00:00Lance Zerline, who covers the NFL and the NFL draft, he was on Mina Kimes' podcast.
00:06And, Clint, I know he said something that stuck out to you, talking about the Texans
00:12feeling like for the first time that they have made moves to really match exactly what
00:19they want to be, their desired identity.
00:21Did you agree with that after you've watched what they've done this offseason?
00:26Well, I agreed with the overall point that Lance was making.
00:30Lance is great when it comes to evaluating players and things of that nature.
00:33Does a ton of media this time of year in and around the draft, and he's one of the best
00:37in the game, no doubt.
00:39And I'm paraphrasing here because it was obviously some of the comments were long and detailed.
00:46But the thought of the Texans by signing Wyatt Teller, signing Braden Smith, signing David
00:54Montgomery, really his point was they want to be a run-first football team.
00:59They want to control the clock.
01:00They want to be physical.
01:01They want to be violent.
01:01They want to finish.
01:02They want to strain.
01:05And they've preached that for a couple of years now, but all of a sudden they're signing
01:08some guys and drafting some guys along with their first-round draft pick that's going
01:12to be on the offensive line somewhere where it all makes sense.
01:16Basically, the guys match up with what they're saying.
01:19I agree wholeheartedly with that.
01:21It is blatantly obvious, and we've talked about it multiple times, that the Texans are
01:25not only preaching that they want to be a certain style and play a certain brand of
01:29offensive football.
01:30Boy, they may even be going overboard in how they go get guys that are physical, physical,
01:36physical.
01:36We'll see how it works out.
01:37The part that I disagree with is because it's kind of said in the context of D'Amico's
01:44had a tough time offensively doing this, getting the identity matching, the players kind of
01:51thing.
01:51I mean, I don't know that they could have done any more of that specifically than they
01:59did before year two with the previous offensive coordinator.
02:03I mean, you got Nico Collins.
02:05You got Tank Dale coming into his own.
02:07You go out, you get Steph Diggs.
02:08I believe it was the same year they got Joe Mixon as well.
02:12You know, the offensive coordinator and the quarterback were come out, I mean, guns a
02:17blazing in training camp talking about, you know, we're going to stretch the field, we're
02:22going to get vertical, we're going to do some different things.
02:24And so, you know, I think at that point in time, now, it didn't end up working out to
02:29the degree that they wanted it to, because if I remember correctly, some guys stayed injured
02:32a good chunk of the time.
02:33Yeah, hell, all three of them got injured for significant periods of time.
02:36It damn sure didn't work out.
02:37Now, this year, I mean, obviously, because Bobby Slowick got fired, but also Joe Mixon,
02:42one of the guys that you went out and got, never touched the field again.
02:46So, I guess my only point is, we've seen the Texans offensively try to match their personnel
02:55to what they want to do from an identity perspective.
02:58It was just derailed with injuries, and it was derailed with just wasn't necessarily the
03:08best way for them to play offensive football.
03:09Well, I think the year that you spoke of when they bring in Diggs and Mixon, I mean, I think
03:17that was, one, derailed by injuries, but I think it was derailed by just, they didn't.
03:23The offensive line.
03:25Offensive line.
03:25The most sacked, the most pressured quarterback in the football.
03:27They didn't put that part together as, they should have been getting a bunch of Tunzels,
03:32like guys that can pass protect, as opposed to, I don't know what they have.
03:38Yeah, well, but that's my point, is, I see, I look at it, now, it didn't work out, obviously,
03:43but you got Titus Howard and Laramie Tunsell as your bookie and tackles, you ought to be
03:47able to, your quarterback ought to be able to drop deep and stretch the field a little
03:51bit.
03:52Now, again, we know how the juice and the Kenyon Green thing, we know it didn't end up
04:00working out.
04:00They missed on some guys there, but just from a standpoint of the personnel matching up,
04:06I believe that they tried to swing for the fences in year two, and I just don't believe
04:12it worked out.
04:13And as I said before, I think that's more on the OC and the quarterback in a sense of not
04:18having a plan for pressure and not being able to, yes, the O-line struggled, and he was
04:22the most pressured and hit quarterback in football, not named Caleb Williams.
04:25I get it, that obviously is a reflection of your offensive line, but as I said then, it's
04:31the same thing I say now, and you can see it coming, you can see it playing out exactly
04:35like I'm talking about, is that's just as much on your O-line, I mean, on your offensive
04:39coordinator and your quarterback as it is your own line.
04:41Now, when you're not protected to that degree, that's not just poor offensive line play.
04:47I mean, there's a lot that goes into that.
04:50And so, anyway, point being is we've seen this before.
04:53We've just seen them fail at it before.
04:56You know what I mean?
04:56It's not, this is not, like Delico hadn't sat over there and just swung and missed, you
05:01know, from an identity standpoint and had no clue.
05:04Now, I will argue that after year one, I thought year two, they kind of figured some things out,
05:08and then all of a sudden you fired the OC and you bring in a total difference.
05:10Now, it went off the rails there, but there was a plan in place when you signed Steph Diggs
05:16and Joe Mixon in the offseason with a quarterback that can stretch the field, you just couldn't
05:20protect him.
05:21Like, there was a plan there, and the players matched that plan.
05:24The O-line, the interior offensive line just fell apart.
05:27Shaq Mason and Kenyon Green, and I mean, those guys just, it just.
05:30But they were wishing with Kenyon.
05:32Oh, yeah.
05:33Like, that was, and they were wishing with Juice.
05:37Like, those guys, none of those guys ended up being good pass.
05:40But overall, the deal is, I mean, I love Lance's overall point is, there's no doubt what the
05:46Texans are wanting to do right now offensively is, they want to play smash mouth football.
05:51And they're signing guys that say, we want to play smash mouth football.
05:56As I've always said, I don't need to agree with your moves.
05:58I just want to see the method of the madness.
06:00And Lance is pointing out here, the method of the madness here is making a little bit of
06:03sense.
06:03I would say, of all the times, though, this one, complete team-wise, seems to be the
06:11best they've been able to do it at.
06:13Now, we'll see what happens once the season starts.
06:15But this connects to the defense.
06:18Yeah.
06:18Like, it connects in every way.
06:21Like, the way they want to play offense kind of feeds off the way they want to play defense
06:26and vice versa.
06:27Well, if I, to me, the thing, because it's hard to really, again, I'm trying to take
06:34out of the equation, like, the failures.
06:37Right?
06:37I mean, because hindsight's 20-20.
06:40We can sit around and talk about how the offensive line fell apart and this and that.
06:42I mean, everybody involved was bad for your quarterback to be pressured.
06:45That's my overall point.
06:46But when you look at what, you know, talking about D'Amico, like, I think D'Amico has gone
06:52extreme two ways now.
06:54Now, right?
06:55I mean, again, Joe Mixon, Steph Diggs, re-up Dalton Schultz, I believe, kind of deal.
07:01And it was one of those where, hey, man, we're going to stretch it.
07:04We're going to get real aggressive.
07:06I mean, never mention running the ball.
07:07We're going to get aggressive and we're going to do some different things.
07:09Now, he signed Joe Mixon, so there's obviously an emphasis on running the ball.
07:11But the mindset, and I said at that point, this may not be the greatest thing for C.J.
07:18Stroud is to go from being the most efficient quarterback in the game to all of a sudden
07:21I want to stretch the field.
07:22Right?
07:22To now, the extreme is, man, we ain't even going to pay attention to these wide receivers.
07:28I mean, it doesn't even matter.
07:31We're going to run the football.
07:34We're not going to build around a quarterback.
07:35We're going to run the football.
07:37And everybody we bring in here, first and foremost, that's going to be their forte.
07:41So I think we've seen a couple of different extremes from D'Amico Ryan's as it pertains
07:46to his offense.
07:46He's trying to pair up with that defense he's got.
07:49But we've seen it before.
07:51It just didn't work out.
07:51Check the line coming through.
07:52No, dum-dum.
07:54They hadn't upgraded the O-line then.
07:55No, I would disagree.
07:57I mean, they moved up in the draft to go get Drew Scruggs in the second round because they
08:01thought he would be an answer.
08:02And then they paid Tunzel again.
08:06And then, like you said, they paid Titus again.
08:08And they believed that Shaq Mason coming off the previous year because they paid him.
08:12That they thought they were going to do something with that.
08:14And they drafted Kenyon first in the first round a couple of years.
08:18And they crossed their fingers hoping he would work.
08:20But everybody else, I mean, you can't tell me they invested in signing their tackles, a
08:25first-round draft pick, moving up in the second round to get a guy and a free agent.
08:29Yeah, I mean...
08:31They thought they did.
08:32That sounds about like somebody used the phrase dum-dum.
08:35Yeah, I mean, you've got two of the highest paid tackles in the game.
08:38You've got a veteran that won a Super Bowl at guard.
08:40You've got a second-round pick on a center.
08:42You've got a first-round pick on a left guard along with others that are mixed in there.
08:46I mean, yeah, they just weren't good at finding...
08:49They weren't good at finding...
08:50They had to play one of those tackles at guard because they were so bad at the interior
08:53offensive line.
08:53Yes, I'm not debating that they were bad.
08:56They were bad.
08:57They swung and missed.
08:58But when it comes to building the team, they built a team that was ready to pass protect
09:04at a high level with two of the highest paid tackles in the game.
09:07With a back that was a very, very good pass-protecting back that could catch it out of the backfield
09:12that had been in one of the best passing offenses that we've seen recently in Cincy with Joe
09:18Burrow and that crew, right?
09:19And you load it up on wide receivers and a tight end.
09:22That's a pass-first tight end.
09:24So, I mean, the identity was in the personnel was, we're going to sling this thing all
09:29over the park.
09:30The problem is, it didn't work.
09:33Week 17, we was talking about execution, fundamentals, and technique still instead of winning ballgames.
09:41Yeah.
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