- 19 minutes ago
ITL gives its immediate reaction to the Texans dropping the season opener and focuses on what went wrong defensively against Buffalo.
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00:00I don't think anybody in the world, that's probably a little strong,
00:04but I don't think that anybody reasonable would have called this as the score
00:08that happens in this game.
00:10The Buffalo Bills do get their victory.
00:13Josh Allen gets to exercise his House of Horrors Reliant Stadium demons in this game.
00:18But more importantly, obviously for the Houston Texans,
00:22this game was wildly different, as I mentioned, than you would have expected
00:26in at least one way in particular that we're going to have to talk about.
00:30We will do that.
00:31But yeah, let us know how you're feeling about this game.
00:33What caught you off guard the most?
00:35Because I think a majority of the answers to that question, J-Lo,
00:37would be the defense that we were coming up with nicknames for
00:41and looking at as maybe they need to be alongside the Legion of Boom
00:45and the 2000s Ravens and the 85 Bears and so on and so forth.
00:49That team allowed 36 American points to be scored on their home field
00:53for the first time since, what, 2023?
00:56December 2023.
00:58Unbelievable.
00:59And you said, you know, there might be some people who would have expected this
01:03or however you put it.
01:04I'm just trying to leave open the possibility.
01:05I'm trying to leave open the possibility that someone out there
01:07has a crystal ball that is unaccounted for.
01:09Like, wait, I think this is going to be in the 60s.
01:12You know, that type thing.
01:13I really don't think so.
01:16Pretty much a shocking result in terms of not necessarily the outcome.
01:21It was a toss-up game, but how it played out, this was, well,
01:27so many things to talk about, and we will.
01:29We've got four hours with you fine people.
01:31But the thing that really stood out to me is this was going to be
01:36an all-time great defense.
01:37I mean, this is something that I felt very comfortable.
01:39Like, they could be in that mix.
01:41It didn't look like an all-time great defense.
01:43And then as we dig into this defensive performance, you know,
01:46the question keeps coming back to me, was it just Josh Allen
01:51and this Bills offense, you know, an MVP, a guy that can do so many things,
01:57should we just write it off to, hey, that's what happens sometimes
02:00with this guy?
02:01And I go back and forth because part of me says, no, we shouldn't,
02:04because there were parts of this defensive performance
02:06that were alarming, frankly.
02:08Agreed.
02:08Strong agree within that.
02:10But, yeah, that's a good question.
02:12How do we balance this?
02:14Because this was, and I don't want to be that guy, John Lopez.
02:18Let me start here.
02:19But when we're talking about a defense of this magnitude,
02:22you want to be real careful with the way that you use words.
02:25And I think that that was one of the things I was trying to do last week.
02:27And, again, I'm going to be clear.
02:28I didn't see this coming by any means.
02:30So let me not try and get out here and say something that is not true.
02:33But some of the things that did happen on that field were things
02:36that I was curious about possibly happening, right?
02:38We had talked about some of these things within it.
02:41And one of the main things to talk about, hey, DJ Moore is here.
02:43Donald Kincaid is playing in this game.
02:44Those guys can beat man coverage,
02:46which is something the Texans really want to throw out there.
02:49They go, hey, our man versus your man.
02:51The Texans' defense trusts our man more.
02:54And they got beat a few times there.
02:56And more than a few times, if we're going to be honest.
02:58That was part of this.
02:59But how much of that was just, that is a strength over there.
03:02That is a world-class thrower of the football.
03:07There's some world-class pass catchers.
03:08That's a world-class schematic play caller.
03:12And how much of that do you then place on the defense for not looking as stout?
03:16I did want to go to Will Anderson Jr.
03:17Will was asked.
03:19We talked to him in the locker room after the game.
03:22And I appreciated him giving us a little bit of insight here.
03:25Because when you're wondering what happened in that game,
03:29there's a lot of questions you can ask.
03:30But one of the simple ones that you can ask,
03:31especially someone like Will Anderson Jr.,
03:33what did the Bills do in order to try and slow y'all down?
03:36I thought that he gave a really good answer.
03:37We've seen a lot of chips, a lot of move-in-the-pockets,
03:39a lot of play-action pass.
03:40I think that's going to be the biggest thing.
03:42We're going to see a lot of play-action pass.
03:43And we're going to see different things that's how to slow us down.
03:45We have a lot of great guys on the D-line.
03:47So it's going to be kind of hard for teams to try to figure out what to do.
03:51And I think they did a good job executing their game plan today.
03:54Just chips, move-in-the-pocket, play-action pass, pulling guards,
03:58that look like a belly cut or whatever, belly power or anything like that.
04:01So it's just those little things that we've got to key in and be better at.
04:05So here's the thing.
04:06I'm glad we played that because I desperately want to say they'll be fine.
04:13They'll be better than fine.
04:14They'll be back to what we expected and back to what we've seen
04:19for the better part of three years, to be honest.
04:21I really want to say that if I had to pick one or the other,
04:25my answer would be yes.
04:26They will be more that than what we saw yesterday.
04:30But there are little things, and he just talked about it.
04:34That's not something that's going to be a one-off.
04:36They're going to see that consistently.
04:39The other thing they're going to see, and this is me channeling Reggie here, Figgy.
04:44I kind of dug in on some of these analytics and numbers and takeaways from this game.
04:50Wait, hold on.
04:51Yeah.
04:51You taking after me?
04:52No.
04:53I said I channeled you.
04:54Oh, Figgy, he can't walk it back.
04:55I channeled you.
04:56He can't walk it back.
04:57Jocky Yost now.
04:57Hey, Andy, you're mad at it.
04:59Go ahead and come over to this.
05:01Go ahead and open up the statistics then.
05:03I literally said channel.
05:03Go ahead with your bad self.
05:04Filling your whole style.
05:05I literally said channel, not a copy.
05:0813 personnel.
05:1013 personnel.
05:11The two tight ends, and being able to get those tight ends in in-breaking routes,
05:17which we always talk about the Texans with in-breaking routes.
05:20They were had with those, and deep shots to, you know, Kincaid, and boy, that guy.
05:27Very good at football.
05:29Don Kincaid, very good at football if you didn't know before.
05:31Yeah.
05:31God almighty.
05:32And then, of course, Moore, and they took 10 shot plays against the Texans yesterday.
05:39That is something they're going to see a lot if they can get the protection, and you can get
05:43that protection with 13 personnel, and chipping, as he just talked about.
05:48This is not something that's going to be like, well, the Bills did it, but nobody else is.
05:51No, no, no.
05:52Everyone's going to do this.
05:53Yeah, that's the thing that got me.
05:55Because, again, the larger question I think we're talking about at this point is, how much
05:58of this result of the defense, or how much of the play of the defense feels unique to
06:04this game, and this team, and maybe the start of the season, and how much of it feels
06:08like it is problematic, and something that is going to maybe take a little bit more to
06:11sort out, in the same way that you parsed this out, if it has to be a binary, if it
06:16has
06:16to be one way or the other, I lean more towards they will get some things figured out.
06:21This is where the defense gets the benefit of the doubt of, I have seen them in many
06:27different circumstances, in all sorts of different levels of terrain, whether it's
06:31good teams, bad teams, passing teams, running teams, be able to play really good defense
06:35with largely this same core of guys.
06:38I believe that they have the capability, but there was some stuff in there.
06:41I'm not trying to minimize this.
06:42There was some stuff in there that was troubling, and some of that was that with a concerted
06:46effort of chipping, with a concerted effort of play action, which I want to come back
06:51to, but with those, the pass rush was neutralized, or at least slowed down a good amount.
06:58And D'Amico Ryan says this, and he's very right about this, this defense isn't just one
07:02part or the other.
07:03It is one part supports the other, whether it's the pass rush supporting the secondary, secondary
07:07supporting the pass rush, and that tandem was decoupled pretty nicely when your pass
07:12rush can't get home because they're chipping and they're making sure to get the ball out
07:16quickly.
07:16And then when they are willing to take a shot down deep, the secondary isn't sticking with
07:21those guys because they have more better man-beater type players.
07:25That is concerning.
07:27That is concerning.
07:28And one of the most concerning things is that I discipline that this defense has been really
07:32good at, especially at the second level.
07:34Aziz Alshire, Henry Toto, Reed Blankenship, who needs a subcategory of his own to be talked
07:40about.
07:40They were biting heavy on those play actions.
07:44And I think some of the passing that you saw deep was that you did not have that second
07:48level kind of pressing a little bit deeper and forcing Josh Allen to make exquisite throws.
07:53Sometimes there was just so much space to throw into, and I think that played into some
07:55of the in-breakers you were talking about.
07:56That's exactly what I was talking about.
07:58And then there's, you mentioned Blankenship, and that's the other point that I just can't
08:04shake just yet.
08:05Things have to get better.
08:06And that is actual personnel.
08:09Reed Blankenship did not play a very good game at all.
08:12And not just the one that he took a gamble on.
08:14He was picked on.
08:15Kincaid, you know, pretty much had lunch and dinner, you know, against him.
08:21Some others as well.
08:22And then, this is the biggest, if I had to pick like one big surprise, it's Kamari Lasseter.
08:30It wasn't just, oh, he missed an interception and then got burned.
08:33He was really struggling all day long.
08:35He made one really good play early on.
08:38Which one?
08:39When he comes up on the edge and tackles?
08:40The fourth down.
08:41Yeah.
08:42The fourth down.
08:42That was just a big time Kamari Lasseter play.
08:44But from that moment until the final moment, and he said it, you know, he fell on the sword.
08:49Shout out to him and the responsibility he took.
08:52He was not playing well.
08:54That one on Kamari Lasseter, I feel we've seen enough that I think he can get that fixed
08:59and maybe that'll help.
09:00But there is a responsibility on the middle of the defense.
09:03And those are the two things that really sort of stood out to me.
09:06The other big surprise to me was the interior defensive tackles.
09:11They had a hard time.
09:12The middle of the field, just like in baseball.
09:14The interior defensive tackles, you know, I thought that they were handled pretty well
09:19by a good offensive line.
09:21The linebackers, Alshire, played fine.
09:24Henry Toa Toa's hurt, though.
09:25And we have to see, and we'll hear from D'Amico Ryans at 11-20.
09:31That would be a big, big hit if Toa Toa's out for any extended time.
09:35And then Blankenship.
09:36Blankenship, the middle of the defense right now, those are personnel things that I think
09:41are kind of hard to shake for me right now.
09:43Yeah, man, you rattled off a lot there that's there to be talked about.
09:47I do want to answer this text while I'm trying to figure out exactly what direction I want
09:51to go from the 7-1-3.
09:52Somebody said, explain what Will was talking about when he referred to chipping.
09:55Literally, they would keep an extra, whether it was the running back coming up.
09:58Let's start here, right?
10:00You have your pass rushers coming.
10:01You have offensive linemen that maybe are accounting for them.
10:04Well, especially on the edges, right?
10:06With Will, Daniil, those guys are great at turning the corner.
10:08And I imagine that an offense goes, we're not leaving that guy by himself.
10:12So it's not a full double team.
10:14But hey, before this tight end gets out in his route, he's going to go give him a little
10:17nudge and make sure that, hey, that left tackle has a good hold on Daniil Hunter.
10:22Or on the left side, hey, that right, sorry, the other way.
10:25But yeah, that right tackle, that running back will go and give him a little shoulder, a little
10:30bump to slow him down.
10:31Or just give him another face that he has to run through before he tries to attack that
10:35tackle and then get to Josh Allen.
10:36And by the time he goes through three levels, two, three levels of blockers, you know, the
10:41ball will be out in theory.
10:42And that's what they're talking about.
10:43Chipping in the, going back after hearing Will say that, like an opportunity to kind of look
10:48at more of them.
10:48They sure did.
10:49They did a lot more than I probably realized live.
10:51And that was part of slowing them down.
10:54But when you talk about, man, re-blankenship, Will talked about this.
10:59I think Kamari talked about this.
11:02It seemed like there was enough, or maybe not just Kamari, but there was enough dudes
11:06on the defense that talked in the locker room that were talking about, hey, we need to make
11:10sure that, you know, our call, we're getting our calls in communication.
11:12Everybody is doing the same thing.
11:13On the same page, we heard.
11:15And I have a hard time.
11:17I don't want to point the finger, but I have a hard time as my brain tries to do the
11:21puzzle
11:21of who could they be talking about?
11:23And I'm sure that it's probably more everybody.
11:25There was enough times where it felt like re-blankenship was slightly out of position
11:29or just wholly out of position.
11:30One of those, I mean, one of them was like an out route that happens where Sting is supposed
11:34to be kind of high and he ends up a little, or he's supposed to be outside kind of covering
11:39the out route that ends up going.
11:40But he ends up a little high because in my estimation, looking at it, I can't tell you definitively,
11:44it looked like he was just trying to make sure to cover for re-blankenship to make sure
11:48that, hey, are you in the right spot?
11:49Okay.
11:49And now I need to go my responsibility, but that leaves more space.
11:52There was one play and I can't remember exactly who made the play, but the tight end runs
11:57free because I think that there was a motion and re-blankenship probably needs to acknowledge
12:02I have the second guy in and with this motion, now that changes, but he follows the guy who's
12:06on the outside.
12:07Sting is there as well.
12:08You double cover him in man coverage and then the guy who's supposed to be covering is free.
12:12I wonder how much of that is just the nature of coming on and the lack of familiarity with
12:17the system to some degree and how much of that is going to be the things that show up
12:22in the stats of, hey, re-blankenship isn't the greatest coverage safety.
12:25How much of that will show up?
12:26I hope and really, I truly believe this is not C.J.
12:29Gardner-Johnson part two, but it kind of showed up a little bit like that in week one and that's
12:34not comforting to think about.
12:35No, I agree.
12:36I think that's a big question.
12:38And by the way, C.J.
12:39Gardner-Johnson, you knew he was going to chatter a little bit.
12:41We might get to that later afterward, but no, Blankenship, to me, just had a really
12:47bad game.
12:47A lot of Kamari struggles, as you just pointed out, might have, not to let him completely
12:52off the hook, but might have been a product of that.
12:55And then the other thing is, you know, just the chipping, you know, the 13 personnel, 37%
13:02of their snaps, they had three tight ends.
13:04And they could use those tight ends to go out and also still be able to block on the edges,
13:09have a fullback block on the edges.
13:11This is the formula.
13:12The template has been set for facing this Texans defense.
13:16A lot of teams are not going to be able to pull it off because their Texans are just that
13:20good.
13:20But good teams, and oh, by the way, you're playing the Cincinnati Bengals.
13:23Well, that's the thing is your next opponent is a team that in theory can do those same
13:27things.
13:28And what we're talking about with this team generally, all of the context of talking about
13:32this team is going to come not just from the lens of winning games in the regular season
13:36is what does this mean for their opportunity to win the playoffs, even during, you know,
13:39in the locker room.
13:40And I don't think that they should have changed their mindset by any means.
13:42But in the locker room, they're still talking about this from the lens of we need to get
13:45this better.
13:46I think Aziz at one point says, you know, hopefully we see that team again in the playoffs.
13:51And for a moment, I stopped and I reflected and I go, is it odd for him to just kind
13:55of
13:56still talk about this in a way that almost assumes that they will be there?
13:59Because I mean, every year is different and everything.
14:01And I don't think it's odd.
14:02Like that is the expectation of this team and that still feels reasonable.
14:06But yeah, man, these are the things that those types of teams that will be in the playoffs
14:10will be able to take advantage of because they will have DJ Moores.
14:13They will have, maybe not specifically Dalton Kincaid, but they will have those types of
14:17guys that can win one-on-one against your guys.
14:19And then they can afford to keep in that extra tight end, the chip, before he gets out on
14:23the flat.
14:24So the running back chip before he gets out there.
14:25And they'll be able, at least in theory or on paper, to try and do the things that were
14:30clearly successful.
14:31They need to not just get on the same page.
14:33They need to make sure that they have answers.
14:35And I think that a question that pops up is this defense has been one that relies on the
14:40relative simplicity of their scheme, but the outsized talent of their players.
14:45And there is a question that comes up of, does there need to be some evolution from this
14:49defense?
14:49I don't want to be too overreactionary in week one, but I think that we do have to keep
14:53that in the back of our mind of, is it possible that there needs to be a step forward in
14:57the
14:57scheme of this defense?
14:59I think they're going to be thinking about the very same thing you just mentioned.
15:02You know, when you see, or I should say, when you hear D'Amico Ryan's talking about like
15:08how it all goes together, it's not just the ends.
15:10It's the ends and the interior.
15:12It's the front and the linebackers.
15:14And the linebackers and the safeties and the corners, it all meshes together.
15:17And when one or two or more of those things fall apart, all of a sudden the rush ends don't
15:25have as big of an impact because there's openings elsewhere.
15:28By the way, you know, there were some coverage, there were some coverage issues beyond, far
15:32beyond Kamari Lassiter in this.
15:36We mentioned Blankenship.
15:37I thought, you know, the guy that we've been tabbing as pro bowl, all pro Jalen Petrie
15:41got in trouble a couple of times in coverage.
15:44Yeah.
15:44You mentioned him.
15:45You mentioned Derek Stingley.
15:46Stingley as well.
15:47Stingley got got a few times.
15:49And it's a quarterback position where you are going to get got.
15:52The best guys are going to get got.
15:53It happened in a way that felt a little uncomfortable.
15:56Some of those are like Dalton Kincaid going up over him when, you know, the Bills offense
16:01is in the shadow of their own end zone after a fantastic punt by Kai Kroger that gets
16:05pinned to the fore.
16:06Or, and then you get, you know, Josh Allen doing incredible big arm Josh Allen things
16:10throwing it up and Dalton Kincaid being bigger and going up.
16:12It's not that play that I'm thinking about because that's a 50-50 ball.
16:15Those things happen and great players and great teams make great plays.
16:18But there were other instances where you look at Stingley and you go, ah, it feels like
16:21you're slightly out of phase.
16:22You're not in that place.
16:23And how much of that is the reflection of trying to keep up?
16:25And that's why it was kind of tough for Kamari Lassiter who admittedly had an opportunity
16:30to effectively end this game with a, you know, what should have been an interception in the
16:35end zone that he dropped?
16:36He was distraught.
16:37When I walked into, and not just me, when the entirety of the media walked into the
16:41locker room, he was distraught.
16:44Admittedly, to his credit, sitting at his locker ready to answer the music, but he was
16:47distraught.
16:48He took it on himself as if he was the reason why they lost this game.
16:51This was Will Anderson Jr. talking about what he said to Kamari Lassiter after the game.
16:54Man, I told him he's still the best in the league, man.
16:56He's still a hell of a player.
16:57And that's what the NFL is.
16:58Every week is going to be a different week, man.
17:00And how he responds, I know he's going to respond the right way.
17:02But I said, man, hold your head up high.
17:04I said, it's not just on you.
17:05That's on the whole defense, man.
17:06Like I said, we got to do a better job of communicating.
17:08And we got to do a better job of getting off the field and not to let the dumb penalties
17:11either take them down the field or they get explosive and take them down the field.
17:14Like, we got to get off the field as a defense.
17:15So it wasn't on him.
17:16And they're all taking it on themselves.
17:18And one thing I will say is, Aziz was sitting right next to him during that, and he spent
17:22a little time after pouring into him.
17:24Clearly, Will's pouring into him.
17:25I saw later on in the locker room that Kamari is walking with Kalen Bullock, and there's
17:29a smile that crept back onto his face.
17:31So they're going to stick together as a team, as they should.
17:34They've been through rough reports, points.
17:35But I found that to be interesting because it goes wider all the way across his defense,
17:40and it's not just him.
17:41So I was kind of happy to see that.
17:42Here's how I would put it.
17:44He had a really bad game.
17:46Reed Blankenship had a really bad game.
17:48But they had two receivers with more than 100 yards passing.
17:51Correct.
17:51That's not on two guys.
17:52No, it's not.
17:54That's Petrie.
17:55That's Stingley.
17:55That's the secondary.
17:56That's the pass rush.
17:57And so they are right.
17:58But those are the two that stood out.
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