guy who does a whole lot of o-line and d-line work really really smart guy he
05:58has him in his
05:59fourth tier of free agents barnwell having the sixth tier of free agents barnwell right i don't count
06:06barnwell barnwell doesn't watch football he just looks like brandon watches football a lot of people
06:11have him but they have him as a an adequate starter or a low average starter so no i think
06:16if the texans
06:16went out and signed ed ingram and nobody else or somebody equivalent to ed ingram people wouldn't
06:21necessarily be satisfied satisfied or play okay yeah that's because the sense i get this is i keep
06:27saying the sense i get i this is what happens when you're five days in vegas you're doing it from
06:30far
06:30away real quick i would just say i have a higher assessment of ed ingram yeah um because even those
06:35people like brandon thorne and some of those other people say basically boy he did some really good
06:40things last year but we're looking at the sum total of his career and he still has some issues in
06:43past
06:44protection but i i like having a guy who's been in the system the the um the thing i keep
06:50seeing is
06:50boy if they run it back if they were that's why i say that ingram came from another team there
06:55there is
06:55there's an anxiousness there's an anxiety over okay right now the offensive line is basically the
07:00same as it was last year except you traded titus howard away if they had if they had signed somebody
07:06like wyatt teller to come in and play right guard if they let anyone go and they'd sign wyatt teller
07:10yeah wyatt teller's been a much better football player in his career yeah than at ingram yeah so
07:14that would make sense but as of right now they're a worse offensive line than they were at the beginning
07:19of last year sure you still at that left guard position and at the center position you've got guys that
07:25nobody's excited about and i mean you're looking at as of right now and i'm i'm the first to say
07:31hey
07:31be patient let's see what they do today yeah and tomorrow but the agitation is just that it's a worse
07:35offensive line than it was last year right this moment you don't have your emergency left guard
07:40in the building no he's off in cleveland he's in cleveland yeah so um so so that's where we're at
07:46with
07:46the offensive line we'll go through some of the names in the second segment here at 620 but they're
07:50they're still i think you i think you nailed it seth the center the center group in free agency was
07:56pretty top heavy and both guys that are at the top are gone um and then there's in going through
08:01the guards okay there's still a lot of guards there there's plenty of guys out there that they signed
08:05to play left guard i'm like all right they're immediately better at that position than they were
08:09last season so i'm not i'm not super worried about it but we'll see what happens maybe we get some
08:14news during the show today there are i mean and there's honestly there's there's a lot of gray
08:18beards out there that one year i'd feel good about yeah giving a nice one or two year deal
08:24and they're they're not what they used to be but they're viable competent starters and then if you go
08:31line heavy in the draft i start to feel a lot better about that approach if you've got guys that
08:35can be
08:36displaced by rookies or the rookies can learn underneath guys like batonio or kevin zeitler or
08:42somebody like that 27 million a year for linder bomb the texans were never going to play in that
08:46playground um no and i don't yeah that's the that's the kind of marquee signing that i think
08:51most nfl fans realize and understand all right look by and large that ends up being wasted money
08:57and you don't get the bang for your buck no now if your team does it you're all in on
09:01it i don't i
09:03forgive raiders fans for being you know to you know through the moon for signing tyler linder bomb
09:08to a ridiculous don't get me wrong if they spent 27 million a year on him and he to come
09:12here i would
09:13have been stoked to have him as a player but i would that i would have been like woof boy
09:16you
09:17really got you had to pay some tax to get him to come here man now it was just a
09:21three-year deal
09:22so it's that in the vein of the nick casario super aggressive but reasonable length to where
09:28you're not you're not handicapping yourself no five years down the line no but the raider
09:33it's almost i was looking at all guaranteed it's almost all guaranteed yeah like that's that's tricky
09:37man people were wondering if gosh i would myself was saying man people are saying 25 million
09:41dollars a year i don't know about that and he goes and gets 27 million per year almost fully
09:46guaranteed from the same team that signed christian wilkins at like 12 15 in the afternoon two years
09:52ago you know like the raiders yeah the raiders went bananas yesterday like in free agents they
09:56signed nicobe dean and they signed quay walker and they were signed they they signed a bunch of dudes
10:01um okay so so we hit the guys that the texans are retaining they're bringing back ed ingram they're
10:07bringing back sheldon rankins um bringing back trent brown ej speed mj stewart those are all
10:13guys i'm cool at the price of that they're bringing them back um they signed reed blankenship this is a
10:18little bit of a surprise yesterday and i like this signing because safety opposite the the safety next
10:24to caylen bullock back there um has been a sore spot for this team really for a couple of years
10:30now i
10:30know they signed jimmy ward when d'amico first got here and that's been a very up and down or
10:35had been
10:35it's over now they cut jimmy ward last week but that that was as we know for a variety of
10:40reasons
10:41injuries off the field and so forth a very up and down experience with with jimmy ward they tried
10:46the cj gardner johnson thing for three games last year ironically coming over from the same team that
10:50they're getting reed blankenship sounds like they're getting more of a guy that maybe fits their mold
10:55in reed blankenship than maybe cj gardner johnson was but then you you've you've laid this out too set
11:01that once they cut cj gardner johnson it was just a revolving door of guys
11:05mostly due to injury um but they they ultimately if you include jimmy ward there were five or six
11:10guys they tried at that spot last year this and i think a very reasonable price solidifies that spot
11:17on this defense yeah and i think he didn't he had a down year last year were injuries involved
11:22was it mostly because the he didn't have good good guys playing around him all of that um he's been
11:28a very solid player in his career and he was a team captain in philly so voted by his teammates
11:33to be a team captain and it just seems to fit the swarm mentality you can find all manner of
11:40highlight reels of him making hey wow that looks like a texans defensive back all right this is uh
11:45i like this it's a it's a totally reasonable signing i'll get excited about it the more i
11:50learn about reed blankenship he's got a podcast not so super stoked about that but who's the pod
11:56what's the podcast it's uh with cooper de jean and it's called exciting mics oh okay i thought
12:03it was going to be called the white boy wasted well no it's a play on uh that that meme
12:07of exciting
12:07whites oh okay yeah okay the there's like some sign of about you know about it's about wine it says
12:15exciting whites but so it does somehow pay homage to their pale skin yes it is yeah it's a deceptively
12:21fast kind of feel to it yeah there you go is there a lunch pal carrying podcast it is
12:27if this podcast were wide receivers they'd be running the most precise routes in the business
12:31i tells you yeah great hands um so hey did you check with brooks cabina about reed blankenship by any
12:38chance i did not actually okay i was uh that was i was gonna well we need to talk to
12:42ross tucker about
12:43him too okay uh because ross is up there and does a lot of phillies work yeah he does phillies
12:47preseason
12:48games and uh we should probably try to get greg cassell on also okay greg sell also covers the
12:53phillies excuse me the uh the eagles heavily the eagles yeah um i like the phillies too maybe this
12:59all seems like a baseball guy doesn't he yes very much so uh so reed blankenship i'm down with
13:06that i'm curious of the people base power text line what do you think um that's i i know there's
13:12going to be people like well the defense got better yesterday no i'm like that i just that it's
13:17all those things that you worry about when you've got a defensive-minded head coach and all the
13:21things that might happen man we know they've they've spent heavily on the defense the defense
13:25they spent a boatload of money on that defense and it's very very good but you're looking over
13:30at the offensive side of the ball and i'm like and i hate it i hate it but i'm back
13:34in that mode of man
13:35are we gonna do what the patriots did which is well listen you don't really have to spend on a
13:40whole lot on offense because you got tom brady over there yeah cj stroud ain't tom brady yet
13:43not okay yeah no i just at some point i would really love to find out exactly what you have
13:50and use some resources on that side of the ball oh yeah we'll get into some of the names in
13:55the
13:55next segment but yeah it was they were they you know some of the centers flew off the board yesterday
13:59okay the texans that are on the move former texans now on the move curious to get your reaction to
14:03these uh tim settle to washington for a nice deal for a guy who's a journeyman defensive lineman
14:12and he was a washington he was probably on washington before they were the commanders
14:16but he was he played for washington at one time uh three years 24 million for tim settle with a
14:22good
14:22chunk of it guaranteed 16 million guaranteed yeah good for tim settle i uh i figured i mean i think
14:28we all figured that you couldn't get both sheldon rankins and tim settle back yes i i thought that
14:35the texans would let tim after sheldon rankins was re-signed i felt like the texans were probably going
14:40to let tim settle test free agency but with an open door to come back and uh i'm guessing the
14:46texans were
14:46happy for him uh but also not going to be if you're look reed blakenship fills a need that and
14:53it's
14:53weird to say that about a top two defense in the league last year um safety was an issue safety
14:59was safety potentially is what actually kept them from having home field advantage in the divisional
15:05round from there you can point to specific games where that safety position opposite of calen bullock
15:12you know blew games for you right so you're oh you're probably not oh and three if reed blankenship is
15:18your safety for those first three games right yeah no and you know jalen reed it was a rookie
15:23playing in the divisional championships on the road up there and it just it it wasn't great so
15:29it's weird to talk about a glaring weakness and yet it was kind of a glaring weakness on
15:34otherwise superb defense christian harris to the atlanta falcons so the christian harris
15:39the christian harris saga which will will i think ultimately when we look back at certainly the
15:45early part of the domico ryan's era will be one of the stranger career arcs as a texan
15:51yeah he looked like a disappointment somewhat his first couple years and then in his second
15:57year in domico's defense really took off yeah um or in his first first year yeah second half of the
16:04season midway through the season yeah in the second half of the season he really took off and looked
16:08like oh my gosh this guy's gonna be an all pro then he has a mysterious calf injury during training
16:12camp in 2024 before training camp remember the first day of training camp in 2024 yeah we're all
16:18like about 30 40 minutes into practice people started looking around and be like did you guys
16:23see christian harris anybody see christian harris then nobody saw christian harris for a long time
16:28yeah at least on a in a regular season game he played sparingly in 2024 played sparingly in 2025
16:35and when i saw him on the field playing linebacker he just didn't look like the same athlete so whatever
16:41happened to his calf in 2024 it feels like he's still working through it yeah and i maybe maybe
16:48he ends up figuring it out and he ends up doing really well for the falcons but yeah it's a
16:51it's
16:52a sad story i didn't see what he i didn't see what he signed for um and i can't find
16:56just google it i
16:57can't find it anywhere like what you know if it was it's a one-year prove-it deal with the
17:01falcons i
17:01can't imagine him getting any more than that just be he was a he was a bit player for the
17:05texans the
17:06last year and a half so so we'll see um all right pain and pendergast with you off and running
17:11it's
17:12day two of legal tampering so maybe we get some what's wrong no the spot track just to update you
17:17has him listed as uh zero dollars average per year i don't think he's doing that they got him at
17:22a
17:23bar i didn't know if that was legal he's got an internship with the falcons that's what he got a
17:27a a zero dollar internship to try to prove and get his foot in the door it's interesting they've
17:32got they've got like 10 linebackers listed that have been signed and they've got values for
17:37everybody except christian harris okay what are they trying to keep from us
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