00:00Houston Texans breaking news. We will not wait for headlines for this one. We'll hit it in
00:04headlines again, but Aaron Wilson reporting earlier this morning that EJ Speed, linebacker
00:12who we know had surgery last week on a torn quadriceps tendon, further testing on the injury
00:22reveals that it's fully torn. Successful surgery, but EJ Speed now reporting, Seth, Aaron Wilson
00:29reporting, he'll be out for the entire season now. So the initial reports were that he would
00:33be out five to six months, which would have put a November return timeframe. The return
00:39now will be in 2027 sometime. So that sucks for EJ Speed who, and it sucks for the Texans
00:44obviously who saw enough in EJ Speed in his first year here to bring him back on a, on
00:50a nice, you know, for a guy who's a fringe starter and a special teams guy, pretty nice deals
00:54like two years, 13 million. Not bad. Yeah. And you could almost say it's like losing half
00:58a starter. Yeah. So, cause he played 45% of the Texans defensive snaps last year. Yeah.
01:04And I think that's where on the margins of things, when you look at, okay, this is incredible
01:09defense already. They bring back all their starters. They add Reed Blankenship. They draft
01:12Caden McDonald. You gotta, if you're looking at the balance sheet, you know, you also have
01:17to remember guys like EJ Speed and Derek Barnett and Daniko Autry. That's where some of the
01:22questions are. I think the, the thing is that Matt Burke and D'Amico Ryans and the position
01:27coaches on that defense have done such a good job developing young players. Did you just,
01:32for me at least, I have faith that between the options they have, those backup positions
01:39are going to develop guys, or they go out and find somebody. If they get into training
01:43camp and they think, okay, you know what? We do need an extra guy on the edge. We have
01:47options. And, um, you know, there's also Texans cap had reported yesterday, the day before
01:53basically that with that Nico Collins deal, it did apparently clear, clear up some space.
01:59Yep. So, I mean, there's edge rushers out there right now. Um, there's linebackers that
02:04you could trade for or, you know, conceivably maneuver to get to, but I think they want to,
02:09I would guess the Texans right now just want to play it out with the guys they have in the
02:14building and see how everybody looks during training camp before they, before they do
02:17anything aggressive. I would, I wouldn't be a hundred percent shocked, but that's my suspicion.
02:21Yeah. So let's touch on that. We'll get to AJ Brown in a second. Um, but since you mentioned
02:25it, yeah, there was a report yesterday that, uh, yeah, Texans cap friend of the show does
02:30a great job. Give him a follow on, on, uh, on Twitter and subscribe to his stuff. If you're
02:35into the contractual side of things, which that's what the off season is made for. He is a, he's
02:40an excellent follow at Texans cap. Um, but with the Nico Collins contract adjustment, we'll call
02:47it essentially, they just gave Nico a big raise. They didn't extend his deal. They
02:51guaranteed his money and gave him a raise, but with the machinations of that, they've
02:57now got 30 million in total cap space. They've got the eighth most cap space in the league
03:02here for 2026. So this Seth yesterday set off rampant speculation, rampant, irresponsible
03:10Twitter speculation that the Texans are getting ready to add one of these, the position you
03:17mentioned there, they're in defensive ends that are out there on the market. I guess
03:21that's the good news for the Texans is that of all the positions where it feels that the
03:26depth is a little precarious right now, that there's a big drop off from your starters to
03:30the depth guys. And obviously when your starters are Daniel Hunter and Will Anderson, there's
03:34going to be a drop, big drop off to almost anybody, but it feels like the position of edge
03:39rusher, like veteran edge rusher that fits price wise, right in that sweet spot for the
03:45Texans on a one or a two year deal, something like that. The names are the names that, that
03:49that Clayton Anderson, Toro times has here, Joey Bosa, Cam Jordan, Vaughn Miller, Jadeveon
03:58Clowney. So obviously a lot of familiarity with those last two guys, one being an Aggie, one
04:02being a former Texan. Cam Jordan's been around forever. He's 36 years old and Joey Bosa by
04:08spot rack. The contractual website is by, would by far be the most expensive. These
04:15are just estimates. Yeah. But Joey Bosa would buy spot racks estimate would be an average
04:20annual value of almost 14 million. The other three guys all live in that six to $7 million
04:25range. Two things about that. For one, and I am a hundred percent guilty of this, that with
04:32Joey Bosa, I think there's more of a perception that he's injury prone, uh, partly because
04:39he missed a couple of, he had a couple of seasons where he had a bunch of injuries, but I
04:43think
04:43because Nick Bosa's had a bunch of injuries too, you almost combine it in your head to where
04:48you're like, wait, no, Bosa's always injured. And you forget that like, oh no, at any given
04:52time, yes, a Bosa is injured, but it's, but they're two separate people. Even for internal
04:58twins or anything. Yeah. Uh, so Bosa has been healthy the last couple of years. He's been,
05:05you know, last year he was a full-time starter for him. Uh, the, the year before. He's in Buffalo
05:10last year, right? Yeah. Yeah. Um, and I, I guess with Bosa and Cam Jordan, those are the two guys
05:16I
05:17wonder, okay, would they be cool in coming in and being a rotational pass rusher? Because, okay,
05:23there's the ego and there's being the starter and there's also, okay, more snaps means more
05:28opportunities. Yeah. But if you're in a rotation with Daniil Hunter and Will Anderson at defensive
05:34end, that means your legs are always fresh and you're always coming in and you are, you are
05:41maximizing, you're, you're maximizing exactly how much production you can get on a per snap basis.
05:47The, the thing about Cam Jordan is, you know, my first knee jerk, whenever I hear about Cam Jordan,
05:53this off season was always, well, he's going to be 37 years old. So the Texans would be the perfect
05:57spot for him because this is the dream. The dream semi-retirement for a defensive end is when
06:02you're in your thirties, you go somewhere where you can be a situational pass rusher, get like 20
06:06snaps per game. The problem is win and win and win and be, and he's a guy like Cam Jordan's
06:12a guy who
06:13came into the league and he was on some, he was on some really good saints teams, but now he's
06:18seen
06:19the miserable side of football, man. He would love being here, but you pointed this out. I mean,
06:24he's got one of the most impressive career stat boxes I've ever seen where from the year 2011
06:32until last year, he's played every single game of the season's entire career. He's never missed a
06:41game. It's a, when did the, wait, did we go to, when did we go to 17? He went to
06:4517 in 2021. So he
06:46missed one game in each of those. He missed one game in each of 2021 and 2022, which may have
06:51been at
06:52the end of the year in a meaningless game. Who knows? Um, so yeah. And that entire career of his
06:57that goes back to 2011, he's missed two football games and he's been a starter in all of those
07:03games that he played other than one game is rookie year. So I don't know if he's the typical guy
07:08who's
07:0837 years old and is going to be cool being a backup when he started virtually every single game he's
07:14ever appeared in, in his career. That'd be fantastic. If they got him, I would be so excited if they
07:18got
07:18Cam Jordan to be the, to be the third guy in that, in that rotation at defensive end.
07:23Yeah. Oh God. Yeah. It would be great. And they love having old guys in there. And he's also,
07:28he's a little bit of a, I think, you know, one thing D'Amico's done on the defense this year
07:32is
07:32he's shown that he wants to be a little bit more versatile. So in specific situations and specific
07:39matchups, you know, there's times where you just, you want beefier defensive tackles out there
07:43and they haven't had him. Cam Jordan's a guy that, because he's like 6'4", 290 or so,
07:49he can play, he can play inside if you need him to. He can play on the end when you
07:54need him to stop
07:54the run. He can play over the tackle. He can play the wide nine. And they love, like, they just
08:01love
08:01older defensive linemen. They love having, they love having that, that experience and those old guys
08:06in that room. Yep. So I'm going to, Derek Barnett's still out there. Derek Barnett is still out there.
08:11Yeah. Yeah. He's, he's, this is, this is the only fan base in America that probably be, would be
08:17equally pleased Bosa or Derek Barnett. Yeah. That, uh, because Derek Barnett wouldn't make as much
08:22money. And we'd say like, okay, well, he's not Joey Bosa, but look at it. He's got five sacks each
08:27of
08:27the last two years. We know what we're getting with Derek Barnett. Yes, absolutely. Um, we have not yet
08:32touched on the, you know, that five sacks in each of the last two years, Joey Bosa, Joey Bosa. Is
08:38that right? Is that true? Yes. That's hilarious. You've got Derek Barnett probably at like three
08:44or 4 million a year. Maybe, uh, maybe I can't remember what he made last year. He made $5 million
08:49last year versus Joey Bosa for the same production. Yep. Yep. Um, we've not touched on the, well,
08:56we've not dug into the AJ Brown trade yet. We got a couple of minutes here to do it. Um,
08:59this one was
09:00way more anticlimactic than the Miles Garrett trade. This is one that pretty much everybody
09:05involved was acknowledging was coming on June 1st at some point here. Um, I, I don't know as a,
09:12as a Texan fan, Seth, you know, someone that roots for the Texans that lost to the Patriots in the
09:17playoffs. Does this, how much does this elevate the New England Patriots in your mind that they have a,
09:23an actual number one wide receiver? I think it's a combination of two things that I think it makes
09:29them scary. It's one that Drake may was the best deep ball passer in the league last year. And you
09:36think, okay, well, we've seen this before, you know, whether it's CJ Stroud, go back to Pat Mahomes,
09:42guys who are young passers, who are really good at the explosive downfield throws, defenses start to
09:47figure out a way to take that away from you. I think defenses will do that this year to Drake
09:53May,
09:53but AJ Brown is such still a lethal threat down in B, you pair him with Josh McDaniels,
10:01who's going all the way back to, Hey, you throw Randy Moss in with Tom Brady and let's see what
10:05we
10:05can do. I think it, I think it opens up a lot of possibilities for them to become and then
10:12to
10:12continue to develop the run game, um, and, and be more of the underneath passing game. So it's the,
10:19the Patriots, like, as it is with every team, they were going to have to grow. It wasn't like
10:24they were just going to step out there and be the same offense statistically, especially with
10:28a tougher level of competition. So, um, this, I mean, this should be, this should have been bigger
10:33news than it felt like it was. It's just, it's been a foregone conclusion that it was going to
10:37happen for about two months. Well, it's yeah. Foregone conclusion. It's also become sort of this
10:41like sidebar punchline to the whole Rossini Vrabel storyline that's been going on too. Like it's,
10:48it is, it has been pretty inextricably interwoven into that because prior to her, uh,
10:54leading the athletic and all this, all the salacious stuff coming up here, Diana Rossini was the one who
11:00was reporting all of the AJ Brown news with the Patriots. All the AJ Brown. So, and this is where
11:04the
11:05insult to injury really comes in with the whole Rossini Vrabel alleged affair. It's that we've seen all
11:11the clips of her, you know, Gaga being Gaga over, over Mike Vrabel and everything when she was
11:17speaking, uh, she was speaking, uh, like saying all this stuff publicly. Well, meanwhile, her husband
11:22is at home, but the fact that her husband is a huge Eagles fan and that she like, she, she
11:29wasn't
11:29just possibly having an affair, uh, cheating on her husband. It was, she was also actively,
11:37actively allegedly trying to hurt his football. Like helping engineer
11:41this trade somehow, you know, depending who you are and what you care about in life,
11:45that might be the bigger crime. Yeah. What do you say? Yeah. Your wife's cheating on you.
11:49That happens. Yeah, but she's also trying to actively trying to destroy your football.
11:53What? That witch.
11:57No.
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