- 2 days ago
Seth and Sean discuss the Texans having about as strong of a roster as they've ever had heading into the draft, and do a bonus Mock Draft Injection to see what Daniel Jeremiah has them doing tonight.
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00:00Okay, so the Texans dealing from their biggest position, are they dealing from their biggest
00:04position of strength in the history of the franchise when it comes to the draft?
00:08I think they might be.
00:10There are no glaring, glaring weakness.
00:13You know, the O-line is a weaker position than most.
00:17Yeah.
00:17But I think they've shored up most of their positions to where nothing's a glaring, glaring,
00:22like to where you, boy, they better draft this with the 28th pick or they're getting
00:25it wrong.
00:26No, it's really interesting because I've seen this from various people that they have
00:31the, you know, they have the most complete roster headed into the draft.
00:35They're in a good position to draft, best player available, all of that.
00:38And yet it's not a slam dunk that, oh yeah, it's going to be a good offensive line this
00:43year.
00:43But they've just, they've made, they've made like reasonably aggressive moves to bolster
00:49the offensive line.
00:50But I still think that it's a sore point in terms of the long-term future and development
00:55into the offensive line, but it's not as glaring as it once was.
00:58They're not desperate anywhere.
00:59I don't think might be the best way to put it.
01:01Here was Todd McShay yesterday.
01:02I think this was on Bill Simmons podcast saying exactly what Seth just said.
01:06He said in the AFC, the Texans might have the best roster of any team.
01:10This isn't a draft thing, but spending this amount of time, like really diving into these
01:13rosters.
01:13Yeah.
01:15I mean, obviously the Seahawks have what they have.
01:16The Rams have what they have.
01:17I don't know that there's an organization with a better roster.
01:20Let's just say in the AFC top to bottom roster was than what Nick Casario has built in
01:24Houston.
01:25The quarterback element of it and what is really going on there.
01:29And there's been speculation and rumors and all that.
01:32And you drafted him that high and he was that good as a rookie.
01:35You know what I mean?
01:35If they get him right, and I don't even mean right, like playing his, but like three quarters
01:40of what he's playing as a rookie.
01:41Yeah.
01:4220 to 1 for them.
01:44They're friendly.
01:45Yeah.
01:45But that's the biggest if in sports.
01:47Yeah.
01:48Like their rosters, like some teams with needs, it's like the first two are really important
01:52needs the second one.
01:53We need to get some depth.
01:54The third or the third, the fourth.
01:56And, but for them, like there's yes, their offensive line, let's continue to build that,
02:01but they don't have a lot of, like they're loaded with deep and wide receiver and running
02:05back and back this year.
02:07The defenses.
02:08I don't, you know what, now I'm frustrated because yeah, I agree with them.
02:13Can we get out of the divisional round of the playoffs?
02:16Well, it's the quarterback, right?
02:17I mean, he touched on it there.
02:19Okay.
02:19The very last part though, the very last part, he seems very bullish on their wide receiver
02:24and running back rooms.
02:25I think that's where, I think because Jalen Knoll wasn't as used, wasn't used as much
02:32as we want him to be used, or it seemed like they should be using.
02:36I think that people think that they must not like Jalen Knoll.
02:40And I don't, I don't think we have to think that hard about it.
02:44I think it's more that Christian Kirk was the veteran player in front of him and playing
02:49slot receiver in any system, but maybe particularly in what Nick Caley's trying to do.
02:54It's a, it's a steep learning curve for a rookie.
02:57So when you have a veteran already in front of a young guy and that young guy is still
03:02a rookie and is still trying to get indoctrinated into the system, yeah, he's not going to be
03:07used as much.
03:09I think they're still pretty high on Jalen Knoll.
03:11And I think people around the league are as well.
03:14Jaden Higgins also, I think people are much higher on, I'd like, I myself, I am, I am higher
03:21on him than I feel like I necessarily get from public sentiment.
03:24Yeah.
03:24So the, I don't think they go into the draft thinking, oh boy, we just, we've got to get
03:30a younger receiver in here.
03:31And we haven't even brought up Tank Dell's name.
03:33So wherever Tank Dell actually is and what they think they're going to be able to get
03:36out of him.
03:37I think that that's the, that's the one position group where I feel like the Texans internally
03:42might feel way better about it than whatever, you know, otherwise objective evaluators might
03:49think about it.
03:50It's just, it's so funny.
03:51Anytime, anytime we bring up a veteran guy getting snaps ahead of a younger guy that the
03:57fan base is totally in on, like Jalen Knoll.
04:00Like I think that if you pulled the fan base last year, hey, who would you rather see out
04:03there running, you know, 40, you know, running 30 routes a game, Jalen Knoll or Christian Kirk,
04:0890% of the people would have said Jalen Knoll.
04:10They like the shiny new thing.
04:11It always reminds me of Dusty Baker with Yiner and Martin Maldonado, like the Maldi,
04:17the Maldi Yiner dynamic, because what you just said, Seth, is exactly what Dusty was
04:22saying three years ago when he wouldn't play Yiner Diaz.
04:26Like, Hey, you need a veteran in there sometimes.
04:28Cause he knows what the hell he's doing.
04:29He knows where to be.
04:30I really love when I get to talk to Cecil shorts about this stuff.
04:35It's awesome to talk to a receiver because, you know, last year there were times in the
04:40first half of the season where it would look like, wow, it looked like an inaccurate pass
04:44from CJ or wow, it looks like Jalen Knoll was open.
04:47Why didn't CJ go to him?
04:49And usually what the veteran receiver will tell you is, well, you know what?
04:53Higgins didn't actually run that route as precisely as you're supposed to.
04:57So CJ's putting the ball exactly where Jaden Higgins is supposed to be.
05:01With Jalen Knoll, there's other times where you might think like he's wide open over the
05:04middle.
05:05It's like, yeah, but he wasn't, he wasn't there when he was supposed to be, you know, and especially
05:09younger receivers that want to get a little too fancy early in their route and don't
05:14understand the importance of just getting downfield and making your cut.
05:18You could see a lot of that last year.
05:21And, and even in what CJ, when CJ wasn't trying to throw shade or anything at the end of the
05:26season, when people would ask him about Higgins or Knoll, he would make comments here and
05:31there about how kind of like, yeah, there's, he's done a great job of really understanding
05:35the route running and where he needs to be and everything.
05:38So like, it's not, it's never as simple as, oh, the coaches aren't just, it's not like
05:43the coaches are up in the booth saying like, whatever we do, we can't call a play where
05:47Jalen Knoll's an option.
05:49Yeah.
05:49Yeah.
05:49It's that guy's guy.
05:51Remember when, um, who was the commentator that was on with Tom Brady back in the day
05:57where he was saying, oh, I think it was Dion saying to Tom Brady, can we get Ocho the
06:02ball? Can we get Ocho the ball? And Brady gave an answer that was kind of like, Hey,
06:07we will, we'll throw to the guys that are, that are open.
06:11You know, it just, it wasn't, you can't go out there and try to force a ball to a guy
06:15that is new to the system and might not necessarily be exactly where a guy like Tom Brady wants
06:21it to be.
06:22Well, yeah. And, and specific to Knoll, you know, playing slot. And I know you bring up
06:27Cecil's name. I know this is one of the things Cecil used to say to me, tell me, or he
06:31talked
06:31about in the post game show back when he was doing the post game show in the bill O'Brien
06:34era, cause Cecil played in a version of the offense. The Texans are running now. He, he
06:38has one year here in Houston was playing in a bill O'Brien offense. He, he would say that
06:44specific to the slot position, he said in this offense, it's the second hardest position
06:49to learn behind quarterback.
06:51Yeah. Cause you have to read cover all the quarterback and everything changes and what leverage
06:56you're going to use, or what do you do based on the slot corners leverage and all of that.
07:01It's a lot of decisions to be made pre-snap and post-snap. And it's just, it's just not
07:06so simple. You can be the smartest guy in the world. And it's just a matter of just, you
07:10have to see it a certain number of times before you get really quick with it.
07:13Yeah. If I were hearing something like that, what I just said, that would make me more excited
07:17about Jalen Knoll this year knowing like, Oh, okay. So maybe some of the reason he didn't
07:20get on the field last year was just, he's got to be in the, you know, he, not that he
07:24doesn't have the acumen to do it, but it just takes a longer time for a rookie to kind of
07:28absorb this offense. Here was Will Anderson at his press conference a couple of days ago
07:33when he signed his big deal, talking about the Texans front office and, um, and how they've,
07:38how they've gone about drafting since he's been here.
07:40Me and Sting was just talking, man. And I was like, man, I'm just trying to follow in
07:44the footsteps of greatness like you, you know what I'm saying? And to be able to come
07:47in here and see those guys, how hard they work, all that their accomplishments,
07:50they've been here. It was an inspiration to me, um, inspiration to all the young guys,
07:54me, CJ tank, that whole draft class that they had after them. All those guys are really hard
07:58workers, man. And they go out and perform for this organization and they go out and they
08:02make highlights all day long. Like they don't, they don't that everybody. So man, happy to have
08:07them here. They're a big inspiration to everybody in that locker room. And I guess the only thing
08:13that I guess I'm going to splurge on a little bit is a fishing boat. I'm going to give me
08:16a speed
08:16boat. That's it. But yeah, I had to keep that in there.
08:20Yeah. Oh, I was, uh, well, cause he's, uh, he's more into lake fishing. He's not offshore
08:26fishing. So there's only so much you can spend on a fishing boat for lake fishing, but boats
08:30get expensive real quick. Yes. I did look at like the most, uh, one of the more expensive
08:35fishing boats I could find was a more, it was more of an offshore, uh, set up, but it was
08:40like $5.9 million. Well, he's got that kind of, he's got that kind of bread. Now a Viking sky
08:46bridge, 80 foot long, Sean, he's not going to put that on Lake Conroe. I don't think that would
08:51be amazing. If he did anybody else, we'll have to ask Lopez. Are there any Viking sky bridges on
08:55Lake Conroe? What's the biggest boat on Lake Conroe? Um, yeah, that's we'll talk about Lake Conroe.
09:05He said, that's like his, you know, that's where he and his dad like to go get away. Yeah, yeah,
09:09yeah, yeah. But I guess, you know, fishing boats can get pretty expensive quickly, but for some,
09:13I'm guessing, I'm guessing he's a splurge on like a really nice, like $200,000 boat or something.
09:18Yeah. Yeah. That's when you're talking about $150 million. That's a, I feel like that's an
09:22acceptable person. I think so. I think so. He's not, he's not going out and buying a Gulf stream
09:26or something. No, no, no. Talking about airplanes now. Yeah. Yeah. No, he's not. Um, okay. So Daniel Jeremiah's
09:34mock draft. We do, and we will do a mock draft injection still at seven 45 today. In fact,
09:39we're going to do two since the talk around the Texans is they might be trading up in the draft
09:44this year, according to Tom Pellicero for a defensive lineman. We'll have one in which they
09:48trade up. We'll have another one in which they trade back. But in the meantime, Daniel Jeremiah
09:52gets extra respect in the mock draft community, at least in the city of Houston, because he was the
09:57one guy that chapter and verse called the Will Anderson trade three years ago, Texans moving
10:05up from 12 to three. He, he almost had the draft capital that they gave up to do that nailed
10:10down as well. Wasn't exact, but clearly, clearly was smelling the smoke from both teams as to
10:17what could be happening there. He knew something. Yeah. Yeah. No, the only issue with that one
10:21is that I feel like the Cardinals just by general reputation and the way they handled all of that
10:27in that draft is that I felt like he, it felt like he might've gotten that information from Arizona
10:33more so than from Houston. Oh yeah. Well, I mean, you've said it a hundred times. The Texans don't
10:38talk. They don't talk until you never know, man, where, okay. There's so you could still play that
10:43game of like, okay, we got to, you know, I got to rub this guy's back and maybe they'll rub
10:48ours.
10:48You never know. Um, but it just, I I'm guessing my complete and total guess is that Jeremiah got
10:54that information from the Cardinals, which is why it's really interesting. Cause the Cardinals
10:58are in a, a nice, very tradable spot right now at number three, they are, they are. There's a lot
11:03of talk that they're open for business at three right now. And then a lot of the thing that's
11:06driving that steam is Jeremiah love. Cause it sounds like a lot of these teams in the upper part
11:11of the draft might want to go get Jeremiah love. So the Cardinals are putting smoke out there
11:15that they might take him at three. They might take him at three. And I think they're trying
11:19to create a market, which I would love to keep him the hell out of the division because I think
11:25if he goes to four, I think the Titans are, I mean, everything makes sense for the Titans
11:29to take him at four. They've got, I mean, Brian Dayball is their offensive coordinator and he
11:34saw that Daniel Jones only looked like a viable NFL quarterback. Uh, when at least under Brian
11:40Dayball, when, uh, when Saquon Barkley was healthy and firing on all cylinders. So you
11:46put a guy like Daniel Jeremiah in there and that, that helps out Cam Ward a lot. Uh,
11:50Jeremiah love you. I mean, yeah, excuse me. Yes. And Daniel Jeremiah, that would be funny
11:54to see how Daniel Jeremiah would do in the backfield for the Titans. I would look awful
11:58in his, as any middle-aged man would, of course, uh, or most of us. Yeah. Even the guys are
12:04in
12:04great shape. It's just, uh, they don't have the legs usually to fill out, uh, an NFL
12:08uniform. That's right. All right. So who is Daniel Jeremiah? The respected mock drafter
12:13have the Texans taking with the 28th pick. So a, a, a bonus mock draft today, the Daniel
12:19Jeremiah mock draft, the Houston Texans with 28th pick select max. Yana chore offensive tackle
12:26Arizona state. Here's what Jeremiah says. The Texans have reconstructed their offensive line
12:31with some versatile pieces. This off season, long-term Yana chore has a chance to start
12:36opposite Ariante nursery at offensive tackle, but Houston can take its time developing the
12:42rookie. They have created now, Seth, with these signings at the very least, they're not going
12:47to have to do maybe what they felt like they needed to do with Ariante nursery last year.
12:51You know, they trade Laramie Tunsil. They draft nursery in the second round. You don't really,
12:56really, excuse me, have any other great solutions out there. So they've got to throw the rookie
13:00into the deep end of the pool. And it didn't look good at first either, but he picked up
13:05quickly here. This is a real luxury, especially for a guy like Yana chore, who I think is viewed
13:09as maybe a little more raw than some of these other options. Oh yeah. Way more raw. I mean,
13:13he was born in Nigeria, moved to, uh, moved to Compton and then played football for the first time
13:21in junior college. So sometimes you hear a guy is late to football and it's cause it was their
13:27Ariante nursery. Didn't play until his freshman or sophomore year of high school. No, Yana chore,
13:31uh, was, didn't play football until he was in community college a few years ago. So the upside
13:38of him is that he is incredibly athletic and impressive physically, but he's just very,
13:43very raw. And I think for the Texans, we know how this goes. If they look at him, if they
13:48talk to him
13:49and they, they learn up on him and it's feels like he's swarmy, um, and that he's going to put
13:56in the
13:56work and that he does, he checks off all those back boxes. They might really look at him as okay.
14:02Yeah. Here's a guy with upside and we can take advantage of that. We feel like we can coach him
14:06up. Cause we like Cole Popovich a lot better than the previous offensive line coach. I could totally
14:11see this happening in it. And the situation is right where you've got multiple veteran offensive
14:16tackles. Yep. And, uh, that, that you can, you don't feel necessarily the urgency to push them
14:22out on the field. I'm going to do this exercise where there's three names on the board right now
14:26for, for the Texans. And they just, so Yana chore is obviously on the board. Um, Peter woods is on
14:33the board, the defensive tackle out of Clemson and Caden McDonald is still on the board. Caden
14:39McDonald does not go in the first round of Daniel Jeremiah's mock draft. Okay. So you got two
14:43defensive tackles and Yana chore there and you're Nick Casario. Okay. This is where it gets really
14:48interesting between Caden McDonald and Peter woods, because they're almost exactly the opposite in the
14:55football play in Jesse side of things. So Caden McDonald doesn't have the measurables, but he just
15:00makes a bunch of plays. He's just always around the football, huge number of tackles for losses,
15:05all of these things. Okay. He's a football play in Jesse. Peter woods has the measurables,
15:11but doesn't produce. Uh, and people wonder, okay, just what is his upside necessarily?
15:17And it's, it's interesting because it, some of it echoes what we heard Mel Kuyper saying about
15:23Will Anderson, um, earlier in the show when Will Anderson was drafted. The, the book on Will
15:30Anderson was, wow, if he had come out a year earlier, it's a slam dunk number one overall pick
15:35in the draft, et cetera, et cetera. But he wasn't as productive the next year. And you know,
15:41Will Anderson, a much higher prospect than Peter woods, but Peter woods was going through the same
15:46thing last year that Will Anderson had in college, which was, they changed the way they were using
15:50him last year. So two years ago, he looked more productive. They changed the way they're using
15:56them this year. And okay. He's not as productive. That doesn't necessarily mean that all of a sudden
16:00he became a worse football player. Right. So I, yeah, I don't, I think my gut tells me that
16:07D'Amico and Casario would go more for the, the guy that just flat out knows how to play football
16:14like Cade McDonald more so than the guy where there's a lot of speculation about just how much
16:19of a playmaker he is. So I would lean more towards them going with Cade McDonald, Cade McDonald.
16:23Okay. But I could also see them saying, wow, Rod Wright could really get the most out of Peter
16:27woods. There's some things we need to refine and we could get them going. But I just, if I had
16:32to
16:32bet right now, I would bet Cade McDonald, Cade McDonald over woods. But what about Eanna chore
16:36sitting there as an O-lineman prospect? Would you take Cade McDonald or Eanna chore? I would,
16:42I would take Eanna chore if they all, if they, if they grade them all equally. And it's just because
16:49again, they've got three starting caliber defensive tackles already. They've got three starting
16:55caliber offensive tackles, but the longterm and the import, the importance of the offensive tackle
17:01position is, is a lot higher for, okay, what are we going to do two years from now, three years
17:07from
17:07now? And what do we have for the future? I think you feel, I, I still feel a lot more
17:13urgency about
17:13improving the young guys on the offensive line. This having the 38th pick also has got to feel like a
17:20real luxury to these guys heading into this draft. You know what I mean? Like that they're, they're,
17:24they're going to be looking at guys at 28. And if they're not able to move out of 28, but
17:28you,
17:29you really like a couple of guys to know that there's, or a few guys probably more than two,
17:33you know, three or four guys right there to know that you're within striking distance to get another
17:39one of those guys, you know, that if, Hey, we, you know, they've got two fourth round picks. Hey,
17:43we do go fourth to somebody. We could probably move up from 38 to 33 on Friday or something like
17:48that,
17:48you know, or 34 and still get one of these guys that 38th pick, obviously from the Laramie Tunsil
17:53trade is a real luxury for these guys. That's a, that is a nice little pocket there where they're
17:58going to come away with a couple of good players, the Texans. So that that's, that's really, really
18:03nice. All right. So Daniel Jeremiah has, uh, has max E on a chore going to the Texans. Hey Sean,
18:10you know why they call it offensive tackle? It's a, sometimes people think that's a question they
18:14don't want to ask because they're afraid to ask it, but most people don't actually know because
18:19in the early days of football, they're like the offense, why is it called a tackle? Because in
18:23the early days of football, basically everybody would line up in the same formation, which is
18:26very much almost like a rugby scrum, but every, the defense basically mirrored the offense and the
18:32majority of the tackles were made on that area of the field. Okay. So you'd have an offensive tackle,
18:38the tackle playing on the offensive side of the ball and then the tackle playing on the defense.
18:42So it's not a reference to what it is. They do. It's a reference to the geography on the gridiron.
18:48Oh yeah. Yeah. That's a fun little factoid Seth. I never knew it. Yeah. That is like,
18:53because it's called an offensive tackle. Right. Stupid broad. What a dumb question. Yeah. Yeah.
18:58Yeah. Just because, um, that's, that's, because that's what it is. Yeah, that's right. That's right.
19:06Um, here was Matt Burke. He was on with, uh, the guys on, uh, in the afternoon with the drive
19:11with Sterner and Hughley, uh, a couple of days ago. And he was asked what's next for Will Anderson
19:17jr. Uh, the one thing I think that's been underrated about Will is he literally, I was
19:21telling Rod, or I was sitting next to me, coach Rod, right. And I was like, man, he's literally
19:25gotten better every year. And he takes something, you know, whatever, if we've seen something or he's
19:30seen something and literally like just drills down and works on that all off season. And I'll,
19:34and to listen to him, talk about finishing at the quarterback and trying to convert some of those
19:38pressures in the sacks and stuff, obviously had a lot of sack production. And, you know,
19:42I thought like this, this year, he like got the ball a lot better, had a bunch of sack strips.
19:46I think he might love the league and, and sack strips. Um, you know, it was something really
19:49focused on last year, but for him to talk about sort of like that last finishing point, you know,
19:53in this league with quarterbacks, like sometimes the difference between a pressure and a sack is
19:58just that one step or just getting to that move quicker or whatever those things are. And so I think
20:02just shaving some of that time off and really making, you know, he's at the quarterback almost every
20:06play, right? He's pressuring, he's disrupting. It's what we ask him to do. But I think his focus
20:12of like, how can I just take that extra little half a tick off it to, to convert those into
20:16sacks
20:16and finish some of those plays. I'm still blown away in re-listening to Kuyper talking about Will
20:22Anderson Jr. Talking about him as he was walking to the stage three years ago after getting drafted
20:27that Will Anderson Jr. had one strip sack in his entire college career. Yeah. He gets like one every
20:33week now. No, no. And I, and honestly, that's where if you can picture it in your mind,
20:39that's where Will was very unrefined in a lot of the finer aspects of running the pass,
20:44rushing the passer. And it's not always a foregone conclusion that even if a guy works at it,
20:48that he's going to get better at it. Um, because there's a, there's hand-eye coordination involved
20:52with it and everything. And Will has really, really worked at that and talked about working on
20:57it. Uh, last off season, that's what he talked about. He already said it in his post-draft presser
21:03that that's what he wants to work on is just being more complete and finishing at the quarterback
21:08and getting the ball out. Um, that's, it does, it's not always just as simple as, oh, if he works
21:14at
21:14it, he'll get better at it. So Will has really worked at it and he's gotten a lot better at
21:18it and
21:18then he wants to continue to get better at it. I also thought it was interesting that Matt Burke calls
21:22it a sack strip and not a strip. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Huh. Did the guys follow up on that?
21:28I got it. Next time I see Matt Burke, I got to ask him, I'm guessing cause I've not, that's
21:32the
21:32first time I've ever heard anybody say a sack strip. Yeah. I'm guessing there's a, there's a
21:37reason that he calls it a sack strip instead of a strip sack. Okay. Well, there's your, there's
21:40your icebreaker next time you see Matt Burke. If I'm okay. If I'm coaching D line, I think the one
21:45thing I might say is there are times where the psychology of it is some guys get a little too
21:50addicted to the strip sack to the point where they're, they're instead of finishing their
21:55rush, they're like reaching in and trying to get that strip sack instead of taking that
21:59one extra sack. Yeah. So I wonder if psychologically, it's a matter of like, get yourself in position
22:03to make the sack as you're stripping the ball. So it's, it's sack strip, not strip sack.
22:09I know you were going to ask him this when we go to training camp. Oh yeah. The first time
22:13I see him. Yeah, exactly.
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