The Texans still lead the AFC South, but the lost to the 2-8 Tennessee Titans at home. Is this a new low for this team, which appears to be regressing rapidly? In The Loop discussed that here.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00And, and where, where do we start with one?
00:03I mean, well, actually first we might need to start with ourselves because
00:06I think on Friday, we had a level of exuberance that I think, you know,
00:12sometimes just because it's a Friday, but also because it felt like this was
00:15a game that was set up pretty well.
00:18I thought that this was a team that you could handle up on, right?
00:23I did not anticipate everything would go wrong, that they would do all
00:25of the bad things in this game.
00:27And so I have to raise my hand and say my bad.
00:30Like I, I, I diagnosed this incorrectly, but I don't think that I anticipate
00:35this Texas team coming out and having like all of the issues that they have
00:39displayed at various points during the season, all kind of popping up in the
00:44same game and allowing a Titans team to narrowly get past them on your home field.
00:52Remember when we said, are we missing anything last week?
00:55Yes.
00:56You did say that.
00:56Are we missing anything?
00:58Like, like Will Levis, he's been pretty good last few games before, before
01:01yesterday, uh, you know, the, the inside guys, we knew that was the big story.
01:05Uh, you know, they could maybe blow up a game and, you know, they do have a
01:08couple of running backs that can play.
01:11I mean, there were one, one of them wasn't playing, you know, TJ Spears.
01:14Right.
01:14Yeah.
01:14But you know, and so we're like Tony Pollard.
01:17At one point I turned to Patrick Creighton in the press box and I said,
01:20did Tony Pollard space jam Joe Mixon?
01:22Yeah.
01:23Did he?
01:23Hey man, touch this football right quick.
01:25Let me, let me take, let me, cause he 100 plus and a touchdown.
01:28Yeah.
01:29That's that was, that was what we had said.
01:31Like by, uh, you know, hell or high water, Joe Mixon would come with.
01:34Yeah.
01:34It's not what he had in this game.
01:35Yeah.
01:35So, so I'm like, we were missing something.
01:38And, and, and then you said, you just said a word that was really sort of a, I
01:42know people use this word far too casually these days, but it wasn't, it
01:45was a trigger when you said cathartic.
01:47Uh, I hope it's cathartic because who, uh, that's another one of my new favorite
01:55he's like, what make us feel better.
01:58Catharsis is like a feeling.
02:01And so I think when people say big words like that, why don't
02:03you just say what it means?
02:05That's a great point.
02:06You could have just said, make you feel better.
02:07That is, that is true.
02:09I could have said that.
02:09And I didn't another instance, but we're going to continue to do it because it
02:14is be fast becoming one of my favorite things.
02:16When Figgy goes, what?
02:17Huh?
02:17I don't do it in tennis, but you did say that make us feel better.
02:23I won't say cathartic, although I just did.
02:25Yeah.
02:26And I was like, one of the other things we did last week is, is we were talking
02:30about, like, remember when things could be so bad that they're actually good
02:35that you kind of laugh about it.
02:37Like some of the things that's not this game, because I don't agree.
02:42That's not this game.
02:43It wasn't so bad.
02:44You kind of laugh and halfway expected it and all that.
02:47This was Reggie Figgy.
02:50This was the low point.
02:52This is the low point of 2024.
02:55And the reason it is is because the worst thing you can do, especially 12 weeks in
03:00guys, it's Thanksgiving week, forget the 85 degree temperatures today,
03:05which is absurd by the way.
03:07But, uh, I don't know how to feel.
03:09I really, truly don't.
03:10I'm wearing short sleeves.
03:11Yes.
03:11This is Thanksgiving week.
03:13You sorry.
03:14Ring the bell.
03:15I can't reach it from here.
03:17You are what you are.
03:19You are that, you know?
03:21And, and, and what the Texans are right now is not just a team that,
03:25that isn't what we expected.
03:27This is the bad part.
03:28They're regressing.
03:29Yes.
03:30They're regressing in, in all sorts of different places.
03:33That's what, that's basically what I was getting to when it came to.
03:38Um, all you've put on tape during the course of the season at various
03:41points, all seem to show rear their ugly head all simultaneously.
03:46And that was the, the biggest frustration for me is that when in, in a time period
03:52where it felt like you look at the schedule and you have Cowboys, Titans,
03:56Jaguars, all of whom you can look at their, their records in the, uh,
04:00Dennis Green way of, uh, you know, we are, you are, we thought they were,
04:03or we are, or they are who we thought they were, right?
04:05Like you look at the records and you're like, okay, these are
04:08probably not the greatest teams.
04:10In theory, this should be the period of time, not just the three wins, but
04:14you get yourself finding some consistency as you gear up for bi-week.
04:19Dolphins, Thanksgiving, Chiefs, Ravens, right.
04:22To, to, to pretty much end off the season, right?
04:25You were trying to find some level of consistency and you were hoping that
04:28these were the games that you did that.
04:30Not only did you not find inconsistency, you found inconsistent, inconsistency
04:34in a way that was like worse than anything that you had seen from
04:37this Texas team all season long.
04:39You had CJ Stroud though, in interceptions, you had penalties in a bad way.
04:43You had a defense that I think we had gotten to commence could be elite, missing
04:47tackles, blowing coverages, right.
04:49It's generally not flowing.
04:51It's showing the amount of juice that you imagine that they'd have a week
04:54after you went to Dallas and showed a level of juice that I thought was
04:57going to be able to be consistent.
04:59Right.
05:00It just felt like this team regressed in all sorts of places.
05:04And it was really frustrating.
05:05Cause not only did you do that, you did it against the team that you really,
05:07really, really don't want to lose against a team that's, you know, in
05:11this division that you felt was, you know, woeful and I know for, for you
05:15in particular, from that woman.
05:17Yeah.
05:17Well, you will get that, but it'll come up.
05:19No, no.
05:19And I think it's, it's meaningful that it's Thanksgiving week because
05:23you know, the elite teams now, you know, the teams that are going to
05:27be contenders in the post season.
05:29Texans are not on that list right now, man.
05:32They're not on that list.
05:32And, and, and this is something for either geeks, nerds, or old heads, but
05:39there was an old show called Monty Python's flying circus.
05:42And geeks, nerds, or old heads, geeks, nerds, or old heads.
05:47Uh, you may not be familiar with Monty Python's flying circus, but some
05:50people are geeks, nerds, and older.
05:52I have, I have heard of it.
05:53I can't say that I've watched it and consumed it.
05:56They do a bit called, well, it's, it's a famous line from the show says, and
06:00now for something completely different.
06:02I thought of that when I saw this defense getting gashed, gashed
06:08early, uh, bad mistakes late, uh, just, you know, getting, getting
06:16cut up by Will frigging Mayo Levis.
06:21Well, you did say that he had been playing better.
06:23God, he hadn't been playing like this.
06:26Uh, you know how it is where, you know, you get a, you get a call from your
06:30homeboy or whatever, uh, because you have to answer for your team.
06:34Right.
06:34Yeah.
06:34And I only call when you lose.
06:36I saw that number pop up and I was like, all right.
06:38Literally the words that I said to him as I answered the phone
06:40was I was expecting this.
06:43And one of the things that we talked about in our 45 minute conversation
06:48was if somebody decided to walk up to me and say, Hey man, will
06:52Levis play better than CJ Stroud?
06:53I couldn't tell them a damn thing.
06:55No, that is a shame.
06:57That's a shame.
06:58He threw a pick six and got sacked eight times and cut you up, cut you up.
07:05The two longest plays the Texans have given up in this stadium
07:10belong to will Levis 63 yards.
07:13Calvin Ridley.
07:14That's disgusting.
07:15And 70 yards to a Quonqua.
07:17That's nasty word, man.
07:18Let me say that again.
07:19The two longest plays this defense has given up in NRG stadium was
07:23yesterday to will Levis.
07:25That brother probably eating through a straw right now.
07:29And he came out with the W and the better quarterback.
07:32Yes.
07:33Yes.
07:33And the thing that's also frustrating is that he had some big play shots, but
07:38like some of those were just like getting the ball out and then you
07:41fumbling over your own, you know what, and allowing, like the Quonqua
07:45play is just fascinating to me.
07:47I've watched it many times and now that there's all 22, I get to watch
07:51it from different angles now.
07:52And it's just amazing to me how hard Henry Toto bit.
07:57And when you talk about regression, Toto, this season was a representation
08:02of, wow, look at the progress that can be made with a level of focus
08:06and conviction in what you're doing.
08:09You, you, and I'm, I'm kind of doing this to poke at you, but not like you,
08:13you got to a point where you're like, look, we have to talk about
08:15Henry Toto as being good.
08:16Yeah.
08:17Henry Toto did not, uh, we don't anymore, by the way, he did not, uh, he
08:21did not reward that coverage thing.
08:25It felt like earlier on in the season, reading and reacting for
08:28Toto had gotten so much better.
08:30Right?
08:31He triggered at the right times and he fired in with a, with a conviction
08:35of a torpedo of a heat seeking missile.
08:38He had the opportunities and the instances where you need to
08:40kind of like react playing space.
08:42He was solid.
08:43Like, I'm not going to get out here and say that he was like anywhere near
08:46all pro or anything to that, uh, to that extent, but he was solid.
08:50This was woeful.
08:51And then on that same play, you've got guys like completely, uh, missing
08:56their assignment or just not really showing level of effort, a level of
09:00swarm, and that felt so disparate, so far away from what this team has
09:06identified as or set as their identity, both like from the top down with just
09:11the general notion of it, but then, you know, displayed identity over the
09:15course of the season, that regression might've been the most disappointing
09:18for me, just watching this defense.
09:20And I understand the defense had eight sacks, seven of them in the first half,
09:23one of the second half that allowed them to just kind of do what they
09:25need, do what they needed to do.
09:27And then also it was another week in which, yeah, you can look at the sacks,
09:31but those are a certain amount of plays.
09:33The other plays poor tackle, poor effort.
09:36And that, yeah, yeah.
09:37That one, that one stuck with me.
09:39And that, uh, that 63 yarder and 70 yarder were representative
09:43of what you were just saying.
09:45And that doesn't even count the 38 yarder for a touchdown where, you know,
09:49the, the, the, the secondary was just torched again.
09:52That's why I said now for something completely different, the defense was.
09:56Awful.
09:56And now for something even completely different from that.
09:59Okay.
10:00If Joe Mixon, if, if, if, if the book is out on Joe Mixon, you're cooked
10:06and the book might be out on Joe Mixon.
10:08You're cooked.
10:08Uh, I saw, I saw Seth was, uh, tweeting about this not too long ago,
10:12maybe like 20 minutes ago.
10:13Um, Jeffrey Simmons, if I remember correctly, or actually just go to the
10:18beat before I mess around and, uh, misquote various different people.
10:22But, uh, Jared Patterson said that the Tennessee linebackers played
10:26them differently than expected.
10:27And that led to struggles in the run game.
10:29And I think Seth has identified it perfectly.
10:31And I, it's how I felt and I'm glad that, uh, it's lines up with a former
10:35NFL player in Seth Payne, very smart man.
10:38Titans linebackers stayed backside on zone runs, anticipated the cutbacks.
10:42And it's like, all right, we know that we have guys in the middle
10:45that are going to kind of block up the general run lanes that are
10:48created in the zone, zone run scheme.
10:50And so we'll just sit on the cutbacks.
10:52And they, they completely nullify Joe Mixon in a way that was disturbing
10:57because it was just individual brilliance for this run game.
11:00We've talked about it many times.
11:01They're not a consistent, you know, four or five yards at a time.
11:05They are here.
11:05Joe Mixon breaks plays and Joe Mixon didn't break any 14 attempts, 22 yards
11:10with eight yards being the longest
11:12in games, not against the Dallas Cowboys who are horrid and putrid.
11:16Uh, the two other games in the last three weeks, Joe Mixon
11:19has 39 carries for 66 yards.
11:23That's a 1.69 yard average.
11:25Is that good?
11:26That is not good by, uh, by, by, by my little pea brain account anyway.
11:30Uh, but no man, uh, that's why we're saying this is the low point.
11:35This was regression on a number of fronts, specifically defensively.
11:39And, uh, you're, you're, you're getting a book on Joe Mixon that by the way,
11:44the Jacksonville Jaguars are reading as we speak, uh, and it's late in the year.
11:49There is no more, oh, they can fix this.
11:51They can fix that.
11:52What are they going to fix right now?
11:53What, what do you expect them to fix?
11:55Is maybe a better way to put it.
11:58That is not for me for right now.
11:59Cause for this moment right now, like what do I expect them to fix?
12:03Not a damn thing.
12:04Cause here's the thing.
12:04Oh, Bobby Sloak will get better in the second half.
12:06Oh, by the way, let's talk about the second half.
12:09That is not something completely different.
12:11That is something we are quite familiar with.
12:13Yes.
12:14There's a level of comfort in that.
12:15I know this, I know this one.
12:16I've seen this movie before.
12:18Exactly.
12:18It is.
12:19Well, I was about to say it was a comfort watch.
12:20Not nearly.
12:21But, uh, the antithesis of a comfort watch, your defense is outscoring your
12:24offense in the last couple of games.
12:25Yeah.
12:26Yeah.
12:2714 to, was it 10?
12:29Something like that.
12:29Yeah.
12:30Cause they got a field goal yesterday.
12:31They had 54 yards in the second half yesterday.
12:33They never crossed midfield.
12:36Yeah, man.
12:37The Bobby Sloak, the Bobby Sloak noise is, is loud as hell.
12:42And it should be.
12:43And it rightfully is.
12:45And we'll talk about that as we continue to show, we'll talk about, there's so
12:48many different places that we can go.
12:50And the, the five-hour energy fan line is on all of them.
12:52Right.
12:53Uh, you know, talking about the offensive coordinator, uh, talking
12:57about the loss of Stephon Diggs, coaching pops up, right.
13:01Uh, it felt like I was watching the Aggies game lose and then the
13:05Texans might do the same again.
13:07Right.
13:07Why'd you have to bring that up?
13:08Because, because I don't know, we laugh to keep from crying.
13:12I don't know.
13:13Uh, two eight one.
13:14When do Houston fans start wearing paper bags on their head?
13:17Oh, wow.
13:18That is the level of distraught you are after this game.
13:20I mean, this is a team that is still seven to five and the way that they are
13:23playing, the way that they have gotten to that seven to five is so disheartening.
13:27Yeah.
13:27And that's the damn shame about it.
13:29That is absolutely it.
13:30This is a team that you geared up and that reasonable people looked at them
13:34and said, okay, now is the time to push towards super you lost to a two and eight
13:40football team.
13:40You lost to a two and eight at home.
13:43Yes.
13:44Uh, and we're going to get to all that that implies as well.
13:47But, uh, you know, and, and, and CJ Stroud took some, you know, a large part
13:51of the blame and he should, and he should, uh, he had, he flirted with a
13:56Dan Orlovsky moment, uh, there at the end that ice the game.
13:59Uh, it kind of, he flirted, he flirted, there was pressure, which kind of pushed
14:04him out, but he was heading out anyway.
14:07He was heading out the back.
14:09Did he officially go out?
14:10Oh yeah.
14:11Yeah.
14:11Okay.
14:12Yeah.
14:12But he like, had there not been any, you know, any pressure coming from his
14:15front side, he didn't need some twinkle toes to make sure he walked out.
14:20Um, but you still had a 40% pressure rate and Bobby Slowick.
14:25My gosh.
14:26I have been defending this guy.
14:27I mean, not as much the last month or so, but, uh, I've
14:29been defending, defending this guy.
14:31What are you, what the hell are you doing?
14:32Running inside?
14:34Like their last, that fourth quarter, they were running right at the
14:37two baddest dudes on the defense.
14:40Right at them there.
14:43They've been turning like this Titanic.
14:44Yeah.
14:45There's, there's a general ethos of, we do, we are going to do what we do.
14:51And we're just going to need to do it better.
14:53And it's been, it's been made abundantly clear that you're
14:56not going to get better enough.
14:58I don't even think that's grammatically correct, but you're not going to get
15:01better enough for it to be sufficient for what you want to do.
15:05And so it would feel, it would seem that to logical people
15:08that would dictate change.
15:10Let me find the two baddest dudes out there and I'm going
15:13to try to run right at them.
15:15And what is that?
15:16What is that?
15:16Like prison mentality?
15:18Like, yeah, I guess it might've been.
15:21Oh my goodness.
15:22Is that the prison mentality where you're like, yo, find
15:24the biggest guy and punch him.
15:26Right.
15:26Is that, is that the thought process?
15:28Yeah.
15:28How does that usually work out?
15:29And I appreciate Sean Pendergast who is the, he is the, the, the
15:33keeper of these books on second half scoring.
15:35Um, he, he made sure to clean me up.
15:37Texas D 14, Texas O 13.
15:39We shorted them three points.
15:40Okay.
15:41My bad Texas offense, 13 points in two second halves.
15:44Uh, does that make you feel any better?
15:45No, it doesn't.
15:46There's so much to talk about.
15:48And, uh, I, I recognize this and this is fair.
15:50Ben on the YouTube said, geez, Reggie, I thought you said
15:52cathartic eventually, but this is, this is like a, one of them
15:55real deep tissue massages.
15:57It's going to feel bad right now.
15:59Hopefully on the back end of it, you'll be able to feel
16:01loose and all right again.
16:02We'll, we'll try and keep that going.
16:03It's a process driven.
16:06I say that skeptically myself.
16:09I understand, but I appreciate you guys rocking with this.