Stock Up, Stock Down After Texans Beat Giants
Seth Payne and Sean Pendergast discuss whose stock is up and whose stock is down after the Texans' 28-10 preseason win over the New York Giants.
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00:00Sports Radio 610 presents Payne and Pendergast.
00:04All right, let's dig into the Texans from this weekend. What do we like?
00:08What needs improvement? There's a little of both, for sure, coming out of the 28-10 win
00:14over the New York Giants. I'm going to start with CJ Stroud. He's the most important player
00:18on this team. Seth, I thought, obviously, the red zone things bogged down. I didn't really
00:24like the play calls down in the red zone. I'm not a big fan of fades to the back corner of the end
00:28zone. Yeah, I know. And some of it, you know, I know D'Amico says you don't treat this any
00:33differently than a regular season game. I don't know if, if some of this is just trying things
00:39out, you know, but part of the problem is that when you get down in the red zone in
00:43your most successful run, your only successful run play is a Stefan Diggs end around.
00:48Then you got issues in the red zone. You wasted two downs in the red zone on run plays. It didn't
00:54go anywhere. Sure. So that's where right now I just, I like Joe Mixon's not going to fix
00:59everything. The run blocking is not great. It's just, there's too many, just, there's at least
01:03one bad block on every run played it with the starters. The run game, the run game was great,
01:09except for the guys that were, are going to be starting in the regular season. Yeah. It was
01:14great as the game went along. Second quarter on it was outstanding. And, and, and the thing that
01:19the counterpoint somebody might make to what you're saying specifically about Saturday as well,
01:23Laramie Tunsil wasn't out there. Laramie Tunsil is not a road grader in the run game. He's a
01:27grudging run block. He's a grudging run blocker. Who's an elite pass blocker. Right. You know?
01:32Um, so, but overall, if I'm just watching CJ's throat, forget about the end result down in the
01:38red zone. Like CJ was seven of 10 for 88 yards. And those like CJ, he's, he's ready. Like he's,
01:46he's ready for week one. I thought the two most impressive throws actually to me were
01:52the one that didn't count to tank Dell because of the, um, the holding penalty on Brevin Jordan.
01:58And then the throw from the end zone where they were backed up on their own one yard line to,
02:03uh, to Dalton Schultz to get them out of trouble. Stroud calls for the ball in his end zone,
02:08looking, scanning the field, throwing over the middle and caught by Schultz at the 20 dives
02:12forward 25 down at the 28 yard line. Dalton Schultz wide open in the middle of the field,
02:19Pinnock with the stock. Yeah. So that, I mean, he was wide open. It was a pitch and catch to
02:24Dalton Schultz, but that was one of those things, Seth, because that was right after Stingley's
02:27interception. And I know it's a preseason game, but if it were a real game and everybody's super
02:32invested in how are we going to win this thing and the game script and everything, the giants
02:36would be rationalizing that interception. Like, all right, well, I guess it functions like a punt.
02:40We do have them pinned down on the one yard line. And then CJ just drops back in empty and like,
02:45Dalton Schultz, 26 yards. Yeah. Yeah. That the, the part of what they're going to be able to do
02:52in the passing game. When you have reliable guys like Dalton Schultz, when you have Joe
02:58mixing out of the backfield, but then you also have those three wide receivers that could get,
03:02that could be a lot of fun. That could be a lot of fun. I just, they've got to be able to
03:09run the ball and take advantage of those opportunities. You know, this'll be a,
03:12this'll be a team where the pass sets up the run. You don't have to run the ball. I mean,
03:16they, they got to get their run attempts to set up the play action. I mean, the throat of the,
03:20the boot to Dalton Schultz that's set up by zone run play action. So they've got to,
03:26they've got to establish it. That's that at some point. So you're just not burning
03:30those downs. So then it becomes, so then it becomes, okay, we're going to play action on
03:34second and six instead of second and 10. It's a whole lot easier. That's a more successful
03:39and lethal play. Yes. When, when you're in that field position, they're just,
03:43they're putting CJ into too many got to have it situations, no matter how good you are.
03:47Yeah. And he's fortunately he's really good at them, but you can't be putting him in that
03:50situation. All right. More stock up. Great game for John Metchie first and goal Keenum steps out
03:56to the right throws, right side, goal line caught touchdown. John Metchie. Yes. Three catches on
04:04the scoring drive for the Texans to retake the lead game. Three catches on the drive,
04:08including the touchdown. Here was D'Amico Ryan's on John Metchie.
04:11For Metchie. I think he did a really, really nice job today. Just catching the football,
04:15making some, making some big time plays for us. And it was, it's, it's exciting to see
04:20Metchie make those plays. I think nobody's more fired up than all of his teammates. You see the
04:24other receivers and to see their genuine excitement for him when he makes those plays and just the
04:30entire team as a whole, you know, is pulling for him to do well. He did a really nice job today.
04:35And that's why I think you play these preseason games. That's why you have training camp practices
04:41is to see guys continue to grow, get better and shine when the opportunity comes. And Metchie
04:46had a really nice day today. Yeah. The just him being able to catch the ball though. That's the
04:52most obvious thing that he's had a lot of drops and he was sure handed in that game. They had one,
04:58one play where he kind of double tapped it a little bit, but I, some of that I think can also
05:04come from also being just feeling more comfortable and integrated into the offense. The first catch
05:10he made from case was a little bit behind him, you know, and he caught it in stride and kept
05:14going. The touchdown was obviously just a great catch. Good, great throw. Great catch. So I think
05:21with Metchie, I think they've seen the upside. We saw that athletically he's moving a little bit
05:25differently. And the big question has always been, all right, well, how do we judge this guy who just
05:30had a two year battle with cancer and was never physically quite right? There's a whole lot. It's
05:35not like you just recover and then there you go and you're off to the races. So I think they,
05:41they probably were just waiting for a moment like that on Saturday. And it's, it's a, it's a tough,
05:47some tough decisions they have to make in the wide receiver room. Unless Metchie gets traded,
05:51he's making this team. And if you think I'm just being Johnny come lately, because he had six
05:54catches. I did a 53 man roster on the Houston press on Thursday of last week before the giants
06:00game. And I had met you making the team. And I think it's simple. I think of the guys that are
06:04at the back end of this wide receiver depth chart, he's the least likely one to clear waivers to
06:10bring back on the practice squad. Like, I think there's a better chance Xavier Hutchinson, even
06:14though he's at a better camp than John Metchie, there's a better chance he clears waivers or that
06:19clears waivers or like if woods got cut, he'd be a free agent. Cause he's a, he's a veteran,
06:25you know, you can use waivers for the younger guys, but, but I, but I think Metchie would get
06:29picked up pretty quickly. Yeah. I think because of the upside there too. And I think the Texans
06:33are looking at him like that almost like a rookie where, okay. Because of his cancer ordeal,
06:39this is the first real look we're getting at him. Let's evaluate him. Like he's a rookie.
06:42Let's see what the upside is. And I think they probably still feel there's untapped upside with
06:47him. With Skronic, you get into the question of, all right, well, how many guys are we going to
06:51keep around just because they're good on special teams. And Skronic has been really good as a
06:55receiver when he's targeted. Like he makes some, he's hauled in some hard to catch passes and what
06:59have you, but this is also a guy that the Rams were willing to let go for just about nothing.
07:05You know? So in a really deep wide receiver room where you might already be carrying a fourth
07:10running back in a Gumba Wally, because he's a good special team or that I just, I wonder how
07:16that all shakes out. He's missed a lot of practice now to Skronic. He's been hurt for a couple of
07:20weeks, you know? And I think Noah Brown too, man, in this wise, as long as we're talking about the
07:25wide receiver room, I see a lot of people just like, as a given that Noah Brown's making the
07:30team, like Noah Brown's missed like two weeks of practice now. And his problem last year was
07:34staying healthy when he was on the field, he was a valuable weapon, particularly valuable in the,
07:39in the Bengals and the Bucs games back to back. But I mean, you gotta be available, you know?
07:46And like Noah Brown, he ain't Stephon Diggs, where he misses two or three weeks and Diggs
07:51hasn't missed anything, but I'm just using that as a name, as a hypothetical. Like, I don't know,
07:55man, like everybody's got Noah Brown and Ink on their 53-man mock roster. I'm not so sure.
08:00Jalen Petrie was awesome on Saturday, highlighted by this.
08:05Jones fakes to give on second and eight, pumps and he's going to be sacked. No,
08:08he gets rid of it last moment. It's picked off for a touchdown. Jalen Petrie to the end zone,
08:15pick six, short range. Okay, now this is where it starts to get really exciting defensively, Seth,
08:21is I think we know what we're getting along the defensive line with all those guys to varying
08:27degrees. The linebacking core is not deep right now. And if Christian Harris can get healthy,
08:33I think you feel really good about the top two linebackers on this team.
08:36And they're going to be in nickel quite a bit with Petrie playing his role. I think,
08:40I think, you know, Derek Stingley Jr. Kamari Lassiter had a good game on Saturday.
08:45If Petrie is what they drafted him to be a playmaker, like he was when he was the big 12
08:51player of the year in this type of role, this is a real game changer for this. Yeah.
08:55If you just think of him as a linebacker, he's your nickel linebacker and on base,
08:59he's playing safety. So he's a hybrid safety slash linebacker, not a safety slash cornerback.
09:06And I think that's the perfect role for him. I, the, so there's two things. One is
09:11I think they've channeled, they figured out exactly how to use his talents and abilities.
09:16And then he's also improved his technique. His tackling technique, especially is night and day
09:23from what it was the last couple of years. He's not flying in there out of control anymore,
09:28except the one situation where it was acceptable last week on that inside trap versus the,
09:33the sealers. He, it was okay for him to fly in there because that's what the situation demanded.
09:38He was an add on. I think he, I think he might've hit Bada Kasi harder than the running back,
09:43but still like that, even that play in the backfield, that looks like it should be dead
09:49to rights. He settled down. He got his arms out wide to wrap up that play out in the flats.
09:55He settled down, wrapped up, didn't go for the ball until he, after he had the tackles
10:00secured and pushing the ball carrier out of bounds. That's stuff that we didn't really
10:04see out of him the last couple of years. So yes, it's just the preseason, but the fundamentals
10:09showed up in a way that we hadn't seen from him before. Yeah, it was good to see. It was
10:12really good to see. All right, so let's get to the running, you know, even on the interception
10:15to like, okay, obviously that was an idiotic play by Daniel Jones and the ball was right there.
10:20Look, the intended receiver was just sitting there with his thumb up his butt. Yeah. Just,
10:25he was a spectator like, oh wow, I can't believe Daniel's doing this. Whereas Jalen Petrie was
10:31dialed in and made the play when the, the, the, if the receiver had been on his crap,
10:36he would have added, it'd been a better position than Jalen Petrie to make that catch.
10:40At least knock it down and make sure Petrie doesn't try to make a play on the ball. Yeah.
10:44Playing trail coverage in that situation. What the hell?
10:47The receiver's like, who's Daniel throwing it to? Why did he just throw it to Petrie?
10:52That's silly. He looked like a lazy basketball defender. He's like, you just like, yeah,
10:56all you had to do is stay in front of the guy, man, stay in front of the guy. NBA all-star game
11:01level defense by that wide receiver. All right, so we're doing stock up, stock down. We're going
11:05to do acknowledge me here in about five or 10 minutes. This is the running back room is kind
11:10of a tale of two stories here. Let's start with the up, which is cam acres. And here's a gift to
11:16acres starting cutting right as a little room breaks another tackle 40 35 and written down at
11:23the 32 yard line. Welcome to Houston cam acres. Okay. So this is a bit of a combo story here.
11:30Cause you got a little stock up with cam acres who, if he made this team and was a contributor,
11:34it would be a phenomenal story. We had him on the post game show. He was great. Um,
11:38and then Damian Pierce where it's, it's bad right now. There's no other way to put it.
11:42Eight carries nine yards. And I think Seth, these are the two guys cam acres and Damian
11:48Pierce that are really battling it out for the spot behind Joe Mixon on this.
11:52I wonder though, to how much of that is even, it's kind of like when you talk about who's WR1,
11:58who's WR2. I think it's going to be situation based. I think that there, there might be times
12:03depending on how they feel about Damian Pierce, where they feel like he's better in that situation
12:08than cam acres. But look, the run blocking has not been good. There's just too many,
12:13like I've been trying to be optimistic, I guess. Um, even this morning I was kind of
12:18mulling it over in my head. There's just too many instances where at least one guy
12:21has an egregiously bad play and that makes it a lot harder. But the way I would simply put it is
12:29that the run blocking has not been good, but Damian hasn't shown any ability to create when
12:35the run blocking is not good. The one yard per carry is a theme now. I mean, going back to last
12:41year where if things aren't just right, then the play's dead in the water. Cam acres you saw in
12:47that one cutback. Yes, it was his own blocking that created the, the cut cutback, but he,
12:54but he had, uh, he didn't have his original options. Right. Um, it wasn't just the easy
13:00cutback lane. So I, and like Damian doesn't, he doesn't break tackles anymore. You know,
13:06he's just not the same physical specimen. He was his first year. I swear it. I think some of it
13:11might be as simple as this, whatever his body weight was his rookie year that was working for
13:16him being sleeker and everything. All that is great. It's just, uh, look, I've seen defensive
13:21lineman experiment is sometimes we're like, Oh yeah, I'm going to be a penetrating pass rusher.
13:26And then they just, they, they get beat down because they're not as strong as they were before,
13:31but they're not fast enough to be that penetrating pass rusher. And I think likewise with Damian,
13:36it might be as simple as that. Like get back to breaking tackles, get back to whatever body
13:39weight works for you. Does this team have time to wait around those? My question, Clint brought
13:44this up in the post game. And it's a good point, which is this is a team that needs to fix its
13:50running game overall right now. They're not a good running football. They're a good offense
13:54when they're throwing the football, they can't run the football at the level they need to,
13:58to go win a super bowl. And you're burning daylight with carries for a guy who as of right
14:04now, it really looks like it's just not clicking and it's in his head at this point, you know,
14:08it's also, yeah. So there's, that's where it gets so complicated and it's bad for social media and
14:14everything else like that. I'm not excusing the run blocking. They've got to get better at that.
14:19They've shown progress in some regards, but it's also just, it never feels like Damian quite has
14:26the vision for it. It's like looking at one of those hologram posters where you try to see the
14:30hidden. I'm Pierce. When I feel like some people just can't do that. Whereas like Arian Foster in
14:37this analogy would look at it and not even have to, wouldn't even have to unfocus his eyes or
14:41anything building shooting out of it. Yeah. You're like, Oh yeah, that's an MC Usher. Right. Whatever.
14:46And I'd be sitting there going, it's a bunch of triangles. What are you talking about?
14:49It's a seagull. You colored. Um, so issues at running back. Well, issues with Damian Pierce.
14:56And here's the other thing for Damian, kind of like Mechie last week. Remember we were saying
14:59about Mechie last week after the Steeler game, every other wide receiver literally on that depth
15:04chart had made a play in a game after that Steeler game, whether it was the hall of fame game or
15:08whether it was a Steeler game. I feel like every other running back on the depth chart other than
15:13Joe Mixon, obviously didn't play all made plays in that giants went like Jowar. Jordan had four
15:18catches for 42 yards. British Brooks had two touchdowns. We just played a play. Cam Akers
15:24had six carries for 29 yards, almost five yards of carry. JJ Taylor had a big run up the sideline
15:31that number 94 caught him. That was weird. Good for 94. 94 is going to get some props
15:37in film for that play. Uh, that's where it gets tough. And it's almost like, okay,
15:41British Brooks, I can see as a guy that man, when you need two yards, he can get you those two yards.
15:47Cam Akers I look at is like, okay, well, I don't know about him being the two yard guy,
15:51but he can be the guy that's going to open things up and hit a 15 or a 20 yard or,
15:55or catch the ball on third down. But like Damian Pierce, I want him to be the guy that's going to
15:59get just steadily four or five yards. And I just, uh, I don't have the guy that's going to steadily
16:04get me four or five yards right now. And yet he's still the guy you want at every party.
16:08Cause he's awesome. I think that's the hardest thing about it is that he like,
16:13he's exactly the type of guy that you want on a football team. It's really,
16:17really hard and painful. And it's not completely his fault that he's not having any success at all,
16:22but he's just, he's not creating above and beyond the X's and O's right now.
16:27Like Derrick Henry ran behind the worst offensive line of the decade last year.
16:30And he had 4.3 yards per carry second in the league. You know, it's like the good running
16:36backs make something out of nothing. Good running backs will get at least three yards per carry
16:40behind a bad offensive line. Were you surprised how sloppy it was for the Texans in the first
16:44quarter and two minutes of that game on Saturday? Part of the problem is that they love to use a
16:48fullback, but they're trying out 17 different players of fullback. This is how many snaps
16:54has Beck even taken this preseason? I don't know. I'm not sure. There's some promise there,
16:58but when you've got these tight ends in there playing fullback who are also,
17:02they're blocking the way Damien Pierce is running. They're kind of like, I don't know. I guess so I'm
17:08just going to do it. They're all sometimes the tight end slash fullbacks are they're leaning
17:14into their blocks. The way that Daniel Jones kind of stumbled into whatever that slide was or
17:19whatever it was short of the sticks. There's no swag to them. No, there's no swag back swag.
17:25How about Blake Fisher's false start on the first play from scrimmage?
17:29I thought that was an homage to Laramie Tunsil. I thought he was doing that. Cause I got to wait
17:33for a critical situation before you do it. Okay. Well the rookie will learn, but he did it as,
17:38as a, the very first play from scrimmage. I was expecting him to turn around and look at the,
17:41look over at the bench and like do the tap on the chest and point at Laramie thing.
17:45Like that was for you. That was seven, eight. That was for you. That was his
17:49tribute to Pedro Leon. I think it was a, yeah, like come in and get your first base hit,
17:53but then get thrown out at second on your very first base hit.
17:57Getting your feet wet. They had a hold on a third and goal from the six
18:01Shaq Mason got offset by a giants passenger. They had too many men on the field at one point.
18:06Yeah, that was sloppy. The delay, they had a delay of game on a punt, not, and not the kind
18:10that you do when you're at the other team's 38 yard line and you're trying to get more room.
18:14They were at their own 32 and they got to delay a game on a punt. They had a,
18:18they had a neutral zone infraction on a third and two. This is all in the first 17 minutes of the
18:23game. It was super sloppy. So there was a, it was annoying me is what it was. It was annoying me.
18:28It was slowing the game down. I'd be angered, but as somebody that had just been doing a show out in
18:34the 90 to whatever degree heat for three hours, I was like, all right, this is like, I'm not sitting
18:39here in my own filth for this crap game up Texas. My God, we're getting a acknowledgement on the
18:45text page about this, about the, the, the working conditions. Okay. Sean and Seth,
18:51y'all are being subjected to cruel and unusual work conditions. I walked by you guys at 10 45
18:57AM on Saturday morning and you were baking all caps, no shade, straight heat. That's ridiculous.
19:04Come on. K I L T by a tent or some misters or something. We have a fan behind us that blows
19:1090 degree air at us. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I have a hard time ever whining about it. Cause
19:14I know that like we have a lot of listeners who work all day out in the heat. I'm not whining
19:21about it. I was reading the text. Although I will acknowledge the two of us for doing that.
19:26It's basically a feat unknown. It's rarely found in life. Yeah. Standing for two hours and 50
19:33minutes. It's gotten better because of the two big coolers back there. And we have unlimited
19:37supply of water and Gatorade too. That's well, it's not Gatorade, but it's a sports drink.
19:42It's a sports Gatorade in there on Saturday. Not that I saw. Yeah. It's a lot for towards the end.
19:48Two. They might've only been two of them. Are you sure it was a Gatorade?
19:52I had a Gatorade on Saturday. All right. I had some weird taste. You did. All right. Okay. Well,
19:58now I take it all back. The game does need to be stepped up for us out there.