- 8 minutes ago
Despite the loss, Houston showed some encouraging signs offensively, and Lopez believes C.J. Stroud looks fully bought into what Nick Caley wants to do.
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00:00One of nine lead changes that happened in that game last night.
00:04Unfortunately, the final one was one that went Buffalo's way and made this a 36-31 game.
00:09That was the final in favor of the Bills.
00:12The Texans 0-1 in what was described as an AFC championship type game.
00:17And it played out that way in a way that I don't think we could have anticipated
00:20because the offense put up 31 American points, John Lopez.
00:24They did. Those were American points they put together.
00:28That's the part that is contended, 100%.
00:30Those were, in fact, the American points.
00:32Look, man, we just talked about the defense,
00:34and there's some things that certainly are going to be raising our eyebrows until they change.
00:39I think the offense raised their eyebrows in a very, very good way.
00:42Not perfect by any stretch.
00:45There are things that we're going to talk about.
00:46But here's my number one takeaway with this offense.
00:49Okay, I'm glad because I wanted to ask you which one was the biggest
00:51because there's one that was pretty big that I stopped down and noted,
00:55and I think I talked with Sean Bojani up about it in the press box.
00:58I'm curious to see if it's similar to what I thought of.
01:00Well, mine's not so much technical as it is about the quarterback.
01:03Okay.
01:04All offseason, since last season, we've been talking about CJ and the buy-in.
01:10CJ, and from D'Amico Ryans, the Nick Casario, to teammates, to coaches,
01:15everyone saying he's a different guy.
01:19He's understanding what we want.
01:21He's committed to it.
01:22He's doing it.
01:23We talked about the buy-in and all that, and we wanted to see some signs.
01:27We wanted to see some signs from CJ that this will work for him,
01:31that he's bought in, and that this offense can work with him doing,
01:36basically, even he said, you know, boring is good.
01:40You know, doing some things that are just chip, chip, chip away.
01:43Take your shots when you have them.
01:44The number one takeaway for me with this offense is, at least for now,
01:49until further notice, he is bought in.
01:51He is bought into this offense and the things they want to do.
01:55That, to me, is the sweeping, overarching headline, and that's big.
01:59And, I mean, he looked – if we're talking about CJ, I think we could talk about the stats.
02:0426 of 38, 274 yards in the air, two touchdowns, no interceptions, good for a rating –
02:10a passer rating of 106.7, which was the 10th best on the day.
02:15And – but qualitatively, right, the way that it felt, the way that it looked,
02:19he looked so damn calm in the pocket.
02:21And even in that final drive, which I think is a conversation point that we need to have,
02:26I think that he was – you could clearly see him utilizing the talking points
02:31and the messaging that had come from coaching.
02:32Confidence in what they were doing.
02:33Right?
02:34But even then, right, there's confidence in what he's doing.
02:36But then, I know that there's some people that I can't imagine – not imagine, I can definitely imagine,
02:40but I can't figure out how we got to the place where this was the immediate talking point
02:46where people go, oh, there goes CJ losing them the football game in the last moment
02:50where they're trying to go and win the football game on a drive where Ed Ingram gets beat immediately
02:56and CJ Stroud decides to take the sack rather than with somebody bearing down on him
03:01trying to get the ball out, which is the type of thing that it feels like he would have done
03:04in the playoffs and maybe turned the football over because he's trying to make a play that's too much.
03:08Taking the sack is one of those things that if he had thrown it and thrown an interception,
03:12everybody goes, take the sack, and he does that there.
03:14There's a false start that happens on that drive, which is not inherently CJ Stroud's fault.
03:17It's not even one of those things that you go, well, the quarterback needs to get his guys in place,
03:21right?
03:21Like a legal formation or too many guys, not enough guys on the line of scrimmage.
03:26There you could maybe go, hey, quarterback, get your guys in order.
03:29False start, it's not on CJ.
03:30And then ultimately, the last sack, I think that he probably could have felt the pressure
03:34better and step forward.
03:35But that is the type of thing that happens to any quarterback.
03:38And now in the time that it happens, it's really problematic.
03:41Ultimately, I felt like CJ Stroud was pretty damn good in this game,
03:43especially comparative to what people had kind of made him out to be.
03:48Yeah, what we last saw, I agree with you.
03:50Now look, there are people who I think very, very incorrectly are saying what you just referenced.
03:59You know, oh, there goes CJ.
04:00CJ, you know, first drive of the game and the last drive of the game, couldn't protect the ball.
04:06That's too much.
04:07You know, that's too much considering everything we saw from CJ Stroud in this game.
04:11That first drive, I was a little nervous, though.
04:13That first one?
04:15Yeah.
04:15Okay, well, I'm glad you said that.
04:17I'm glad you said that because...
04:18After that, I was fine.
04:19I think the reality is this.
04:20CJ was confident.
04:22CJ was bought in.
04:24He certainly made the plays and the decisions, you know, taking the sack if he needed to, etc.
04:28He was really good off script, which is his strength.
04:32He ran the ball a couple of times, which, you know, we wanted to see more of.
04:36So he was really, really good.
04:37But I am not, Reggie.
04:39I'm not going to sit here and say, on the one hand, that, oh, there goes CJ, because that's not
04:44true.
04:45But you do have to protect the ball in those situations.
04:48Like, just flat out.
04:49You know, I get sometimes it just happens.
04:52I'm not going to sit here and say that that's the reason.
04:55But you really need to, you know, the first drive of the game, big drive, crowds juiced, everything's happening.
05:00You drop the ball.
05:01Maybe it just happened.
05:03Last drive, the pressure.
05:05Maybe you should have felt it a little better, gotten rid of it.
05:07You drop the ball again.
05:09It's one of those things we hear players say it all the time.
05:11You got to protect the ball in that situation.
05:13You got to protect the ball in this situation.
05:15It's true.
05:16You do.
05:17And, I mean, he did on the first one.
05:18I think that what I'm saying, somebody asked, what do you mean that's what he was doing?
05:21He was stepping forward.
05:22He was stepping forward a little bit later.
05:23It felt, and again, I'm going to go back and rewatch the game in full here after the show today.
05:30And I'll give it myself a second look.
05:32But live, it felt like, hey, you can afford to step up a little bit earlier, especially if you feel,
05:36as that pressure was coming from, I mean, not his blind side,
05:39the side that, in theory, he could see from his periphery in front of him on the right side of
05:42the line.
05:43Felt like, all right, this is starting to get a little tight.
05:45They're starting to bend the corner on Trent Brown, which, hey, Trent Brown, let's be better in that moment, especially
05:50when your guy needs you the most.
05:51But step forward into the pocket just a little earlier.
05:53But, again, my point being, I can give him some level of criticism there and still acknowledge that I thought
05:58he was really good throughout the game.
06:00That's my point.
06:01You know who was also really good on the offense?
06:03Hello, David Montgomery.
06:04Big time.
06:05He is exactly what he was billed as.
06:07And I know, not around these parts, but from a 30,000-foot national view, there was people talking about,
06:13well, he's a backup and how good is he?
06:14He is exactly the dude that he once was.
06:17And he's exactly the dude that this team bargained for.
06:19Because, if nothing else, one of the things that David Montgomery clearly does is churn his legs.
06:25Buddy, he would get into the clutches of a defender and those legs kept going and he would fall forward
06:29unlike anybody has ever fallen forward before.
06:31It's an extra yard, it's an extra – there was a play in which he gets kind of bottled up
06:36and he circles back around and gets more yards because he is always going.
06:39And that shows up in the red zone, right?
06:42This is exactly – we talked about this when you first acquired him or when the news was there that
06:47the Texans were acquiring David Montgomery from Detroit was, man, he's a red zone guy.
06:51And, buddy, there was a possession where, admittedly, it took him, what, it was all four downs to get into
06:55the end zone on that possession?
06:57But, even still, if it took maybe longer than you would have imagined when they got into that red zone,
07:02he got there in a way that the Texans did not last year.
07:05You have to trust your eyes on this one because if you just look at the box score and you
07:09see 102 yards from the running backs on 29 carries, you're thinking, that's okay.
07:14But, trust your eyes because he not only churns his legs, he finds the end zone, which is why you
07:18brought him in here.
07:19I mean, their red zone, speaking of the offense, their red zone success rate was off the charts.
07:24I mean, just obviously except for the final drive, but it was off the charts.
07:29I do want to bring this up, though, and we certainly will dig in a little more later.
07:35Offensive line.
07:37Takeaways on the offensive line.
07:38To me, it was very, very mixed.
07:40Very mixed.
07:41Very mixed.
07:41I mean, it was mixed.
07:42I don't know if I throw very in there, but now I'm equivocating.
07:44Well, but the Bills really did not bring more than four players on any pass attempt very often.
07:51And they had a 47% pressure rate.
07:54They were not finishing the job.
07:57Would they have three sacks?
07:58Greg Russo was a badass.
08:01That's for sure.
08:01He was a problem all day.
08:02I think they had three sacks, but nearly half the time they did get pressure on the quarterback.
08:08I thought...
08:08It's three sacks.
08:09You're correct.
08:09Yeah, I think the offensive line was good, but certainly had some things that were a little bit unnerving.
08:18Put it that way.
08:18And maybe this is more because of the starting point of what the expectations were personally for me with the
08:24offensive line.
08:25I was impressed, or maybe I shouldn't say impressed, but I was happy to see that the idea of getting
08:29a hat on a hat was not an issue at all.
08:31They got their hats on their hats.
08:33And that is to say, they got lined up.
08:35They made sure that they picked up a defender.
08:39Early on, they weren't actually moving guys, which I was like, ugh.
08:42And then as the game wears on, you see them opening up and moving guys and getting some space, at
08:47least cracking it open enough for Woody Marks to be able to get through there.
08:50Cracking it open enough for David Montgomery to get through there.
08:53And then the other thing that I found to be somewhat encouraging was that Twists and Stunts used to kill
08:59this team last year.
09:00It did not feel like that was the same thing in this game, especially not to the same degree when
09:05the Buffalo Bills broke those out.
09:07There's definitely room to improve, but this felt like the amount of improvement that I would have expected, and maybe
09:13more than what I could have expected early on.
09:15And I was very happy to see that, because it showed up in the run game.
09:19They were able to go and move the ball down the field, so much so that I kind of felt
09:23good about the—
09:24I came in with a question when they got the ball towards the end of the first half, because we
09:29know that that's been an issue for this team sometimes.
09:31Getting the ball before the half, are they going to be aggressive?
09:34Are they going to be able to go down the field?
09:35And they made it down the field, a couple of explosives as well, one to Nico, one to—was it Keyshawn
09:40Booty over the middle, or was it Jalen Knoll?
09:41One of those guys.
09:43Booty had that one catch, yes.
09:44They moved down the field at the end of the half, and so I was really encouraged by that, which
09:48actually brings me to a question that I probably—
09:50maybe we circle back into this a little bit deeper.
09:52Do you trust this offense to win a game late?
09:54Because the end of the game was the one where they had to go and do it, and they weren't
09:57able to make it.
09:58But I come back to that end of the half where I was like, okay, I see it.
10:02I see the capability of them to move quickly down the field, especially, not just move down the field.
10:07And they just didn't make it happen in that one instance at the end of the game.
10:10Yeah, that's when you and I were chatting in the press box, and I told you, I said, man, this
10:15offense is boring.
10:17But because they chip away, chip away, run the ball, dink and dunk.
10:20But then when they have to throw the ball, the two-minute drill, then they were cooking a little bit.
10:26And that was the good point.
10:28When Stroud was off script and had to throw the ball and really started throwing the ball downfield, they were
10:33good.
10:34They were good.
10:34The mechanics were really good in there, too.
10:36It didn't feel like there was nearly as many, because there weren't.
10:40Errant passes at times.
10:42I think there was only one that came up in my mind.
10:44And maybe one in a possible, because the Xavier Hutchinson pass that probably should have been a defensive holding, in
10:49my estimation,
10:51maybe was a little bit far out there where the referees could say that it was uncatchable.
10:57But I thought CJ was really good.
10:58They ran the ball really well.
11:00And, of course, they got in the end zone with some explosives in this game.
11:03So I was very encouraged by the offense putting up this amount of points to where, last year, if this
11:08defense had had this type of game,
11:09it would have been an absolute blowout.
11:11This was a knock-down, drag-out, take-it-to-the-last-drive-of-the-game type of affair because
11:15this offense showed up.
11:16So salute to them for bringing the confidence that they had talked about in training camp
11:20and showing it to us on a field where you can't deny the improvement is there.
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