Payne & Pendergast React To Texans' 29-27 Win Over Colts
On a Reaction Monday, Seth Payne and Sean Pendergast dive into the Texans' 29-27 win over the Colts.
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00:00The Texans are the only 1-0 team in the AFC South.
00:04Welcome in on a reaction Monday, everybody.
00:06Good to be with you, great to be with you.
00:09I'm Sean Pendergast, he is Seth Payne.
00:12And Seth, this is a beautiful day, man.
00:15This is a great day, and honestly,
00:17the way that game unfolded and the way everything happened,
00:20the way they came by their victory,
00:22A, I couldn't be happier about the fact
00:24that it looks like the Texans have a genuine one-two punch
00:27now, that they can beat you through the air,
00:29they can beat you on the ground.
00:32If a team decides, all right, look,
00:34we've got to just try to limit this passing attack because it's
00:37so potentially lethal, then that's
00:40going to end up with 213 yards rushing by the Texans.
00:44That they're very capable with Damian Pierce
00:48averaged over five yards per carry on three carries.
00:51Your second leading rusher was Tank Dell.
00:53Stefan Diggs got in on the rush game as well.
00:57So all of that is awesome.
00:59But then I also do like that it was sloppier than a lot of us,
01:03including CJ Stroud and D'Amico Ryans, would prefer.
01:06I feel like it's the perfect reminder of a good scare.
01:12A good scare to put in of, hey, man,
01:15we've got to clean this stuff up.
01:16We've got to clean it.
01:17You can't be abandoning your cornerbacks in deep coverage,
01:23in quarters coverage, as an offense.
01:28The only guy that looked really, really in sync and ready
01:31that's returned is Laramie Tunsil with his two false starts.
01:34That's a, I think that's a, yeah.
01:36He's committed to his gimmick.
01:37Yeah.
01:37He's right back.
01:38Yeah, Laramie Tunsil committing penalties.
01:40But otherwise, I mean, we'll get into this a little bit later.
01:42Like Laramie, I've been talking a lot of smack on behalf of Laramie
01:46and how well he'd do against Layatu Latu, the rookie of the Colts.
01:48Yeah.
01:49Damn.
01:50OK.
01:51Latu had some nice snaps versus Tunsil.
01:52OK, so he's going to be a problem.
01:54Oh.
01:54Yeah.
01:55OK.
01:55Oh, yeah.
01:56Yeah.
01:56Yeah.
01:57Some nice snaps.
01:58We're going to dig into this thing,
01:59because it was a really compelling three hours.
02:02And obviously, one, the Texans, they win.
02:04They're 1 and 0.
02:05That's the big thing.
02:06They get the season started off right.
02:08Three straight times, they beat the Colts.
02:09They are now nine straight road games in the AFC South
02:12that they've won.
02:13So all those streaks are still alive.
02:14CJ still hasn't thrown an interception
02:16in a divisional game yet, although it was close
02:19a couple of times with CJ.
02:22To me, Seth, the biggest, the biggest thing,
02:25kind of playing off of what you just talked about,
02:27of them being able to beat you multiple ways now,
02:29is that they didn't just run the football.
02:32They ran it well.
02:33Obviously, Joe Mixon, 30 carries, $1.59.
02:38He averaged well over five yards per carry.
02:40But the fact that they ran it in the two instances
02:44that you have talked about and I have talked about that
02:47are independent of the statistics,
02:49independent of averaging x amount of yards per carry,
02:51or independent of being a top 10 rushing team,
02:55they were able to move the ball and score touchdowns
02:58when they got in the red zone, in no small part
03:00because they actually have a threat running the football
03:01now.
03:02I know Diggs got two of those in there,
03:04but two short touchdowns.
03:05Mixon got the other one.
03:06But they were able to move the football in the red zone,
03:08in part because of the rushing attack.
03:10And the biggest thing, that play that we heard at the very end,
03:12when they needed to burn 3 and 1 1 minutes o'clock,
03:15there wasn't any big, great burst run or anything like that,
03:18other than the one that put the game away was nine yards.
03:21But they were in second and seven, and third and three,
03:25and they were moving the football
03:27and grinding the clock.
03:28And they were doing it when the Colts knew
03:30that they wanted to do it.
03:32When the Colts knew the Texans wanted to run the football,
03:35on third and three, to close the game,
03:38this is just our good ones against your good ones,
03:41and we're going to beat you.
03:43And they were able to do that on that play
03:44that everybody just heard.
03:46That's the most encouraging thing to me,
03:49is that, situationally, they were able to move
03:52the football on the ground.
03:53Not just various times throughout the game.
03:55And by the way, Joe Mixon's long run of the day on this buck,
03:5859, was 13 yards.
04:00So it wasn't 159 yards, it was buoyed by a 65-yard run.
04:05He was grinding six, eight, nine, five, 11, 13, 13,
04:11like it was a steady beating by Joe
04:14Mixon in the offensive line.
04:16The one that I got excited about was
04:17when it was second and six, and Joe Mixon ran for three yards
04:20at the end of the game, because it was
04:23against a heavily loaded box.
04:25They were committed fully to stopping the run,
04:28and they ground out three yards, and they end up
04:31getting the first down on the next one.
04:32But that right there is the test.
04:34Can you run effectively?
04:37And that's not technically a win of a run,
04:39but compared to last year, and given
04:42in the full context of what they were able to do on the ground,
04:45it was great.
04:46Boy, one of the best plays of the game, in my mind,
04:50was a Joe Mixon run up the middle on an inside zone,
04:53where Kenyon Green got out in space
04:56and absolutely threw Zaire Franklin out of the bar.
05:01It looked like an action movie, Sean,
05:03where somebody is falling off a, the hero
05:07lets the villain drop, that just shoves him off the skyscraper,
05:11and they show the scene of him flailing his arms.
05:15That would be die hard.
05:16I thought it was die hard.
05:17Yeah, it looked like there might as well
05:19have been a bad green screen behind it and everything.
05:21Zaire Franklin just lost in space,
05:24like George Clooney at the end of that space movie,
05:26where he goes flying off into the void.
05:30Yeah, it was beautiful.
05:32Gravity, it was Zaire Franklin, stars in Gravity.
05:36Yeah, featuring Kenyon Green, yes.
05:39Yeah, so juice grugs and Kenyon Green, much improved,
05:42and Kenyon Green especially.
05:44It looks like a different human being from two years ago.
05:46I haven't gone through and watched the All-22 yet
05:48or anything, there were blemishes, to be sure,
05:50on the offensive line.
05:51The pass protection was certainly not pristine.
05:55I think, I mean, Laramie Tunsel just, he looks rusty,
05:58he looks like his, I don't know if maybe it was
06:02because they were wearing dark pants and white jerseys,
06:04but I felt like Laramie's legs looked a little bit skinny.
06:07You think?
06:08For coming back from his knee surgery
06:10and the way he looked out there at times,
06:12he didn't look like himself.
06:14He had some really good snaps, too.
06:15I just, he didn't, I talked a lot of smack on his behalf
06:19about going against Latu, and there were some rough snaps.
06:22He did not back you up, yeah.
06:23You were like Matt Damon speaking for Ed Norton
06:26in Rounders, like, no, no, no, I'm good for this debt, too,
06:30mobsters, Russian mobsters, it's fine,
06:32and you look up and Laramie Tunsel's hightailing it
06:35out of the state, and you're left having to pay 15 grand
06:37to Russian mobsters.
06:39A lot of movie analogies early today, I like it.
06:42So that's the offensive side.
06:43We're gonna dig deeper into this stuff
06:44as we roll on with the show here.
06:45Texans win yesterday, 29-27.
06:48How about the defense?
06:49Shutting down, I mean, I know there were three 50-yard plays
06:52that all set up touchdowns, or at least directly
06:54could have been or were touchdowns,
06:57but I think the story defensively is the,
07:02they shut down Jonathan Taylor yesterday.
07:04Right.
07:0516 carries, 48 yards, they cut the head off the snake
07:07with Jonathan Taylor yesterday.
07:08Yeah, I, you know what I was surprised by yesterday
07:10was a lot of people, even after the game, were livid,
07:13like genuinely angry that Anthony Richardson
07:16had so many yards on the ground.
07:18Not, which, to be clear, look,
07:21Anthony Richardson had 56 yards rushing.
07:23He was the leading rusher on the day.
07:25Jonathan Taylor had 48 yards rushing.
07:27That's going to happen.
07:29Richardson's gonna get his yardage on the ground.
07:31That's just, that's who he is.
07:33Honestly, if Anthony Richardson had any semblance
07:36of consistency, he might end up being the best quarterback
07:39of all time, and if he could stay healthy,
07:41but he's so far from that that yesterday
07:44was the full Anthony Richardson experience.
07:47He's gonna get yardage on the ground
07:49because he's a physical freak.
07:52He's like a bulky Cam Newton, but more athletic.
07:55It's crazy.
07:56The Texans linebackers did a really good job
08:00of handling the RPO game, being patient,
08:05staying in coverage until they knew for sure
08:07that it was passed.
08:08I credit D'Amico and Matt Burke
08:10with mixing things up defensively
08:13and how they handled the RPO,
08:15so they didn't give a consistent look
08:17for the Colts to really see,
08:19but I mean, obviously, the big thing is the big plays,
08:22the explosives.
08:27Jimmy Ward's gotta stay over the top
08:29when he's supposed to stay over the top.
08:31He's supposed to, well, even the big long,
08:33freakishly good throw by Richardson,
08:36it looked like they were in quarters coverage.
08:38It's not over the top.
08:38It's just that Jimmy Ward couldn't run with Alec Pierce.
08:43I mean, it's Alec Pierce.
08:45You're blaming Derrick Stingley on that.
08:47The ball was caught 2 1⁄3 of the way across the field,
08:51away from Derrick Stingley.
08:53Jimmy Ward's gotta be better in better position on that.
08:54Where is safety supposed to be in that play, yeah.
08:57It's funny you say that
08:58about the Anthony Richardson experience.
09:00I'm looking, I do my notes that I post
09:02that have all kinds of curse words in them and stuff.
09:05Literally, the drive that ended
09:07with the Kalen Bullock interception,
09:10I literally bracketed that on my notes
09:13and I wrote Anthony Richardson experience in all caps
09:16because on that drive,
09:17he had the 24-yard scramble for the first down.
09:20He had another third and two,
09:21might've been a read option or something.
09:23He ran for two first downs on third downs on that series,
09:26but he also missed a wide open A.D. Mitchell over the top
09:29that would've been a walk-in touchdown,
09:31and then he threw an interception to Kalen Bullock
09:33that looked like it might not have been his fault.
09:35Everybody was slipping on that turf yesterday.
09:38That was the unfortunate thing about yesterday
09:40was it was just, and you know what?
09:42I'm not making excuses for anybody,
09:43but it does contribute to the sloppiness.
09:46Obviously, your routes and everything
09:48aren't gonna be as precise.
09:50I did a live stream yesterday and I was kinda,
09:52I realized afterwards that I had barely mentioned
09:56Nico Collins, which is absurd.
09:59We're just guilty of the same thing.