On a Reaction Monday, Seth Payne and Sean Pendergast react to the Texans losing 26-23 to the Detroit Lions on Sunday Night Football.
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00:00It's a fun night for a while until the second half of football games. And that's become
00:03a very, very disturbing trend for the Houston Texans. It will be unvarnished here over the
00:09next couple hours. I think that was the second half was embarrassing last night for the offense.
00:16This is now a month. They've gone without scoring a touchdown in the second half of
00:20a football game. And that was a game that was there for the taking against a really
00:24good football team. And you coughed it up last night, a month, a month. They last scored
00:28a second half touchdown Seth, by the way, good morning. How are you? Um, they last scored
00:34a second half touchdown on October the 13th, which was up in new England. Remember when
00:40they played new England? I mean that time they scored touchdowns in the second half
00:43of a football game. Yeah, that was right. Yeah. Yeah. So that was a, that was a, that
00:48was a month ago. That was a boy. Those were the days. I remember those days. It was fun.
00:53Um, so 26, 23, the final score last night. And there's a lot to dig into man. I didn't
00:59just, you can't even it's it's I'm having a hard time this morning because in my mind
01:03to play that ultimately it wasn't like the play that lost the game or anything. And yet
01:07I feel like just was the perfect game was Titus Howard aggressively strip sacking his
01:15own quarterback and then courageously, uh, recovering the phone before disaster really
01:21could have happened. Titus recovered that fumble. He went after it. That's the kind
01:26of scrappiness we need on this team to cover up the errors of guys like Titus Howard, who
01:30strip sacked his own quarterback swarming that ball. They were, they were watching the
01:35defense and they're like, man, those guys are getting a lot of pats on the back for
01:39an atta boys.
01:40Every time they knock the ball out after, after CJ throws an interception or after we
01:45go three and out the defense comes out and they get an interception and everybody says,
01:49Hey, good job. So Titus just figured maybe that's what I need to do to get some recognition
01:53around here.
01:54Yeah. Yeah. And maybe it's a function of the primetime game and the minimal amount of sleep
01:59I get in these situations. I'm upset today. I know. Yeah. You're angry. I am. I am very,
02:03I am very, very upset. I haven't seen you this angry since that time I told you it was
02:07national donut day and it wasn't. Yeah. That was mad. You're angry. This is even worse.
02:15This is where, well, you know what's worse about this? A lot of things, a lot of things.
02:20But as I'm looking up at the TV in our studio right now, like the, the national primetime
02:24get like, we are going to get bludgeoned over the head with this game. You won't be able
02:30to turn without people talking about this game on all the national platform, throwing
02:33it in five interceptions and trailing by 15 plus points.
02:37The last time a team won in that scenario was 1970, the Baltimore Colts, the Baltimore
02:44back when they were an honorable franchise. Yeah. Baltimore. And they were still 16 years
02:48away from even being the Indianapolis Colton, the 70 or 80, 1970, 1970. Yeah. Like that's
02:57the thing now that that's where this offense is right now. It overall. And in the second
03:02half of football games, is it for the second time in four weeks, they are doing things
03:08that at a minimum, at a minimum, they defy math. You know, like the Packers game defied
03:14math in a way. Like there was a, there was an 8% chance you were supposed to lose that
03:18game based on the turnover margin. And you found a way to lose that game. This is ridiculous
03:23last night. Like that every time the offense did something poor, that the defense would
03:28pick them up and go like that.
03:30The first seven minutes of the second half where it was interception, interception, interception,
03:35it back was a tennis match of interceptions. It was the weirdest game for a while. And
03:39I could live with the weirdness until you started to realize, Oh crap, they're going
03:41to lose this game. This weirdness is going to kill us. It's going to kill us. Yeah. And
03:45so this, so this, I don't know what to do at this point. Cause we're starting to bleed
03:50into an area with CJ Stroud. And this is the part that is, is among many things. Most concerning
03:56to me is that for the, especially recently with all the, with all the, the, the horrible
04:02pass protection and things like that, I can give CJ Stroud a pass just based on what quarterback
04:06would be able to deal with being pressured 57% of the time and still function at a high
04:11level in the first half or second half, either half.
04:15CJ Stroud was a huge reason they lost this game last night. And the third quarter we
04:19talk about, okay, come out and perform in the third quarter, come out and perform in
04:22the third quarter. And CJ through two of the worst interceptions we've seen him throw was
04:27on the first play, right? I mean, these aren't, these it just feels like, man, something's
04:34not right. First interception. He did the, the defensive players just lurking there.
04:40It wasn't like he was blind to him or anything. And then on the throw to tank Dell where you
04:45could see tank Dell come open immediately. And look, CJ had the defensive end because,
04:52because the defense did realize, Oh, the Texans are trying to run boots and it's working out
04:56for him.
04:57The defensive end was read the boot pretty well and was in CJ's face, but it's nothing.
05:01We haven't seen many times before where it was enough space for CJ to, to load up and
05:06throw the ball. We'll just drop it in an area. His tank was right. And it just, it looked,
05:13it looked, it was like three steps leading into the, the throwing motion where he just,
05:17CJ looked a little uncertain of himself in a way that I don't think he used to that.
05:21That was the play for me. They're up 20. They're up 23 to 10 at that time. No, sorry.
05:29They're up 23 to 13 at that time. Because Detroit had gone down, gotten that touchdown,
05:34missed the two point conversion. So it's 23 to 13. That interception was the, that was
05:39the play that really turned that game for Detroit. I thought, because if the Texans,
05:45if CJ hits tank on that plan, they're up 30 to 13, I think they win that football game.
05:49The way the defense was playing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that defense was, I don't,
05:53I don't think they're coughing up a 17 point second half. The one thing about the second
05:58half that, that really hurt the Texans was the injury to Lassiter. Cause at first look,
06:05the Texans were responding to fire with fire interception for interception and offense,
06:12giving them nothing at all. But then once the lions started to be able to get traction
06:17And there were just moments. I heard Larry calling Larry and Stafford calling last night
06:22where he was screaming that D'Amico needed to blitz, blitz, blitz. I felt the same. And
06:26then I realized, Oh, they don't, they, he can't, he can't trust the coverage right now.
06:32If he blitzes they just without Lassiter out there. I mean, they, Texas just cut D'Angelo
06:38Ross who was not good, but was playing heavily beforehand, 100% of the snaps in two games.
06:44Yeah. I mean, they just cut him. So they're even down one more than they thought Okuda
06:50they thought was coming back. So lat and he didn't Lassiter has to leave the game. And
06:54I think, I think D'Amico just didn't trust that they could blitz and that the lines were
06:58too lethal. So it did, it ended up looking like bend, but don't break defense. But with
07:02all the, with all the bending and a little bit of breaking, that's the problem against
07:07an offense that has the weaponry to overcome somebody who was as bad as Jared golf was
07:12last night.
07:13Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I thought it was, it's, it was a strange game from this standpoint.
07:17I thought they put good pressure. They didn't sack your golf one time in that game. And
07:20yet I thought they really affected him, but at least one of the interceptions was actually
07:24a fumble. I mean, for all intents and purposes, yeah, that was, I was surprised. They called
07:28that a pick D'Amico. I was, his arm was moving forward just as he, but yeah, whatever. So
07:35I, man, just the part, the part that has me the most upset, two parts have me the most
07:40upset one, this, the things that are going on with this offense in the second half of
07:44football games are things that with a lot of franchises necessitate some kind of change
07:49at some point, whether it's the person, I don't count the changes they made on the offensive
07:55line because those were thrust upon them by injury.
07:57I'm talking like you need to do something here. I don't know what it is, but you need
08:00to do something. I've never seen this before where you have, where you have an offense.
08:04This would be one thing if it was the David Cully Texans not scoring in the second half
08:07of games where you've got a bunch of journeymen, you got, you gotta, you got Davis Mills at
08:11quarterback. If it's not Todd Taylor quarterback and you're not scoring in the second half,
08:15you've got CJ Stroud as your quarterback. I know Nico's out, but you still got some
08:19skill guys.
08:20We're talking about scoring a touchdown. I'm not saying you need to average 19 points a
08:27game in the second half or something like that. We could go through and find a lot of
08:30teams with bad wide receiving cores that have scored a touchdown in the second half in the
08:34last four weeks. It's not a really high bar to clear. I think the other thing that has
08:41me so upset is this was, this is such a blown opportunity for this team. You know, the,
08:46all the things that, that you and I are, are upset about here that we're going to be upset
08:50about over the next couple hours that people are going to be upset about over the next
08:5510 hours on this station or however long after we're off the air into the night, into the
08:59evening. Um, they, they, that's been the tone for the last few weeks with this team
09:05in losing two out of three and getting CJ Stroud nearly killed. You win that game last
09:10night and that honestly it's, it all goes, it's like a reset button. It all goes away.
09:16You're seven and three and you just beat the best team in football at home. Don't care
09:19how you did it. You do. Oh, you needed five picks to do it. Cool. I mean, you're, you're
09:23operating without Will Anderson and Nico Collins. And so, so that's understood like value and
09:28effort at least on one side of the ball. And now, you know, like they're, they are,
09:36they have firmly settled into being in that layer of the league that is just an average
09:41football team that can, they can compete with good teams at times and can lose to anybody.
09:46And if you go and you look at really in hindsight at this season as you're rolling into it,
09:53okay. The offensive line is not getting the job done. That was the one area of the team
09:58that the Texans really didn't do a damn thing for other than, Hey, hopes. Kenyan's a different
10:04guy when he comes back. That's what's frustrating about it. When you talk about, okay, what
10:09could they have done? Yeah. I know that teams don't typically trade for guards at the trade
10:14deadline.
10:15This is okay. Are you afraid to break the mold and you're just going to be the brave
10:20warriors that go out there with the same guys and just can't run the ball? I Sean,
10:25it was glaring. I don't know why. And maybe it was just because they're wearing the monochromatic
10:29uniforms and, and, and a dark color that the offensive line, it looked like boys versus
10:35men. Even as the Texans were rolling in the first half, they weren't rolling in the run
10:39game. They were getting destroyed in the run game. Joe Mixon had to fight his butt off
10:43just to get above one yard, 25 carries for 46 yards. And he was in, in, he was at less
10:49than one yard per carry for a good chunk of the game. So like, and you look across the
10:54board on the offensive line and they are just physically not capable of, of moving those
10:59Chicago defenders. So they're okay. Well, they're smaller and more athletic, except
11:04not really Shaq. He's not that athletic. And Titus Howard is God knows what he is this
11:09year.
11:10And they just versus actual grown men. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's bad. Some of the Texan and
11:16appropriately. So, cause I just said, there's no way they cough up a 17 point lead. If they
11:19score that touchdown to tank, Hey, Sean, they coughed up a 16 point lead. What the hell
11:23is 17 points? What I meant to say was there would have been, if they score that touchdown
11:28there, there would have been like eight minutes left in the third quarter with a ton of momentum
11:32on their side. I don't think they cough up that 17 point lead at that point in the game,
11:36but I get it.
11:37Text her. I understand. Text her. This is what I would ask. Just please don't get super hyper
11:41literal with me like this morning. This is not the morning to do this with me. All right.
11:46So, so, so, you know, I am, I'm not in a good mood.