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00:00What do you feel best about a day later after the Texans got a 29-27 victory in Indy versus
00:06the Colts, 7-1-3-5-7-2-4-6-10, because Lopez, you feel very strongly that there is one correct
00:13answer about this.
00:14Yeah, there is a question.
00:15The way I put it on the dock with you guys this morning is, what do you feel best about
00:19a day later and why is it the interior offensive line?
00:22Yeah.
00:23It is.
00:24I didn't go full Reggie, full Seth Payne and scour the all-22, but I did re-watch the
00:31game yesterday.
00:32Okay.
00:33And I was old-school, guy that texts in occasionally, figure that says, it's all about the line.
00:38You got to watch the line.
00:40It starts in the trenches.
00:41It starts in the trenches.
00:42It starts up front.
00:43Hand in the dirt.
00:44The game, in its essence, is about blocking and tackling, baby.
00:47I was that guy.
00:48I re-watched, and I was going through it pretty quickly just play-by-play.
00:51Watched the offensive line, because we all know what Joe Mixon did.
00:55We all know how good Joe Mixon looked.
00:56Man, they did a good job.
00:58So well.
00:59Man, they did a good job.
01:00It's about the offensive line.
01:01Dude, I'm telling you.
01:02I was that guy, and I'm proud to say it, because I think it did a few things for me.
01:09Juice Grugs, who I've been kind of high on since training camp, looked outstanding.
01:14I mentioned Kenyon Green yesterday.
01:16D'Amico Ryans was over the top with Kenyon Green, and so I was kind of watching it.
01:24These guys were mauling.
01:26Like they were flat mauling, and it just got me thinking, like, you don't have to have
01:31a running back go for, what'd it go, 159?
01:34That is correct.
01:35That number is going to be etched in my brain.
01:36You don't have to have a guy go for 159 all the time, but as I mentioned yesterday, if
01:41you have an offensive line that, let's say he's run for 78 yards on 16 carries, and you
01:47go into the fourth quarter, and he can run for 30 and move the chains, or 40 and move
01:52the chains in the fourth quarter, if you have a line that can instill their will,
01:57like I said yesterday.
01:58Just imposing.
01:59Yes.
02:00Grown-ass man football.
02:01Then that's something that can carry this team to places that it's frankly never been
02:06before.
02:07Absolutely.
02:08I'm 100% there, and it really is for the reasons that you've laid out, and that we've talked
02:11about all up and down here on 610 is the idea of, hey man, when they know what you have
02:16to do, and you know what you have to do, and you were able to go and just beat them, right?
02:20That's competition, man.
02:22That's the essence of competition, and that's where you prove that you are the best, right?
02:25There's ways in which you can deceive and scheme, and in some ways, you want to do that
02:29as much as possible to give yourself the best chance, but the real instances in any sport
02:35where we're like, oh, this dude is tough, this dude is a dog, as Laramie Tunsil and
02:40others would like to mention, right?
02:41Basketball, 1v1, right?
02:42Football, let's go on one-on-ones, wide receiver, cornerback, who got it, right?
02:48Penalty kicks in some ways, although that's kind of, but you end up in one-on-ones, right?
02:53In live play, there's all of these instances where it's like, you have one goal that you're
02:57trying to achieve, I know exactly what you're trying to achieve, and I'm trying to stop
03:00you.
03:01Those are the real essence of competition, and running the football in some of those
03:04moments where you're trying to close out the game are those, and in test number one, the
03:09Texans proved not just to pass, but also be incredibly capable of doing it, and in large
03:14part that was because Drew Scruggs, Shaq Mason, and maybe most importantly, Kenya Green were
03:20on their grind on Sunday.
03:23It also shows you, what's that term you use occasionally, truth of cause, or what is it?
03:28A proof of concept.
03:29A proof of concept.
03:30Proof of concept.
03:31Proof of concept.
03:32To me, I might steal that occasionally.
03:33Oh, please do.
03:34It's one of my favorites.
03:35I like that.
03:36Big six.
03:37Because the proof of concept here is, like, let's say if the Colts, when the Colts are
03:42really good and can beat you, it's going to be almost, not one-off, but kind of like
03:48one-off plays, like Anthony Richardson goes nuts.
03:52Anthony Richardson throws the ball deep four times and completes three of them for touchdown.
03:57The concept here is, how do you know the Texans can be great?
04:01Because that's not a one-off when you're just boom, boom, boom, boom.
04:05That's not a freak occurrence that you're proving you're better.
04:09It's not a one-play.
04:10Over and over and over again.
04:11Yes.
04:12It's a one-off play thing.
04:13Yeah.
04:14And D'Amico Ryan's, you know, he was talking about this, actually, on the Coach's Show
04:18last night.
04:19Got to listen to all the Texans' radio problems.
04:21Well, and shout out to our guys that put it out there.
04:25That's how I listen to it and cut it up.
04:27But listen to him just, frankly, giddy about it.
04:30Yeah, the key, I think, it starts, like you said, with the interior guys.
04:33Start with Juice, right?
04:34And Juice, and he had a big matchup going against Grover at that two-high position.
04:40He did a great job of flattening him.
04:42So once Joe was getting the ball, we had such great lateral movement that there were these
04:47creases on the backside that we were able to hit.
04:50And that starts with, you know, the guards in the center being able to move, and they
04:53did a really good job.
04:55And when you run outside zone, it goes back to the backside blocks.
04:59And we had one that was a very teach-tape-worthy block of LT and KG.
05:04They were able to get a backside block on Buckner.
05:07Joe cuts back, and it's huge land.
05:09And like you talked about, I said the O-line, but I got to give credit to everyone.
05:13When you run the ball that well, our tight ends, the way they stepped up and blocked
05:18on the edge.
05:19I mean, K, Brevin, and Dalton did a really nice job getting the hat on the hat in the
05:24run game.
05:25And also our receivers.
05:26We talk about Nikko and the big plays that he made down the field, the third and 11.
05:31But in the run game, Nikko is blocking, right?
05:34Robert Woods steps in, he probably had about 12 snaps in the game.
05:37Clinic, teach-tape, wide receiver blocking with physicality.
05:42It was outstanding by all of our guys on the perimeter as well as our offensive line.
05:48I do love, you can tell when a coach is giddy, when they're like, I would put this on film
05:52and show it to other people to teach them.
05:53Teach-tape.
05:54Especially when you talk about D'Amico.
05:55D'Amico was a teacher.
05:56A clinic.
05:57He used the word a clinic.
05:58Right, he's like, this is how you do it.
06:01This is what I was hoping for, this is what I envisioned when I told y'all, this is what
06:04I wanted.
06:05I mean, absolutely those guys on the perimeter deserve credit because that's some of the
06:08things we were talking about when we were scheming up runs, making sure you have hats
06:11on hats.
06:12And you definitely saw that.
06:13I just love some of the language that we used with the offensive line when you went just
06:18flat.
06:19Hat on hat.
06:20Flattened him.
06:21He flattened him.
06:22I imagined cartoon steamrollers just like mowing folks down.
06:26And that's kind of what it looked like.
06:28The stats looked cartoonish, right?
06:29I was showing you the breakdown of where Joe Mixon picked up a lot of his yards and touchdown.
06:35Wide left, right?
06:37Behind the likes of Laramie Tunsell and Kenyon Green and they did a fantastic job.
06:41Absolutely this is something that I am super excited about.
06:43If no other reason then, obviously they were really good, but also the delta from where
06:49the expectation was and where they performed last season to this week one performance.
06:54Not saying that this is the end all be all, but that change in start to finish is so great
06:59that it deserves the plaudits and I enjoyed the hell out of it.
07:03And that's why, you know, one day later what I feel best about is the line, but specifically
07:09the interior line because that's where the biggest questions were.
07:13And it's not, like I said, it's not a one-off.
07:16It's not a, oh, they hit a big play.
07:19No, it's they crammed it down our throat in the fourth quarter.
07:22That's a big difference between a team that can be great and a great team.
07:27And I think there's a big difference there.
07:29It's not just Jeff on the YouTube that said, you know, it's coming.
07:31Look at what happened last night with the Niners in their running game, right?
07:34It's definitely something that was picked up.
07:36And honestly, like those offenses are similar, right?
07:38That's the Bobby Sloak inspiration in some ways.
07:41And so yeah, you can see, I think that's also another thing that's fun is like you see the
07:45ways in which the legacy of running back says the Niners seem to be carrying that on, right?
07:49Where you can look at the likes of Mostert and you look at McCaffrey and now even you
07:53see, I mean, even Debo you can put in there and then you also put in a Jordan, yeah, Jordan
07:58Mason.
07:59Running the football is paramount to what they do in addition to being able to throw
08:02the ball.
08:03And in that Shanahan type system, the Texans are doing that this year.
08:08That's really fun.
08:09And anything that you think is going to be like, you feel best about a day later?
08:14To me, I think it's the interior line because we know what we're getting in CJ Stroud and
08:17we'll talk about that later.
08:18We know what we're getting in Joe Mixon now, you know, he's proving himself there.
08:23But to be able to say those guys in the middle against a really good defensive line and especially
08:28a really good interior defensive line by the Colts, I could not feel better about anything
08:33other than that.
08:34That's right.
08:35In the Loop, Sports Radio.