Texans Top Position Group Rankings with Payne and Pendergast
With all the heightened expectations for the Texans this season, how would you rank their position groups as the preseason's end approaches? Payne and Pendergast talked about it here.
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00:00It looks like it's going to come off. They lit this time last year, they were busy canceling
00:04joint practices, right? The saints because of all the injuries. They're so banged up.
00:07Yeah. And they've, they've got, I mean, they've got a handful of guys that are dealing with
00:11bumps and bruises. I probably the, I guess the most concerning one is Christian Harris.
00:16Cause it seems like everybody else that's on the list of guys every day that, that are
00:20not practicing or at least working out on the field next to the practice.
00:23Yeah. Whereas Christian Harris has rarely been out there. It's rarely been out there.
00:28I guess Will Anderson is the other concern just because now it's a, it's another ankle
00:32injury and you wonder, okay, I, I really hope this doesn't be become some kind of chronic
00:37deal. Correct. If he has just naturally floppy ankles. Yeah. Yep. Shin angle and all that.
00:43Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So a game is at noon on Saturday against the Rams. A lot of guys vying
00:50for trying to survive here in the NFL. Right. And the Rams don't traditionally play their
00:55starters much in the preseason, the third preseason game, especially I'm curious what
00:59they'll do.
01:00I can't imagine the Texans are going to play theirs. I wish they would start. I wish the
01:04offensive line would, I really, they need to have some success. You know, D'Amico D'Amico
01:09had to venture into coach speak the other day when he talked about the running game
01:12and he was saying that he's a, he doesn't want to draw any judgments off of just two
01:15runs. Yeah. Talk about the first string guys. Yeah. Well, the first string guys were actually
01:19in there for four runs and not a single one of them looked good. Damien Pierce did didn't
01:24make the right decision quickly enough a couple of times, but the blocking was not good. Not
01:29just with the offensive line. It was the whole committee. I think there was at least one,
01:33there was one play where it was either a wide receiver or Cade Stover that made the wrong
01:37decision.
01:38And I think it was a wide receiver that left the defensive back unblocked fullback whiffed
01:42completely and totally didn't touch a single soul on one play. Linebackers were running
01:48free. It was ugly. It was really, it was bad blocking. And this is not a team that was
01:52running the ball. Well, last year I would like to see, I feel like, listen, dude, if
01:56you guys want to, if you guys want to be lead pipe carrying and mofos, then get out there
02:01and do it versus the Rams backups. At what point do we start to point to the coaching
02:05of the offensive line? I'll do it right now. I just like Bobby Sloak hasn't yet proven
02:10that he can put together a, or Chris Strauss, but I would go with Bobby Sloak as the offensive
02:15coordinator. He was the passing game coordinator in San Francisco. He hasn't yet demonstrated
02:20whether it's his fault or not. He hasn't yet demonstrated that he can put together
02:24a good rushing attack. So there's a lot of stuff I saw in that game that Joe Mixon wouldn't
02:31fix. Joe Mixon would have looked better. There are a couple of plays where Joe Mixon, I think
02:36like when they were backed up in the end zone, I think Joe Mixon would have taken a better
02:39line than Damien Pierce did.
02:41There was another shotgun run that I think Mixon would have done a better job of, but
02:47there's just way too much bad blocking out there for the starters. Like I don't, I don't
02:51watch that game and think like, Oh yeah, no reason to put them out there in harm's way
02:55in the third preseason game. I think they got to play the Colts. The next game after
02:58this is the Colts and they got to, yeah. Who, according to ESPN's rankings that we're about
03:06to dive into right now, Mike clay is the writer for ESPN. He does this every year. He does
03:11the positional rankings one through 32 of every position group in the NFL quarterback,
03:16running back receiver, tight end O line on the offensive side and on the defensive side.
03:21He does interior D line edge off ball linebackers, corners and safeties. So you've got 10 positions
03:28in and then he ranks the overall roster. The Texans overall roster ranks 11th according
03:33to Mike clay, which sounds about right. I feel like they're getting discussed like a
03:37team whose roster is more like fifth or sixth. Um, but that's probably because of CJ Stroud.
03:42You know, the quarterback tends to skew the overall impressions of a team and maybe, maybe
03:49raise the level of what people feel about a team beyond what the actual talent level
03:54or production level is. But Indianapolis has the best interior defensive line according
03:59to these rankings, to your point. So that that's yeah. As of right now, that's problematic.
04:04Deuce grugs and Kenyon green have shown some good things this camp, but it's an overall
04:07effort with all five guys. Add in the fullback, add in everybody else. These rankings, this
04:13is what I wanted to touch on first because they're fine at quarterback. They're rated
04:17eighth at quarterback. Their receiver room is the best in the league. They're going to
04:21be able to zip the ball all over the place. Their offensive line is rated 28th on this.
04:29Their defensive line interior is rated 29th on this. Yeah. I'm not as worried about the
04:35line interior. I think part of it, the same way Sheldon Rankins and Malik Collins, even
04:38when you look at PFF last year and other things, I feel like people weren't accounting for
04:44the scheme and there's, there's certain things that might look like a defensive tackle. Isn't
04:49doing a good job versus the run in this scheme where it's, it's actually okay because they're
04:54going to get, they're going to get washed out or hit out of their gap sometimes because
04:58they're just jetting up field. That's when it's on the linebackers to fill in behind
05:02them. And I think that fully Faticassi and Mario Edwards are going to be just fine in
05:06that regard with the offensive line. Part of it is okay. People are, you know, Kenyon
05:11green hasn't played well historically, but I do think he's a different guy right now.
05:16Juice Scruggs is complete and total unknown right now. And they're going to take their
05:20lumps early. And unfortunately they face either unfortunately or fortunately, depending on
05:25how it works out, they're going to face Grover Stewart and DeForest Buckner in that first
05:30game were both studs, like big physical dudes that know what the hell they're doing there.
05:36If they didn't play for the Colts, they'd be one of my favorite defensive line duos,
05:41but now I despise them. Yeah, of course. Yeah. So I like, as far as blaming Chris Strauss
05:47or Bobby Slowick, I, there's just some, there's some things that they do that I don't, I can't
05:53tell if it's the way the offensive line is being coached and this is their strategy,
05:56but there's times where guys aren't all executed. It doesn't look like they're all executing
06:00the same scheme. So somebody's, somebody's off the page. Like everybody's zone outside
06:06zone blocking except for one offensive lineman. And there's some things that might be explained
06:11with scheme there, or it might be the guys are making mental errors. So I just don't
06:15know. Some of the young guys have really sloppy footwork and it really did. It comes back
06:20to bite them, but they're young. So I can't put that on Chris Strauss or just yet.
06:25Can you get to a Superbowl with the 28th best offensive line and 29th best interior
06:30defensive line? I feel like that ranking is unfair partly because I think they're going
06:34to be just fine in past protection. I guess this is an ongoing, yeah, this is an ongoing
06:40theme with the Texans for whatever reason and good years and bad word. The past blocking
06:45has been way better than the run blocking. So I'm not, I'm not overly concerned about
06:50the past protection. I thought the young guys had some really good shots of, of past protecting
06:55versus good defensive lineman in that game the other night. You know, Blake Fisher is
06:59still a work in progress. He got, he had some really good reps. He also got spun moved to
07:04hell on one play by Brian Burns. He did. So no, I think that ranking is too low. I think
07:10if you factor in both the run and the past, they're probably middle of the road right
07:14now. Yeah. Cause I think there's other positions like
07:18they're 19th at running back. I think you can get to a Superbowl having the 19th best
07:22running back room. The, the last five Superbowl winners have all had running back rooms that
07:26probably ranked it. Isaiah Pacheco has been winning you super bowls lately. Yeah. And
07:30I think that's also, that's probably, it's a matter of depth more so than anything else.
07:34It's I think Joe Mixon people aren't overly impressed by that acquisition by the Texans,
07:39but he's much more solid, independable potential for perhaps being in a new scheme with a different
07:45quarterback might give them a little bit of a extra boost, but it's who do you have behind
07:49him? Like, realistically, we got to take our blinders off a little bit here. We, as
07:53a fan base are getting excited about a guy who's coming off of his second Achilles tendon
07:58tear and can make can makers who wasn't that good after his first Achilles tendon tear.
08:02So I like he showed all of those bursts of athleticism that we've seen. He showed them
08:08when he was in Minnesota last year, but he still averaged 3.4 yards per carry. Yeah.
08:13So I I'm, I'm hopeful that it does turn out and man, they can really capture something
08:19with him, but it's all unproven people or Damian Pierce who hasn't been good since really
08:25before the last few games that he played in 2022, because he was getting around. He was
08:31at putting out some pretty pedestrian performances the last few games before he was the end.
08:35Yeah. Yeah. And his rookie year. Yeah, man, there was a video online. I'll get to it later,
08:41but there was a video that surfaced of all of Damian's good runs from his rookie year.
08:44Yeah. I've been watching him a lot. It was the Jaguars one. I think that you had sent
08:49me one. Well, this was a cutup of like 20. Yeah. It made me sad. So anyways, we'll, we'll
08:55get to that later in this ranking on ESPN, this positional group ranking the things that
09:00are not surprising Texans eighth, a quarterback. That's about right. I think for CJ coming
09:05off his rookie year, I know a lot of Texan fans would be like, he should be 50.
09:08That's the whole room for one thing. Wide receiver. Their first, no surprise there,
09:15which sounds weird to say for a Texans team that their first among wide receiver rooms
09:19and then the edge rushing room is fourth. Will Anderson, Danielle Hunter, top five that,
09:24that feels about right. I guess the thing that would be concerning for the Texans and
09:27where if you, if you're buying into these rankings being somewhat accurate, Seth, is
09:32that literally every other position group is outside the top 15.
09:36Yeah. You know, everything else is hovering around the middle of the road or in the bottom
09:41part of the lane. You're running back. I mentioned 19th tight end 16th. I mentioned the old line
09:45and D line 28th and 29th. That's the most concerning thing. Although I'm with you. I
09:49think, I think they got short change. Their linebackers 21st man of Christian Harris doesn't
09:55get healthy. 21st might be generous right now with that line.
09:57Yeah. I think there's a few of these that are like, which is happens this time of year.
10:03I think some of it's based maybe a little too heavily on last year's team that my clay
10:08is not at every training camp. Right, right, right, right. Yeah. And I don't know, like
10:12I was surprised that the linebackers were ranked as low as they were. Part of that I
10:15think is that if you're looking at the team's base defense, then, okay, it's a four, three,
10:20you're looking at the Sam linebacker, Henry Toto didn't play really well last year. So
10:24there's no reason for anybody outside of Houston to think about, I think Henry Toto has made
10:29a lot of progress camp. Yeah. But, um, I think Christian Harris is another guy that
10:36if you don't, if you look at his season in totality last year, it's not that impressive.
10:40People that didn't watch the Texans every week. Don't realize that no, his, he was Christian
10:45Harris was a completely different player in the second half of the season. He doubled
10:49his production in a lot of regards. Uh, like, like actually doubled it in terms of TFLs
10:55total tackles, all of that. He was a much different player in the second half of the
10:58season. So I think they're ranked too low there. I, yeah. Are you, if Henry Toto has
11:03to play 50 snaps in the opener against the Colts, how are you feeling about, um, because
11:10they don't, they're just not in that. My, my point about the four, three was that they
11:13don't play the four actual four, three all that much. I guess. Let me clarify. If Christian
11:18Harris, sorry about that. Yeah. Then I'm nervous. Yeah. Yeah. If, uh, it's, it's much different
11:25I'm optimistic that he's an improved player athletically. He's just not nearly the same
11:29thing as Christian Harris. Right. Um, so yeah, that's, that's a, we'll see. I thought cornerbacks
11:35being ranked 18th. That's an interesting one because again, I think they're, they're looking
11:39at Kamari Lassiter is an unproven commodity. I'm pretty bullish on Kamari last me too.
11:43So I think that right now they should be the way I expect Kamari Lassiter to play ranked
11:49higher than that. But then there's also the conundrum of, all right, we saw some of those
11:55backup cornerbacks like Mike Ford who led up a huge, a huge reception downfield for
12:00Daniel Jones in that game. Um, Mike Ford has had a rough training camp. I mean, he's out
12:05there playing in the second quarter after the starters go out. So depth that cornerback
12:10is not as, as deep as I would like it to be. Yeah. I think, I think that if there's positions
12:16on this team where I feel like the 53, they take into the season, um, the, where the guys
12:25are on other teams right now at these positions, I feel like cornerback depth at cornerback
12:30and depth on the offensive line or two of them for me, where I feel like ultimately
12:33the 53 that they settle on heading into the Colts game in week one, that those guys are
12:38on somebody else's squad right now.
12:40I think too, Sean, the, I think where it's valid that there's been a lot of commotion
12:45about the Texans based on the improvement last year. And then the roster as it's currently
12:50constructed is that the positions that matter the most are any position that involves the
12:56quarterback on offense or defense. So if you look at the wide receivers, you look at the
13:01edge rushers, you look at the quarterback himself, and then you look at the starting
13:05cornerbacks. Those I feel really, really good about. And beyond that, you gotta, you gotta
13:12have a broad roster of blue collar dudes that are good players, solid players.
13:18So if you go position group by position group, it can kind of give you a misleading thought
13:23of just how, how strong a team actually can be. Yeah, you're right. Like those positions
13:27and when you're talking about should be waiting, those are the teams. Those are the positions
13:30that are the highest paid positions in the league because they're the most important.
13:34They have the biggest impact in the game, in the positions where the, they have the
13:39biggest impact in the game. I feel really good about all those. Yeah. And I think that's
13:43probably why for, you know, when you got 10 position groups in this exercise that Mike
13:46clay is doing here on ESPN and seven of them, you're 15th or lower, but your roster is still
13:5211th, I think is reflective of that. Well, that would include the offensive tackles in
13:55that. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say, yeah, I would throw Laramie into that, that, that,
13:58that pot.
13:59You were just there. The other one of the highest paid position groups, cause it's about
14:02protecting the quarterback. So Laramie in past protection more so in the run game is
14:07really good. But some of the issues that we saw in the game on last week, the preseason
14:14game, I look, I'm optimistic about Blake Fisher. I think he's making really good progress,
14:19but as a run blocker, Laramie Tunsil is still much better than him. And just in terms of
14:23understanding sometimes just like the simplest and easiest way you see with young players
14:27ever, this is universal across sports, so much wasted movement, you know, and they get
14:33in their own way sometimes by just hyper-reacting or overreacting to one thing. So then they
14:38can't react to a counter. That's a little bit where Blake Fisher and some of the young
14:42offensive linemen are right now. They're just taking steps that are too big. The veterans
14:47know economy of motion is really helpful. And you take the, you're just taking the smallest
14:54necessary step. And that's something that Laramie does really well. It even in the run
14:58game, even though he's not a road grader, but there are some of these whiffs in mental
15:02players.
15:03You're not going to see with him. It's interesting question. Just based on the conversation we're
15:06having, Seth and I are talking, if you're just getting in your car, ESPN ranked all
15:10the positional groups in the NFL one through 32. And the Texans are faring really well
15:15at a few of them, quarterback receiver edge rusher. And then they're kind of middle of
15:19the pack or even bottom of the league. And in the other seven overall roster, 11th random
15:24question, text page is this team's roster better than, and I'm assuming they just mean
15:29talent wise, better than the two Texans teams in 2011 and 2012. It first made the play.
15:37The total roster. I'm going to say, I'll say the same thing that Andre Johnson had said
15:41in this side, I felt like in those really competitive teams and on some of the bill
15:46O'Brien's competitive teams, they were very top heavy. I think this is maybe, I think
15:54it's as talented at top level talent, especially if you include the quarterback position. I
16:00think, I think most people that are, I think, I think Matt shop would agree that CJ Stroud
16:04ceiling is higher than first ceiling was. Yeah. So I would say they are more talented
16:10at the top end and much, much deeper throughout. So yeah, I think on paper right now, as we
16:17sit here in August where everything has been meaningless, I think they've got the potential
16:21to be a better overall roster than those. It's funny. They're, they're, they're kind
16:24of like a bizarro version in this exercise. If you're rating all the position groups,
16:29they're not a, not a perfect flip bizarro version of each other, but like the 2011 Texans,
16:35I think Matt shop in this exercise is probably like a, you know, like 12 to 14 or 15 quarterback.
16:41Whereas CJ is eighth running back. They're probably near the top of the league with Arian
16:44Foster offensive line, offensive line. That was a top five offensive line. They're 28th
16:49in this exercise. That was the interior defensive line was depending on how you categorize JJ
16:54Y, you know, like it was, they ran a three, four, you know, so depending on how you categorize
17:00a three, four defense in this exercise, are your edge guys really more like the Connor
17:04Barwins of the world or Brooks Reed as opposed to JJ and JJ was just JJ for the duration
17:10of the season was a rookie that was showing promise, but not necessarily doing a whole
17:15lot. Yeah. He, he kicked it in. But if you look at, okay, as an edge rusher, Brooks Reed
17:21or Connor Barwin versus will Anderson and Daniel Hunter, right. I think they've got
17:26a bit like Connor was very good as a versatile three, four outside linebacker where you could
17:31pass rusher. It could, could actually be relied upon in coverage way more than most outside
17:35linebackers, but he wasn't the menacing pass rusher that Daniel Hunter is.
17:40I would take will Anderson over Brooks Reed. So I think, yeah, I think that again, when
17:45you get to the marquee positions, the, the 2000, this squad right here is better. And
17:52then I do think just by virtue of maybe special teams play, you can see the depth of the roster
17:58and they've done a good job. Nick's done a good job with that over the last few years
18:01of getting a pretty deep roster in terms of having guys that are capable of playing special
18:06teams. Yeah. Let's let's relive some of the magic from Saturday real quick. Cause I've
18:11got an observation on the Texans and the effect they're having on their opponents here in
18:16the preseason. Let's let's relive the magic of Jalen Petrie getting a pick six Jones fakes
18:21to give on second at eight pumps and he's going to be sacked. No, he gets rid of it
18:25last moment. It's picked off for a touchdown. Petrie to the end zone, pick six short range.
18:33There's your guy. Vandy must've been talking to Petrie before the game. Yeah. And then
18:39we have this just a series or two later Jones in the gut. He's got time and he airs it out
18:45deep down the right side. And Stingley has a pick inside the five yard line. Derek Stingley
18:51jr. With the interception. There was no way he was going to be denied the pass intended
18:56for Jalen Hyatt. That, that catch that still, it was, it was one of those things where you
19:01gotta credit Daniel Jones partly for it. Uh, you know, put it right on the, and yet
19:05it is, it was still an impressive feat pulling it off that the hands catch aspect to it,
19:11that it was away from Stingley's body and not intended for him. Jones was like, I thought
19:16I felt like he was, uh, maybe, maybe he was kind of just fixated on Derrick Stingley's
19:22hazel eyes or something because he picks six in the early drive too. Yeah. So it was a,
19:32yeah, it was both a bad pass, but also a brilliant interception. So you and I had talked before
19:36the Pittsburgh game, you'd brought this up several times about how it's going to be cool
19:41to watch the Texans have an impact on one of the more interesting quarterback battles
19:45in the NFL. Right? Like, and we didn't see Russell Wilson in that game. We only saw Justin
19:49fields for like a quarter and a half and fields did a couple of good things. Pittsburgh people
19:53got all hot and bothered and up and really hyped about some of the completions that he
19:58had. There were people that were optimistic about that performance. Just some of the articles
20:03you sent me. I bet Steelers fans, smart ones were not probably, but this just in every
20:10fan base has dumb fans. Um, it actually may be this quarterback room in New York that
20:17the Texans in the short term at least have had a bigger impact on in terms of the impressions.
20:22This is a manual Ocho of FS one yesterday. I'm not a huge Ocho guy, but I loved this
20:28analogy about Daniel Jones. And again, this is all on the heels of the Texans making him
20:32look like he looked his first couple of years in the league this weekend. This is a fantastic
20:38analogy basically calling Daniel Jones a zero. How can you start Daniel Jones? You are betraying
20:44your running back, your tackles, your guards, your receivers, your defensive linemen, your
20:49outside backers, your defensive ends, your cornerbacks, your safeties, your inside backers.
20:53You are betraying the entire organization when you make Daniel Jones a starter, because
20:57all of their work is void by starting Daniel Jones. That's like adding all of the numbers
21:02into a calculator and then hitting times zero, you will end up at zero. So it does not matter
21:09how much you keep hitting plus, plus, plus, plus, uh, Thomas plus Dexter Lawrence, uh,
21:16plus, okay. It doesn't matter how many times you continue to hit plus, because at the end
21:20of the day, you have to hit times Daniel Jones and that will equal zero.
21:25You know what? That's really good. I like that because, uh, you know, you hear sometimes
21:30about people being like, well, they're force multipliers, a guy that a player that makes
21:34everybody else around him. He's a force multiplier. You can use that same term and say, yeah,
21:40he's a force multiplier. You're multiplying by zero. Daniel Jones is a force multiplier.
21:45Yes. What's the factor? Zero. That's the word I couldn't think of. That's the word
21:50I can text line. Tell me if I was right or not. I can't remember. I was just going to
21:54say integer. I stopped helping my kid with math about like fourth grade. I was like,
21:57I don't remember any of this crap. That was algebra. Y'all do this differently these days.
22:02I don't know.