00:00Let's keep this thing going, though, because in this game,
00:03the offense was bad or wasn't good enough
00:06because I know that they passed for a whole bunch of yards,
00:07but ultimately so much of that comes when the Bengals are allowing you
00:10to just take stuff underneath.
00:12But the run game was atrocious very clearly.
00:14We've talked about it a lot.
00:15You have 14 carries, 18 yards, just not nearly enough for what you want.
00:20Do you know how many of those carries, John Lopez, rush yards?
00:25When I said carries, I meant of your two running backs
00:27because obviously you had the big end around by Jay Leno
00:31and you had a good amount of yards from C.J. Stroud.
00:33So I want to make sure that that's clear,
00:34that this is more just running backs where you're doing
00:36the more traditional running plays.
00:38Do you know how many of those carries between Woody Marks
00:40and David Montgomery happened in the second half?
00:43Oh, the actual number of carries?
00:45Yes.
00:46I don't, but I'm going to guess.
00:48Please.
00:50Four.
00:50Close.
00:51Three.
00:52Three.
00:53They abandoned the run game in the second half of this game.
00:57And it wasn't a lot.
00:58No, you had to have known that it wasn't a lot.
01:00Now, some of these were C.J. Stroud scrambles,
01:02but again, these are dropbacks where C.J. Stroud is then having to go
01:04make something and go pick up yards with his legs.
01:07Not exactly the intention of what you're doing here.
01:10And the question came up for me as I was thinking about this,
01:13is being unsuccessful, and boy were they unsuccessful,
01:15like one yard a carry when it comes to those running backs
01:18actually carrying the football.
01:19Is being unsuccessful, rather, enough of a reason for this football team
01:23to abandon the run.
01:257-1-3, 5-7-2, 4-6-10.
01:27The way you asked the question, I'm guessing I know your answer,
01:31and that would be a no.
01:32Am I correct on that?
01:33Yeah, and I felt like it's a no, which is funny because you know me.
01:37I'm Mr. I care about efficiency, especially when you get into these numbers.
01:40But I don't think that it's enough of an excuse for this team.
01:43You came into the season with the run game being what you were going to hang
01:46your hat on, or at least you purported for that to be the case.
01:49Not only that, the way that you built this offensive line,
01:53it was supposed to be for running the football.
01:55Honestly, I know that this is not acceptable by any means,
01:59but the idea that they weren't as good at pass protection
02:01as they probably needed to be was not a surprise.
02:03We talked about this, right?
02:05You have a whole bunch of big bodies, and you go, I don't know.
02:07If you're adding guys, it was clear that they were adding guys for run,
02:11for run blocking first and foremost, and maybe putting the idea
02:15of how good they are at pass blocking on the back burner.
02:18That was clearly the focus that they had in building this.
02:21So then when you end up throwing the ball 55 times,
02:23yeah, not nearly the amount of pressure is not acceptable,
02:26but getting pressure kind of makes sense because that was not
02:29where your mindset was in building this roster.
02:31And I think also one of the things I saw in watching this tape
02:34is after a point in time, the Bengals' defense started doing the thing
02:37that I saw from a lot of defenses last year where they go,
02:40yeah, man, we've got our down linemen.
02:43You guys are spreading this out.
02:44And we're just kind of sitting in this intermediate space
02:47because we know you're not going to be able to hold up long enough
02:49to throw deep on us, so much so that if you run the football,
02:52the box is light.
02:52However, the safety is crashing down,
02:54so then it ends up not being as light as you imagine
02:56because here comes these safeties playing as that second-level defender
02:59as opposed to the third-level defender that they're supposed to be
03:01if they have the threat of passing the football for real.
03:04And you end up in that place.
03:05And it's in part because that threat of running the football isn't there.
03:10And I know that you weren't doing it effectively,
03:12but you have to do it, man.
03:13Like this is the old wire Slim Charles.
03:16If it's a lie, then we fight on that lie.
03:18But we have to fight.
03:18Like it can't be that you completely abandon the run in a game like this
03:23or at least even the threat of the run.
03:24I think it's a really interesting question
03:26with all kinds of different ways you can look at it.
03:29And the reason I wanted to get your thought first is because I do agree with you.
03:33If your stated goal is, we are going to run the damn ball.
03:36I mean, that is from months ago.
03:39I mean, before the draft, everything was about D'Amico Ryans, Nick Cayley.
03:44We're going to be a running team.
03:45We're going to run the ball.
03:46Do you know which quarterback in the NFL?
03:48And obviously by me asking this question, I think you know the answer.
03:51Which quarterback in the NFL has thrown the ball
03:53more than every other quarterback in the NFL?
03:55Is it now C.J. Stroud because he threw 55 in the thing?
03:58He's thrown the ball 93 times in two games.
04:01Is that good?
04:02And that is three more than the second most.
04:04And I forget who the second most is.
04:06But C.J. Stroud has thrown the ball more than any quarterback in the league
04:10through two weeks.
04:11That is one of two things.
04:14You're abandoning the run, not just in this game.
04:16They ran the ball 29 times, which is a decent number.
04:19But they did throw the ball an awful lot against the Bills,
04:21mostly because of the flow of the game.
04:22Yeah.
04:23And you're trailing and playing catch-up and all that.
04:26But 29 times is a good number.
04:29You know, I think they would like to be in the 30s, to be honest.
04:32If that's their stated goal, we're going to run the damn ball, 35 or so.
04:36And then you run the ball, you know, just so few times in this game.
04:40I'm wondering if this is something that maybe D'Amico Ryans
04:45is going to start taking control of on the headset.
04:48And maybe he should.
04:51I mean, maybe it'll ultimately not work, but maybe he should,
04:54because it seems as if Nick Caley is getting caught up in the moment
04:58and making some adjustments very, very quickly.
05:00The moment is very understandable against the Bills.
05:03You've got to throw the ball.
05:03We're playing catch-up.
05:05The moment yesterday, late yesterday, Sunday, is we can't run the ball.
05:09Screw it.
05:09I'm just going to throw it like crazy.
05:12Is D'Amico Ryans going to all of a sudden take more control,
05:15which he's done in the past.
05:17He did that with Bobby Slowick very famously.
05:19There was some, you know, some discussion about that.
05:22Like, no, run it.
05:23Run it.
05:23Run it again.
05:24Run it again.
05:25You know, is that going to be something that we start to see more?
05:27How much of taking control of this?
05:31Of run pass, you know, or whatever.
05:34Not necessarily run this play, you know,
05:36but I think he's going to take control of that.
05:38So, you're thinking, all right, it's first down, and he goes,
05:41hey, Nick, throw the football here.
05:43Hey, Nick, run the football here.
05:44Yes.
05:45I think, well, I'm asking.
05:46Are we going to start to see that more often?
05:48Boy, that's an amount of training wheels or bumpers
05:50where that dude doesn't need to be your offensive coordinator.
05:51He's done it before.
05:52Although it was with an offensive coordinator that's no longer here.
05:55But, yeah.
05:57You know, because this has got to just be,
05:58I'm glad you brought this up.
06:00Because no matter the circumstance,
06:02whether you're playing catch-up or just abandon the run
06:05because you're getting stuffed, you know,
06:07didn't zero of their carries have a success rate of zero?
06:12You end up saying an unfortunate word there, don't you?
06:14I did that a little early myself.
06:16Actually, you know what?
06:16Let me see if I can go with that.
06:18I think it was zero of their run.
06:20I could easily see where D'Amico's going to start.
06:23That's going to be one of the things they address this week.
06:25Like, you know, I'm not going to do it every play,
06:29but in certain situations he's going to say, hey, run it.
06:31Yeah, and the reason why this was so frustrating to me,
06:34because, again, they were not effective, like, ultimately getting yards.
06:38But if you look at it qualitatively,
06:40if you actually go back and look at the tape of a lot of the rushes
06:43that they had in the first half,
06:44there is an argument to be made when D'Amico Ryan says
06:47that things are fixable,
06:47that they are close to getting some good runs and some good pops
06:51that, hey, just one guy needs to get the details together.
06:53And that feels like the type of thing that we get over on the sideline
06:56and Cole Popovich or whoever is on the sideline goes,
07:00hey, look, instead of doing this, let's do that.
07:03Or, you know, hey, Ariante Ayrsbury working up to the same linebacker
07:07that Evan Brown is working up to
07:08and leaving the edge rusher to come in and blow up a play
07:10where you're actually getting push from the right side of Wyatt Teller
07:15and Trent Brown in a duo, right?
07:17You're getting push in the desired gap,
07:19but the backside edge comes up and stops it.
07:22That is not quite the same thing as maybe some of the other plays
07:24where you go, all right, you're just not getting any push anywhere.
07:27There's not a gap and it's going to block.
07:28And I think that you should be able to,
07:30or someone, whether it's probably up in the box,
07:32should be able to see that and go,
07:33hey, we're close to getting this or popping this
07:36and having this be useful and effective.
07:38And instead of being able to fix it in the moment,
07:41especially for what is supposed to be the thrust of your offense,
07:43they went away from it.
07:44They abandoned it.
07:45And that feels like a waving of a white flag that you cannot do.
07:48It's because you're going to have moments in the season
07:51where things aren't effective
07:52and I don't think you can afford to just come away.
07:53You've got to still keep doing it.
07:55It's got to be just be eating D'Amico alive from the inside.
07:59I mean, to have a quarterback throwing the ball 93 times in two games,
08:02to be able to just abandon the run completely
08:06when your entire team is built off of that,
08:09it's got to be killing him.
08:10It's got to be killing him to do that.
08:12Yeah, no, I don't think that you can do that.
08:14I would have never, John, expected myself to be in that place
08:18where I'm looking at this and talking about,
08:22hey, man, if you're not being effective, just keep doing it.
08:25And I know that it shouldn't just be just keep doing it.
08:29But it felt like the way that they went was too drastic
08:32and you ultimately didn't see the results that you wanted to.
08:35When you talk about success rate on running the football for the Texans
08:37in week two, would you like to guess the percentage?
08:39It was not zero.
08:40It was non-zero.
08:41It was non-zero.
08:48Just closer, 6.7% success rate running the football.
08:53And they didn't even run the football that much.
08:55So that means they might have been successful on one.
08:57Yeah, they do need to do it and obviously do it better.
08:59But yeah, I don't think that that's excusable,
09:02even still, as they were ineffective running the football.
09:05And ultimately, it leads to a loss, 20-6.
09:07And somebody texted, we don't have enough time on the play clock
09:09for the head coach and the coordinator to argue.
09:13Oh, it wouldn't be an argument.
09:16Trust me on that.
09:17It wouldn't be an argument.
09:17It is fair to say, Nick Haley, at times where it slows down
09:21getting that play call in, another step does scare me a little bit.
09:24All right, now you're telling me what the play is,
09:26and then I need to go in and look at, okay, what do I have on my menu?
09:29And let me get it in and CJ to call it and get to the line
09:31and do your checks.
09:32And oh, wait, where there's three seconds and the defense is on top.
09:35Yeah.
09:35Yeesh.
