00:00The Texans go to training camp in about three weeks.
00:02I can't believe we're that close, fellas.
00:03I know.
00:04I cannot believe that we're that close.
00:06It seems like yesterday our hearts were broken in that loss to New England
00:10in the playoffs.
00:12It looked like there was going to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
00:18with the likes of R. Jackson and Pat Mahomes and Burrow.
00:23Heck, I think maybe even at that point Josh Allen was at home.
00:26But all the big quarterbacks in the NFC were out.
00:29Thought we had an opportunity there and we lost.
00:33Boy, our hearts were broken.
00:34Here we go.
00:34Boom, you blink an eye and we're three weeks away from training camp cranking up.
00:38And here's the question I got.
00:40We talk a lot about how good this defense is
00:43and about what this offense needs to accomplish.
00:45All the main players.
00:49ESPN put out a roundtable.
00:51A bunch of writers got together.
00:53And our local guy here, DJ Biennemi, great dude.
00:57Great follow on social media.
00:59Puts out a lot of great content.
01:02They had a roundtable.
01:03AFC South roundtable.
01:05Who comes out on top?
01:06And as a team, they had the Texans winning the division.
01:10And they took it a step further and talked about breakout players.
01:14And DJ Biennemi went with one that, I'll be honest, it surprises me.
01:19Hmm.
01:20I hope he's right, though.
01:22He went with Tank Dale.
01:23Breakout?
01:24Tank Dale.
01:24Well, yeah, coming off these injuries, yes.
01:26As a breakout player.
01:28Um, um, um, and, you know, that's a, that's a pretty good one, given the injuries that he's dealt with.
01:39Um, but for me, I, I think there's a handful of guys.
01:43And I think I'm, I think it's got to be on the offensive side of the ball for me, Sean.
01:47The defense is great.
01:48There's some guys that may have breakout type, uh, type, type years on the defense.
01:53But, but I don't know how much they actually changed the, the production of the DP.
02:00Tremendous as is.
02:02So I think it's got to be offensively.
02:06And I put, I put probably more thought than I'd like to admit into this.
02:10Um, so I, of course, I'm going to take it a little bit deeper and make it a little more
02:13complicated than just the surface.
02:15Right.
02:15I like it.
02:16Well, I, I just, I think it's, as I'm thinking about it, there's two different avenues here.
02:23Two different, two different, uh, you know, points of view.
02:26One, how likely is it to happen?
02:29So I try, I, I, I want to, I want to give something here.
02:32That's there's at least a puncher's chance.
02:34It's going to happen.
02:35Right.
02:35Yeah.
02:36Um, and then number two, you know, is that player truly, does he truly change the offense?
02:45If, if he has that quote unquote breakout year and I think the, the, the popular pick is Jaden Higgins
02:54playing opposite Nico Collins, but I'm going to move off of that.
02:57We talked about him last week.
03:00I'm going to go with Brevin Jordan, man.
03:02Let's go.
03:03Did I steal it from you?
03:04No, you didn't steal it, but he was on my candidate list.
03:06Okay.
03:07I knew you wanted to talk about this.
03:08So in my mind, I made my own candidate list.
03:11Jaden Higgins, Jalen Knoll, Marlon Klein, Cade Stover, Brevin Jordan.
03:15I mean, to me, those are the only and obvious choices player wise offensively.
03:21And I've been on the Brevin Jordan train for a few years now.
03:26Yeah.
03:26And I thought that was the guy that Nick Cayley was looking at.
03:30You know, every coach has to do this when they're taking a job or considering about, you know, thinking about
03:35taking a job, they're going to be, there's a handful of look at, you know, like, man, I can't wait
03:40to work with that guy.
03:41Yeah.
03:42Jordan being a Swiss army knife, kind of a tight end, him being a tight end coach and Cayley, I
03:47thought Jordan was that guy for him.
03:48And hell, he never got off the runway last year because of the injury.
03:51Yeah, well, I mean, other than, you mentioned injury, other than injuries, I think he's going to be given every
03:56opportunity under the sun.
03:58And I think he is, so I think the opportunity piece, that box is going to be checked.
04:03I can't, I can't, the injury piece of it, there's nothing I can do about it.
04:07So I didn't even consider that.
04:08But the reality of it is for me, Sean, that this offense just lacks speed.
04:14This offense just lacks change of direction.
04:18This offense lacks twitch.
04:19Twitch, you know, when you start talking about explosiveness and twitch, the fact that Tank Dale comes up so quickly
04:26in that conversation,
04:28given what we know about Tank Dale right now and what he's been through, that tells, I think that speaks
04:32volumes, right?
04:33That tells you how there's a void of that twitch explosion speed dynamic on this offense.
04:40Yeah.
04:40And so I think the guy that's going to be given every opportunity under the sun is Brevin Jordan.
04:46I think he's a guy that, if he can stay healthy, just brings to his position.
04:53I think he brings more of what I just mentioned, the explosiveness, the speed, the twitch.
04:58He brings more to his position than any other player does to their position on this offense.
05:03Wouldn't you say because Brevin Jordan and the position that he plays and the multiple different ways you can utilize
05:10that position in a Kaley offense,
05:12that in and of itself, it not just brings more to his position, but maybe brings more to the offense.
05:17You can do more offense, spread it out, condense it.
05:21You can get multiple looks.
05:23That's such a, you're hitting the nail on the head because you can line up him in a three-point
05:26stance in a fullback position in a goal line type situation.
05:29Yeah.
05:29You can put him at the end of the line of scrimmage with his hand in the dirt attached to
05:33the tackle.
05:33You can put him in a flank position outside another tight end.
05:36You can put him out in the slot.
05:37Hell, you can put him out wide and push everybody else over and run routes on a safety or run
05:41routes on a linebacker,
05:42try to get some kind of mismatch, right?
05:45So you can do a lot with Brevin Jordan, and he changes the offense in a big, big way.
05:50So I think breakout year, and I'm not talking about a breakout in Houston because I think everybody here in
05:55Houston knows who Brevin Jordan is.
05:56If you've watched a game and if you cover the Texans or you're a fan of the Texans, you know
06:01you've seen Brevin Jordan run away from folks.
06:03Yeah.
06:04Right?
06:04He's the one guy on this team.
06:06Now, we think Woody Marks can, although we didn't – I mean, I'm a big Woody Marks guy, but I'm
06:10not convinced that he's this guy.
06:12We know Nico can to a certain degree, but like you want to talk about a guy that you get
06:18the ball in his hands and he hit a crease
06:20and guys with good angles on them, he can still outrun them.
06:22Brevin Jordan's that guy.
06:23Or run through their ass.
06:25Yeah, yeah, yeah.
06:26So I'm going to go with Brevin Jordan for those reasons.
06:29If – you know, he needs to have a breakout year.
06:32Personally, he needs to have a breakout year before they just punt on the Brevin Jordan project.
06:36Yep.
06:37But not only that, I think he changes this offense.
06:39Not to mention, by the way, our offensive coordinator was a tight ends coach for 42 years, it seems like.
06:44More people talk about it.
06:45And so he should be able to get the most out of that position group more so than any.
06:50I got one.
06:51All right.
06:52I said I liked your line of thinking.
06:54You said you were going to go a little bit deeper than this and, you know, maybe a beaten path.
06:59I said I liked it for a reason because I'm doing exactly that.
07:03I took this as never mind a breakout player, but just a breakout member of this team on the offensive
07:10side of the ball.
07:11Okay.
07:11Nick Kaley.
07:13It's got to be.
07:15It's got to be Nick Kaley.
07:17And here's why.
07:18We are about to be three seasons removed from the last time an offensive coordinator for the Houston Texans was
07:28in a very, I think, similar situation to that of what Nick Kaley is in right now.
07:34You remember year two of Bobby Slowick.
07:36What did he all of a sudden have at his disposal that we got really super excited about?
07:41You insert Stephon Diggs and you're thinking, holy crap, you got Nico Collins, Tank Dell, Steph Diggs, Joe Mixon, Dalton
07:49Schultz.
07:50This offense is going to be stupid.
07:52I think Brevin was around then too, wasn't he?
07:53Brevin was around, but then, you know, it happens.
07:58And look at what you have now if you're Nick Kaley at his disposal.
08:02You're thinking, boy, Nico Collins, Tank Dell's coming back.
08:05David Montgomery, we just got him.
08:06We got a brand new offensive line that we've overhauled again.
08:10Dalton Schultz is back.
08:11I've got a couple of young receivers, Jaden Higgins, Jalen Knoll.
08:14You have so many other options right now if you're Nick Kaley.
08:19And I think his biggest problem last year, Kaley's, was that he came in thinking that he's going to have
08:24all this at his disposal.
08:26And then everybody got hurt.
08:27And the offensive line sucked.
08:28And so he had to pivot.
08:30And there was really nothing that you could, like, solidly pivot to.
08:34So it was kind of, let's throw it up against the board and see what happens.
08:39Couldn't make it work his second year.
08:41He treated that situation like he wanted to make everybody happy.
08:46I've got to make Diggs happy.
08:47You've got to make Nico happy.
08:48You've got to make Tank happy.
08:49He never seemed to get on a solid footing with any one of those guys.
08:54And then they didn't even allow him to because Tank got hurt.
08:57Diggs got hurt.
08:58There were so many injuries.
09:00Kaley's got that very same situation that he's faced with in his year, too.
09:06Never mind just making sure that, you know, this offense progresses.
09:12I think this offense is going to look vastly different than what it did last year because of everything at
09:16his disposal.
09:17And never mind the questions at quarterback.
09:19To me, there's just as many, if not more, questions about if this guy can actually coordinate an offense and
09:25call place for it.
09:26Absolutely.
09:26That's a good one.
09:27A couple of breakout candidates that have been mentioned.
09:29Brevin Jordan, obviously, player-wise.
09:33Jaden Higgins was one we talked about last week.
09:36I think Jaden Higgins absolutely changes the offense.
09:39Bajani, if he – you're talking about two guys sitting at 6'4", roughly 215, 220, maybe even a little
09:45bit bigger.
09:47Boy, those are big targets, man.
09:48And you talk about red zone threats.
09:50You're talking about man beaters.
09:51When you've got Nico Collins and a guy, if Jaden Higgins can actually break out.
09:55Last year was a good rookie year for Jaden Higgins.
09:57Some would say a great rookie year.
09:59But it seemed – as I went back and watched some of the big plays, it seemed like a lot
10:03of it just kind of came within the offense.
10:05Right?
10:06And so, was there much like Nico?
10:10After the catch, hard to tackle, breaking tackles?
10:13Not really.
10:14Was there much go up and go up and make –
10:16I see what you mean, yeah.
10:17And make 50-50 ball for a touchdown?
10:19But was there a lot of it where you were convinced?
10:21Not really.
10:22You know, was there him showing speed and just running by somebody?
10:25There was a blown coverage.
10:26I can't remember when him and Jalen Knoll did it early.
10:28Maybe Jacksonville.
10:29I can't remember who it was.
10:30But, you know, there was a couple of those.
10:32But there was not enough of just like convincing man beater, one-on-one beater to go, yeah, this dude
10:38is it.
10:39But he is one that has all the tools to make it happen this year.
10:43Jalen Knoll is the other one.
10:44I think this offense is – if you look at the history of that New England Patriots offense,
10:48there was always a slot receiver that was pretty – played a prominent role in this offense.
10:53Can Jalen Knoll be that guy?
10:54Yeah.
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