- 2 days ago
ITL reacts to Houston’s full schedule release and what immediately jumps out.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00It is scheduled release breakdown day on Sports Radio 610.
00:04Tap in with us on the text line, 713-572-4610.
00:09Oh, how could we forget?
00:10It's definitely Andre Johnson beating the mess out of court.
00:13Oh, yes.
00:14What are we doing here?
00:15Okay, so the running thing that we're doing today,
00:19I've decided this executive decision.
00:21We're five weeks in, by the way.
00:22Yeah.
00:23Are you writing these down?
00:25I'm going to.
00:26So what we're going to do with the text line
00:28to make it even more interactive today.
00:29We're going to fix the text.
00:30We are going to fix the text and schedule release video.
00:33Can we do this next year,
00:34or should we send this idea to the Houston Texans?
00:36I mean, they can put the video out, too.
00:38No, we can keep it for ourselves, though.
00:40Oh.
00:42Or should we be nice?
00:43I might stick around for four more.
00:45You're welcome.
00:45I just don't advise it.
00:47I just don't advise it.
00:49But, yeah, get the omelet and come back.
00:51We're here.
00:52But, yeah, we're going to go ahead and fix it.
00:54We think that the better idea, rather than Brian Cushing,
00:56who is an absolute Texans legend,
00:59and Brian Cushing just telling the schedule,
01:01I think it would have been better
01:02if we had the greatest Texan play
01:05against each one of these opponents
01:06for all 17 weeks.
01:08And so you have the schedule,
01:09and we'll talk about the schedule here.
01:11Text in on the text line,
01:12713-572-4610.
01:14What is the greatest play for each of the opponents?
01:18Whichever one comes to mind,
01:19send it in, 713-572-4610.
01:21I promise we'll get to the schedule.
01:22But I do want to go, you said greatest,
01:24not just play.
01:25Let's change the Rosencopter to Arian Foster.
01:28Arian Foster running for two, what was it?
01:32In his first start.
01:33First game ever.
01:34Yeah.
01:34Oh, yeah, first start.
01:35Yeah, yeah, because he had played the previous year.
01:38233 yards and three touchdowns,
01:40if I remember correctly.
01:41So one is...
01:42Does that play well enough in video form?
01:44Yeah, he broke some...
01:46If you get Vandy saying it, right?
01:47If you get the...
01:48Yeah, okay.
01:48He broke some biggins.
01:50He broke some big, big...
01:51So I would say Deshaun Week 1, Buffalo.
01:55JJ Week 2, Bengals.
01:57Arian Week 3.
01:59D-Hop Week 4, Cowboys.
02:02Then the beatdown Titans Week 5.
02:04The beauty of the Titans,
02:06you get two of them, right?
02:06Yeah, and the Colts, too.
02:08Well, here's another suggestion for the Colts.
02:10The touchdown, Brandon Whedon to Jalen Strong
02:13to beat the Colts in Indianapolis for the first time.
02:16God, I love how sick that is.
02:18We need a Weed Man highlight.
02:20Brandon Whedon to Jalen Strong.
02:22The only skinny receiver to ever show up fat at training camp.
02:28Gosh, I'm going to enjoy this so much.
02:30All right, so we're going to do Week 6,
02:32which is Jacksonville, taking suggestions.
02:34Yes, yes, taking suggestions
02:35as we keep going along here in the loop.
02:38Hi, John.
02:39How are you doing?
02:40I am Jim Dandy.
02:41We are 10 minutes into the segment.
02:43Hi, how you doing?
02:43I am Jim Dandy.
02:44Obviously, Figgy Fig on the ones and twos.
02:46What's happening, man?
02:47Pretty good, man.
02:48Very good.
02:49Very good.
02:49All right.
02:50Initial reaction to the Texans 2026 schedule,
02:53which is officially set for your boys.
02:56It's incredible how bad this went.
03:01Really?
03:02Gosh.
03:02That's where you're starting here, huh?
03:03Yes.
03:05Yes.
03:05I don't care who kills me.
03:08Well, I do, but figuratively speaking.
03:10Yes, okay.
03:11Very good.
03:11We're just going to confront our morality
03:13in segment number one here.
03:15Let me reiterate what I said earlier.
03:17And we talked about this, I think, Wednesday,
03:19Tuesday, Wednesday, something like that.
03:20What you were hoping for and what would be bad.
03:24What you were hoping for was an easy kind of soft,
03:27I think you even mentioned that,
03:28soft opening, so to speak.
03:30I think that was more Sean.
03:31Was it more Sean?
03:32Yeah.
03:33But an easy opener.
03:34Nope.
03:35You get the Bills,
03:35and you know they're going to have revenge on their mind.
03:37You're going to have a healthy everybody on both teams,
03:40you know, to be fair.
03:41But you're going to have Josh Allen.
03:43So you didn't get the easy opener.
03:45How about the soft opening at large versus, you know,
03:47you kind of, you know, maybe some easier games,
03:49a little Titans mixed in early or something like that.
03:52Nope.
03:53You got Bills, then the Bengals, Joe Burrow,
03:55then the Colts on the road.
03:57No home division game.
03:59Think about this.
04:00You do not have a home division game until November 19th.
04:05So you didn't get that, the soft opening.
04:08Bye week.
04:09Hey, they're going to, we know, you know,
04:11they're going to, we knew this already.
04:12Should I do this before you go, my counter on that?
04:14Because I actually have a really good counter on this.
04:16Because I've got a, I've got a question.
04:17I have one too.
04:18Oh!
04:21You're going to London.
04:22Cool.
04:23Lock it up.
04:24I said 90% chance they're going to have a bye week
04:27when they get home.
04:28Nope.
04:29They play the Giants at home after going to Wembley
04:32without a bye week in there.
04:34The bye week is after the Giants.
04:36And the Giants was a game that I just flat out checked.
04:40Win.
04:41W.
04:41Giants at home.
04:42You can't necessarily do that anymore coming on the short week,
04:46the long travel.
04:46What do they call that?
04:47A trap game, right?
04:48A trap game.
04:49Exactly.
04:49Is that the trap game?
04:50Yeah.
04:50And then the other thing you were looking for is maybe a little home cooking.
04:54Some nice long stretches at home.
04:56Two games here, then a road game, then two games here.
04:58Nope.
04:59The exact opposite.
05:00You've got back-to-back road games, what, Figgy?
05:02Four times?
05:03Yes.
05:04Yes.
05:04Back-to-back road games four times.
05:06Then you have two stretches in the middle of the season and the end of the season
05:10where you play four out of five games on the road.
05:12Twice you do that.
05:13How about the cold weather favor?
05:15You know, how about that?
05:16Throw us a little bone here, man.
05:18How about playing Green Bay in September or October even?
05:21Nope.
05:22Not only do you play Green Bay in the winter, you play them in January.
05:27There, but not only that, before that, you go to Pittsburgh in December,
05:31two Commanders in December, two Philly in December on a short week, by the way.
05:35So there's another nope.
05:36I mean, everything you could have hoped for went the other way.
05:41Yeah, it's not the greatest.
05:44Can I give you one of my counter-arguments?
05:46Because you talked about the start of the season,
05:48and there are some tough teams on there.
05:50I think if we dig just a little bit deeper, I think there is a silver lining in this.
05:55And the silver lining starts with, when we talk about good teams,
05:58we're talking about especially those quarterbacks, the big names.
06:00I think we feel good about this defense getting off the bus and whooping ass, right?
06:04We don't have to be upset there.
06:06Can I talk to you about DVOA?
06:09Okay.
06:10You excited for this?
06:11Specifically defensive DVOA.
06:13You bringing this up during the schedule release?
06:16That's right.
06:16No, y'all want to get nerdy?
06:18I can get nerdy.
06:19Oh, y'all want to bring me into the mud of the schedule?
06:21Let's do it then.
06:23All right.
06:23Here are the defensive DVOAs from last year of your opponents, weeks one through five.
06:28The Buffalo Bills defense last year was 20th in defensive DVOA.
06:33Okay.
06:34The Cincinnati Bengals defense DVOA.
06:36Well, we know that one.
06:3730th in defensive DVOA.
06:40Colts, 15th.
06:41So, about middle of the road.
06:43Dallas Cowboys, 32nd defensive DVOA last year.
06:47Tennessee Titans, 29th defensive DVOA.
06:50That's before you eventually get to the Jaguars, who were six defensively.
06:53That was a good defense last year.
06:54These are not good defenses, at least last year.
06:57I mean, some of them, obviously, have done some work, but it's not entire retooled circumstances
07:01where these are now teams that are definitely going to be top of the league defenses.
07:05That is the side of the football that you're more concerned about early on, is how does
07:08the offense lock in?
07:10How are they able to, you know, find their identity early, hit the ground running?
07:14Hitting the ground running, obviously, is still going to be important, but it's not as important
07:17when you look over and you go, that's not actually a very good defense over on the other
07:20side.
07:20So, I think it's a little less scary, the start, if you consider that portion of it.
07:25I have a counter to your counter.
07:26Whoa!
07:29What that means is four of your five toughest games, based on 2025 win totals, are in the
07:36second half of the season.
07:37Four of your five toughest games are in the second half.
07:40You know, they're after the bye, I should say.
07:43Three of them are on the road.
07:45Two of them are on the road in December and January.
07:46So, yes, you're right, maybe a little softer in terms of DVOA and the defenses you're facing,
07:52but at the end, when you're trying to wrap up the division, wrap up home field, you know,
07:57end with a bang and some momentum, four of the five toughest games you're going to play
08:02are after the bye.
08:04Sure, but here's the thing, and this is where the schedule release and, like, when the games
08:08happen kind of annoys me personally.
08:10You knew you were going to play tough teams, regardless.
08:12But you didn't know, like, what I just laid out.
08:14Like, you're trying to get down the stretch.
08:16You got games, you're going to be scoreboard watching, you know, and you got to win it.
08:20You got to get wins, man.
08:21No, you do.
08:22Ultimately, you were going to have to play these tough teams.
08:24I understand that, like, the places that you were going to play them, and I understand
08:28what you're getting at, right?
08:30Successively, them coming together can, you know, have some level of multiplication factor.
08:34But you knew you were going to have to play tough teams.
08:35That's a fancy way of saying momentum.
08:36Yeah, it is.
08:38No, because I don't think that's actually what that is.
08:40Successively, they might have some semblance of multiplication factor?
08:44Yeah, well, like, that's not a momentum play.
08:46That's just, hey, this is a difficult team after another difficult team.
08:49That doesn't mean that there's going to be momentum one way or the other within that.
08:52But the actual thing that I'm getting towards is, hey, man, good teams have to play good
08:57teams, man.
08:57Like, this is going to have to happen.
08:59These were going to be on your schedule, and you knew you were going to have to knock
09:01them down at some point.
09:02Yes, that's going to be maybe a smidge more difficult, but you were going to need to
09:06be able to come out and knock these teams off the ground.
09:08But I do think it matters when you play these teams, though, because if you want to play
09:12five great teams in a row, because that could determine your season a little bit.
09:17Like, if you struggle with those teams.
09:17Yeah, that's where I am with it.
09:19That's where I am with it.
09:19Because the year when Bill O'Brien was here, let's say they spread those first four teams
09:23around, and he ended up going maybe two and two or something like that, or three and
09:28one.
09:28And then, who knows, he probably wouldn't have been fired.
09:31Yeah, but my thing about it is, we're talking about different calibers of football team.
09:35If we're talking, I don't want to compare anything in this current NFL, current Texans
09:39team to a Bill O'Brien team.
09:40Right.
09:41And I think that we all could get on that same board.
09:43Ultimately, I think that what you're saying is fair, but that might be the difference
09:46between, are you hosting games in the playoffs, or are you going on the road in the playoffs?
09:50And for me, I know that that's important.
09:52I would love that, but that falls a little bit by the wayside in my mind to, hey, man,
09:57this is something that you need to do.
09:59How good are you, right?
10:00Like, this is, when the rubber meets the road, are you going to be able to answer the call?
10:05And ultimately, I don't think that that's the reason why you missed the playoffs.
10:07Now, go ahead and clip it.
10:09If this ends up being the case, I'll eat crow at that point.
10:12But I don't think that this is ultimately going to be that.
10:14I think maybe this ends up being a situation where maybe you have to go on the road.
10:17And if that's the case, well, then you earned it, you know?
10:19Figgy, what was your counter?
10:21Yeah, my counter, I know you was talking about how you play a lot of divisional road games early.
10:28I actually like that, man, because towards the back end of the schedule,
10:32you have a whole bunch of home division games.
10:36I think that works out better.
10:39I'd rather get rid of the road division games early.
10:43Yeah, obviously, you know, it depends on how you're doing them.
10:46But I feel better about Jacksonville in London, although they do have, you know,
10:52as we talked about, a little bit of a familiarity there.
10:54I'm fine with getting rid of those early.
10:56Because I think, I want to say, is it after the bye, I want to say?
10:59You have no more division road games.
11:03Yeah, correct.
11:03I think it's something like that.
11:04After the bye, yeah.
11:04I'm totally fine with that.
11:05Your first home game against a division opponent is November 19th.
11:09Yep, versus the Indianapolis Colts.
11:10Thursday night, in fact.
11:11Yeah, I'm totally fine with that because you never know who is going to be where,
11:15and I think that's crunch time.
11:17No, for sure.
11:18Look, the schedule is what it is.
11:20I think ultimately the questions that we have about the team is going to be answered
11:23within how they play.
11:25But, yeah, no, you're right.
11:26It's not like they got the cupcake schedule.
11:28I'll say that for damn sure.
11:29It's clear that that didn't happen for them.
11:32But, yeah, and maybe this is just they'll give you the football speak of it all.
11:36But I imagine you go talk to them in that building, and they're not what was me when it comes
11:41to this schedule.
11:41They're ready to go kick ass.
11:42No, I think their company line is going to be, you know, we knew who we were going to
11:48play.
11:49We're going to have to play good anyway, et cetera.
11:51But there are some factors, and we've been talking about them, about how it lines up.
11:56And it just lines up.
11:58Whether you think it's valuable or not, it lines up the exact opposite of what you were
12:04hoping for.
12:05Can I give you one more thing that I actually did not realize?
12:08Of course, this is like the deep nerd of it.
12:10Arif Hassan of Wide Left does a really good substack talking about football, writing about
12:15football.
12:16He actually went and evaluated the net rest differential.
12:20And I know that that sounds crazy, but just like how much more rest or less rest are you
12:24getting than your opponents over the entirety of the season?
12:26The Texans are in the black.
12:28They're in the positive in this to the degree of how many days?
12:32I believe this is eight days compared to, I mean, there's a lot of teams where like the
12:36Chargers are in the negative 24 days of net rest.
12:40Eagles are in the negative 15 days of net rest.
12:42The Rams even in the negative six days of net rest.
12:45The Texans technically, when they are matching up against these opponents, although you're making
12:49the fair point that there's, you know, a run of games that'll be tough.
12:53Overall, they're actually going to have more rest in most and more majority of these games
12:57than other teams.
12:58So I do think that there are, there are smaller positives in there or silver linings, if you
13:02will, compared to like the larger seeming negative.
13:05Who came up with that?
13:07Well, I mean, this was looked up by, I saw this by Arif Hassan.
13:10I was just kind of curious how the hell did somebody come up with that?
13:13Yeah.
13:14Well, man, that's kind of impressive.
13:16All the football sickos that are breaking down the schedules left, right, up, down.
13:21You said the Chargers got a negative 24?
13:24Brother.
13:25Brother.
13:25Like, huh?
13:26They are going to be down rest by 24 days somehow, which is kind of crazy.
13:31Yeah, over the entire, I wonder if that actually shows up.
13:34Like, I'm going to hold on to that particular graphic, and then as we go through the season,
13:38I'm going to be like, yep, well, you're seeing them.
13:40I'm at a loss of words.
13:42Yeah, I mean, I'd be fighting somebody if I was the Chargers.
Comments