- 2 days ago
Seth and Sean discuss the report from Aaron Wilson that EJ Speed is done for the season, and what the Texans could do with the cap cleared by restructuring Nico's deal.
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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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