00:00You have an offensive line that looks more than workable on paper now
00:05thanks to the signing of Wyatt Teller, right?
00:07And so you go with that and you go, all right,
00:09so now what does this line makeover?
00:11Because it does truly feel like a makeover as opposed to last year
00:14where it didn't quite – it felt like kind of throwing things at a wall.
00:17What does this do for objective number one,
00:20at least in talking head circles with the Texans,
00:23which is getting C.J. Stroud back on the right path?
00:25That's the first thing I thought of driving home yesterday afternoon.
00:28You know, we were still sort of buzzing, for lack of a better way to put it,
00:33about the news that broke during our show with Wyatt Teller,
00:36and we talked about that, continued to analyze it throughout the day
00:41and this morning.
00:42But I started thinking about C.J. Stroud.
00:45To me, if I had to just kind of funnel it down into one thought,
00:50is they basically told C.J. Stroud, it's on you now, big fella.
00:55So – and let me explain just a little bit.
00:59There's no more conflicting philosophies around him,
01:04if you want to call it that, and who knows if it was really that,
01:07but they were certainly –
01:08Were you talking about the quarterback coach in Johnson?
01:10Who was more of a – you would imagine more of an advocate for C.J. Stroud?
01:14Just traditionally more of a West Coast C.J. Stroud guy,
01:17probably wanted to see him, you know, let the ball rip.
01:21But, you know, so that's gone.
01:23And Jerry Szaplinski –
01:25Szaplinski is all in.
01:27You would imagine is fully in line with the larger thought process
01:32of Nick Haley and Nick Casario and just the offense that is,
01:36we're going to run the ball, we're going to be an aggressive team that way.
01:39Yeah, so that's gone.
01:41Then the whole argument about, well, he's got to be frustrated
01:45with all the pressure that he's getting and the offensive line,
01:48despite, you know, despite some moments last year, this past season,
01:53you know, having him run around like crazy out there
01:56and the run game not exactly being stellar and all that.
01:59Well, that's gone, at least on paper.
02:02You know, that's gone.
02:03But what about the offensive line itself, you know, upgrading the talent?
02:07You know, you had some – we talked about it yesterday
02:10and pretty much all season, you know, who's going to play here?
02:13Who's going to play there?
02:14Is this guy any good?
02:15That guy's getting blown up.
02:16Well, that's gone, again, on paper because you upgraded.
02:20Right, on paper.
02:21I heard the guys this morning talk about something
02:23and they were mentioning the 24 season
02:26and they mentioned, like, the best interior offense line
02:29was probably Shaq Mason.
02:30I was like, oh, yeah, Shaq Mason.
02:32A cautionary tale in just because a dude is good,
02:35especially on the back end of things, it does – it can fall off.
02:38So that is a cautionary tale that we should keep in our mind.
02:40But on paper, these dudes recently have looked very, very good.
02:43There's three things, you know, that are more done for him than anyone.
02:47And then there's one more.
02:49Hey, man, if only they had a tight end that could, you know,
02:51maybe block and catch.
02:53They got that, you know, in Foster Moreau.
02:55And now they have Dalton Schultz as well.
02:5812 personnel becomes more of a realistic thing.
03:03I think more than anything for me, just you have guys where you should be able
03:08to run the football and put yourself in the most advantageous circumstances
03:11and then more, I guess, to say it a different way,
03:14to take yourself out of the circumstances where it's like, oh, this is real nasty business
03:19and we are putting even more – heaping more pressure on C.J. Stroud.
03:22I think also as much as we're talking about the capability of running,
03:25and this is where I will lean into your continued kind of concern at the center position,
03:30is they should be also still better at pass blocking.
03:33Yes.
03:33Having these bodies who are better, bigger, and obviously everything has been,
03:38at least in my mind and I think in the mind of a lot of others,
03:41filtered through the lens of how do they run block.
03:44I think you still have better pass blocking options than you had last year.
03:48I mean, Wyatt Teller, even though he's playing opposite, right,
03:51I'm still – I'm vividly remembering an image of plays where you have Jared Patterson
03:56to left guard and he's out here blocking somebody's side
03:59because they beat him that quickly to the inside.
04:02I think that now you still have the possibility that maybe Jake Andrews
04:07has to end up one-on-one at some times and maybe he could be light in the butt,
04:10but nobody else is.
04:11And so I think that that should hopefully stabilize C.J. Stroud's mentality
04:15because it does feel like sometimes it's between the ears for him,
04:18whether that's, you know, thinking that he has to do too much
04:20or being, you know, being, I don't know, questioning whether
04:24the offensive line will hold up.
04:25If you get not only a better line but a better line from the start
04:30where he's going through training camp and having that belief
04:32and building that belief, can he then work in a place where he's just working
04:36on his abilities and not having to overthink things or not having to question?
04:40Does that make him the best version of himself?
04:42And I think that the likelihood is yes.
04:44Now the question, oddly enough, is still, what is the best version of C.J. Stroud?
04:48Well, and that's what I'm saying.
04:49That's where I'm going with this.
04:50You know, again, coaching staff, offensive line, tight end, you know,
04:55all these things.
04:56You can even throw in run game because, you know, it was always in flux,
04:59it seemed, a little bit last year.
05:00And now you've got David Montgomery and a more proven Woody Marks.
05:05So what does it do for C.J. Stroud?
05:08I think it kind of, I think it's kind of an ultimatum.
05:11I think it's kind of an ultimatum from the organization saying,
05:13hey, you wanted all this stuff?
05:14We got you.
05:15Now it's on you, big fella.
05:17So you think, so if C.J. Stroud was to have the same type of year he had last year,
05:22now do you feel like it's fair to kind of zero out C.J. Stroud and say,
05:27hey, okay, this is, we got a quarterback problem.
05:30That's what I was going to ask next because, you know, we all know,
05:34well, we don't know, a lot of people question it, but I think he's.
05:37He was bailed out a lot this season because of the offensive line
05:41and maybe the play calling and just all of that type of stuff.
05:44Yeah.
05:45And so does it become, you know, hey, you wanted all this.
05:48We got it for you.
05:49We're going to get you some more in the draft and maybe otherwise even.
05:53Does that kind of narrow down, you know, again, this is a big if.
05:57If there is a problem again, if there is, you know,
06:00he reverts to this version of C.J. Stroud, it kind of narrows it down, man.
06:04Yeah, and I think there's also still, there's still some other ifs in there.
06:08I think you are, you're isolating or at least you're,
06:10you're removing some of the variables, right?
06:12You're giving yourself a better opportunity to have a better offensive line.
06:16I see this on the text line from the 8-3-2.
06:18The line is made up of old has-beens.
06:20I'm not sure the line will be any good.
06:21I wouldn't call them has-beens.
06:22That feels harsh.
06:23However, as I was just saying with Shaq Mason, you do have dudes that are in their 30s
06:27that you're adding to this offensive line.
06:28Not Ed Ingram, though, but you do have, we have the question of the little dip at the
06:32end of last year.
06:33Was that something or nothing?
06:35Right?
06:35But they're still relatively close.
06:37But I think there's, it is fair to go, are you getting to the back end where maybe
06:41you see a decline in some of these players?
06:43I think that's a fair thing to note.
06:44I would not go nearly as far as calling them has-beens.
06:46But there is a point to be asked of like, how much better is the offensive line?
06:49And that's something that we can't see until we get them on the field.
06:52But I think we all feel better about they're putting their best foot forward towards having
06:56a better offensive line.
06:57I think that one of the big questions is still Nick Haley in this.
07:00That might be one.
07:01It is still there to go, how good is this offense in all reality?
07:06We've kind of talked about the possibility and we've been really heavy on the Foster Monroe
07:09to the point where I'm like, all right, are we going too far?
07:12But the possibility of getting into a 12 personnel and the possibility of maybe seeing an offensive
07:17line that can hold up allowing him to do more, we're not guaranteed of that, right?
07:20There's some play callers that if they were in the circumstance where you go, the line
07:24gets better, I go, I know, I've seen them do more things and now they have the room to
07:31work with to do more of those things.
07:33I'm not certain on Nick Haley and there was things that were fairly questionable early
07:37on in this.
07:38We're still working off of a little bit of hope to see, okay, we'll get more from him
07:42and that will help them be a better version of themselves.
07:45I think that that's still there, but it is fair to say that we're taking away more of
07:48the variables to where if it continues to look bad for CJ Stroud, more of that blame
07:53will have to sit at his doorstep.
07:54I think it will fall on his doorstep and I agree with you on Nick Haley, absolutely, to
08:00be determined, you know, play calling, mastery of the passing game, et cetera, because he
08:05leaned heavy on Szaplinski and Gerard Johnson and McDaniels and all that in the past game.
08:10I'm quite certain of that just based on his history.
08:12Uh, but you know, a lot of teams are in a situation where maybe the offensive line isn't
08:17as good as we thought they were.
08:18And so is that, I don't want it to be a cop out necessarily unless it's so obvious that
08:22they're just falling apart.
08:23But if they're decent run games, decent tight ends, decent, you know, the, the play calling
08:28is decent and, and they revert or he reverts.
08:32I think it's going to be a lot more heat on CJ Stroud.
08:35And to be fair, this is also a real simplification because there's different types of looking bad,
08:39right?
08:40And I think the type of looking bad that we saw at the end of the season, if that happens
08:44again, where it's very clear that it's turning the football over, it's careless decisions.
08:48It's those types of things.
08:49I don't know what you point to, to make that like, to make that the case over a long stretch
08:54of time in the way that it might happen, you know, in the way that we're kind of hypothesizing
08:58in this moment.
08:58And I think that that would be one of those, okay, yeah, there's real, there's real issues.
09:02There's, there's different types of, okay, well, this doesn't look good for certain
09:06reasons.
09:06And if it looks bad in that particular way, again, I think that that's when you're like,
09:10okay, sound the alarms.
09:11We have to do something.
09:12Yeah.
09:12Yeah.
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