We do it every week. It's the OG John Lopez with his passing thoughts following the Texans' game, this one a 32-27 loss to the Titans.
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00:00How about the entire game experience from the perspective of one John Lopez?
00:04Let's do a little OG's Passing Thoughts.
00:06Let's do it.
00:07Experiences.
00:08Wisdoms to opinions.
00:10Barbecue sauce.
00:12Our guy Lopez has it all and shares it with you.
00:15I used to go into the clubhouse and I just sh**.
00:19It's time for the OG's Passing Thoughts.
00:23Tell me a story, OG.
00:24Did the Texans go in the clubhouse with you?
00:28They did. They did.
00:29I felt like they was there too.
00:31Yeah, that definitely did feel like a little bit of excrement, didn't it?
00:33It definitely did, which leads to the Passing Thoughts.
00:36This is the first Passing Thought.
00:38Of course, it's all, you know, stream of consciousness as the game goes on.
00:43This was the healthiest the Texans have been,
00:46offensively and defensively, since week one.
00:50Keep in mind, Bears game is when Mixon went down with the hip drop tackle.
00:56We've had multiple injuries since then on the offense or defense,
00:59whether it's Nikko Collins or Will Anderson.
01:04Daniko Autry had a suspension.
01:07We had some injuries.
01:09Like, you're only real starter this in this,
01:12if we're not counting Christian Harris, which by the way, Figgy.
01:15Is that a real person?
01:17Hey, I'll let y'all know when we get the update.
01:22Thank you from the Stiggy News.
01:23Kenny Green was going to get benched anyway, so he's outside.
01:25Was he? He should have been benched.
01:27I can't say definitively that he would have, but yeah.
01:30It's Fuller Rochelle Fatsukase. He was the only one.
01:33He's the only one.
01:33Okay.
01:34This is the healthiest they've been since week one,
01:37and that actually makes it even less encouraging,
01:42you know, because that was a thought I had as the game was starting.
01:44I said, all right, they're healthy on both sides of the ball.
01:47Let's see them cook.
01:48Well, that led to my—
01:50They put raisins in it.
01:52That was what they did.
01:52They put raisins in it, didn't they, Fig?
01:54Too much cinnamon.
01:55Yeah, they put raisins in the potato salad.
01:58Yeah.
01:58Unbelievable.
01:59And that led to my passing thought number two,
02:02and that is I thought it was a bad omen early on.
02:05I thought there was a really bad omen early on.
02:08You could not have had a better start.
02:10I mean, you could not have had a better start to the game.
02:11What's scoring on the first play?
02:12You defer, and then you get the ball.
02:16Wait, before we even get there, big-time return, huh?
02:20That's what I'm saying.
02:20You get the ball instead of—so you defer.
02:23Oh, my bad.
02:24Damien Pierce goes—how far was it?
02:28Well, it was a 19-yard touchdown, so I guess he went 7—well, whatever it was.
02:32I think it was 80 yards, right?
02:3481 yards, something like that.
02:36But anyway, so Damien Pierce has the big kickoff return, and then you have—
02:4180 yards.
02:4280 yards.
02:42And then you have a one-play drive for a touchdown.
02:45You couldn't have started any better.
02:47And then, right after that, the Titans go into the field,
02:52but they go boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
02:53Big plays after big play.
02:57I thought that was a bad omen.
02:58You should have run them off the field.
03:00You should have taken that, stuffed them, and then just play pile-on, you know?
03:04Sure.
03:05There's a lot of shouldas in this one, though.
03:07Well—
03:07There's a lot of shouldas in this one.
03:10Well, they shoulda, coulda.
03:11Yeah.
03:11The Titans scored on their first three drives.
03:13Field goal, touchdown, touchdown.
03:15Yeah, yeah.
03:16And that led to bad omen number two,
03:18and I was sitting up there with you at this point in the press box—
03:21Don't put this on me.
03:22Well, I am gonna put it on you.
03:23What?
03:24The Titans were running the ball the way Reggie wants the Texans to run the ball.
03:28That is correct.
03:29They were going 5, 7, 6, 9.
03:33There was no—
03:34The longest play until late in the third quarter, I believe,
03:36maybe it was early in the fourth, when Pollard busted a 27-yarder,
03:39was 17 yards.
03:41That was it.
03:41Their longest rush was 17 yards,
03:43and yet they were averaging 6.8 yards a carry.
03:48That's why I was talking about, you know,
03:51and now for something completely different,
03:52the defense was just getting gashed.
03:55It looked like they didn't have a—
03:58It looked like they didn't have an appropriate amount of pride,
04:02and that was disconcerting.
04:04It could have been pride.
04:05I'm not gonna disagree.
04:06It could have been overconfidence.
04:08It's always really concerning.
04:10Like, I try not to get into these places
04:12where you question people's, like, you know, like, intentions or whatever.
04:15Overconfidence is what I'll call it.
04:16They just—
04:17Whatever you attribute it to.
04:19I'll say it like this.
04:21The effort and energy early on,
04:24and honestly, for the most part throughout the game,
04:26was not there in the right way,
04:27as evidenced by the fact that the tackling was poor.
04:29When did you see Swarm?
04:32It was individual brilliance.
04:33I heard Swarm.
04:34You know how they do the, you know, they have the crowd chant.
04:37When did you see Swarm?
04:40Like, Will Anderson was on another level, by the way.
04:42I'll pass on that answer.
04:43I'll get to that in a minute, but speaking of Reggie,
04:45I got one more for Reggie here as a passing thought.
04:47This is your passing thoughts.
04:49I'm all in it.
04:50Because it's my passing thoughts, and I was thinking of you.
04:54Guess what Reggie said as we're finishing up the first quarter, Figgy?
04:58What'd he say?
05:00You know, that was a really fast first quarter,
05:02and I'm like, what the heck are you doing?
05:03Why did you say that?
05:06I was acknowledging a thing that was there, right?
05:08I was just remarking—
05:10That was a really fast first quarter.
05:11It was!
05:12Second quarter went 52 minutes.
05:15I don't have—
05:16That's on you.
05:16What are you implying?
05:17Are you implying that I have power?
05:19Are you implying that I have power to make things happen?
05:21Because I feel like if I had power to make things happen,
05:24a 32-27 final wouldn't have been what happened.
05:27Right?
05:29Fair?
05:2952 minutes.
05:30I feel like if I had a power to make something happen,
05:32we wouldn't still see tosses.
05:34We wouldn't still see, you know, toss right, toss left.
05:37If I had that.
05:39The 52-minute second quarter was maybe not the outcome.
05:42You know, that's a really fast first quarter.
05:43Oh, shut up.
05:44Don't say that.
05:45Don't ever say that.
05:46It went fast.
05:48I blame the alcohol.
05:48It was a lot of it.
05:49Another passing thought here.
05:50Okay, remember before the season,
05:53when you saw the Texans' home schedule,
05:55and you had quarterbacks like Caleb Williams,
05:57Josh Allen, Jared Goff, Trevor Lawrence for what it's worth,
06:01Anthony Richardson for what it's worth.
06:04What would—
06:05What were the odds—
06:06And by the way, you still have Lamar Jackson and two of them coming up.
06:11What are the odds that Will Levis would have the most passing yards,
06:17the two longest plays in your building, a 63 and a 70-yarder,
06:21and as many TDs passing as any of those guys?
06:27Actual odds?
06:29I'm not good at being an odds maker.
06:30Will Levis.
06:31I would have put it at pretty low percentage-wise.
06:34Owns NRG.
06:36All right, calm down.
06:38I don't like the way you said that.
06:39Okay, I just gave you the numbers.
06:41All those quarterbacks?
06:42You are technically correct, and I don't like it.
06:44Josh Allen, Jared Goff?
06:46Will Levis has had a better game in NRG than them.
06:49I hate it.
06:50Any other quarterback that has come into NRG this year?
06:52Will Levis has had a better game in NRG.
06:54I hate it here.
06:55I hate it here.
06:56I hate it here.
06:57Oh, my gosh.
06:59Here's another one, and this might be a little unfair, but I don't think so.
07:04Jimmy Ward had the pick six that should have turned the game.
07:07You know, it should have been a wrap after that.
07:09You should have gone ahead and just stick a fork in him.
07:12But safety play was bad.
07:15Yeah, man.
07:16This is where the deep play issues that you speaking about some of those other
07:22quarterbacks that, you know, did not play out that well.
07:25It's this entire season for the Texans, especially defensively, as I've come
07:31along, I've come around to the idea of, oh, man, this team is really good
07:34defensively, but early on, we were getting to that place where we're like,
07:37hey, look at the results.
07:38And I was like, okay, but like, how about all those missed passes or
07:41opportunities that have been available over the top that teams had not taken
07:44advantage of?
07:45This is one of those instances where it was like, hey, that came home to roost
07:49in some ways because those deep shots that felt like they were available,
07:53especially early on in the season, they were available again.
07:56And then you had Will Levis capable of actually taking advantage of those to
08:00Calvin Ridley and to Westbrook Aquinae, who oddly enough just seems to do this
08:04a whole bunch, right?
08:05I think he had a 98 yarder, was that two weeks ago?
08:07As well as the big play that you have there, you have Okonkwo having the big
08:12play in space because dudes are just in the wrong place.
08:15That felt like that was something that another one of those threads that was
08:21there to be pulled.
08:22And for some reason, the Titans were the ones to actually come and pull it.
08:24Look, Eric Murray got smoked.
08:27Eric Murray did not cover himself with glory in this one.
08:30And I was looking into your general social media space being like, oh, okay,
08:34there are people evoking that name.
08:37What name?
08:37Do you know the name?
08:38Of who?
08:39Justice Simmons.
08:41Like this goes back to that conversation that was had in the offseason and
08:45we thought that, hey, no, no, you've gotten good enough safety play.
08:48That popped up again because Eric Murray had that kind of game.
08:51On the touchdown to Nick Westbrook Aquinae, smoked.
08:55On the touchdown, Okonkwo, 70 yarder, missed tackle.
08:59Eric Murray, both of those.
09:00And Jimmy Ward, big play, congratulations.
09:03It was very big in the moment, but he whiffed on a couple and
09:06got picked on when Jalen Petrie went out.
09:09Early, yeah, immediately when he had to step into that Jalen Petrie role,
09:12that's very distinct.
09:13Yeah, he wasn't handling it quite well.
09:16He eventually got to a place where he was like, all right, this is,
09:18I think this is fine.
09:19Especially like, he's knifing in and diving in for tackle for
09:22loss in the same way that Jalen Petrie would.
09:24I do wonder, like losing Petrie in that game, Petrie ends up being one of the
09:28dudes that brings some of the swarm.
09:30At least with some of the, he played with the physicality.
09:33It feels like it is exactly the level that D'Amico Rynes would call for.
09:37And when you watch this game and you maybe saw a lack of physicality or
09:42a lesser physicality than was desired, it's easy to look up and be like,
09:45huh, Jalen Petrie wasn't on the field, huh?
09:48One more for you here.
09:49I thought, I mean, this is just sort of a personal feeling.
09:52When you get performances like you did out of Daniel Hunter and
09:55Will Anderson, you got to win that game 10 out of 10 times.
09:58They had five sacks combined, five more quarterback hits,
10:03seven tackles for losses.
10:05You got to win that game 10 out of 10.
10:07We talked about swarm, this was an individual brilliance kind of
10:10defensive performance by just those two dudes.
10:12Correct.
10:14I think one of the questions I wanted to ask during this program,
10:19were there any Texans that escaped your ire?
10:22Those two dudes.
10:22Those were the two that immediately came to mind and I was like,
10:26are there any possibles?
10:27Yeah, and we got any Spades players, right?
10:28I got two.
10:29Do you got any possibles in here?
10:31Two in the possible.
10:31Right, like do you have any possibles?
10:33Because those are the ones that came to mind immediately that I was like, yes.
10:36And then I was like, I don't know.
10:37Are there any more?
10:38So keep that in mind.
10:39We might run that through and have that conversation or you know,
10:42might as well text in on the 5-Hour Energy fan line, 713-572-4610.
10:46Let me know.
10:46Were there any other players in this game that escaped your ire, escaped
10:50your anger as it felt like it was pretty even across the board, which
10:55just speaks to how problematic it is.
10:58In fact, what you're talking about, your final passive thought there,
11:00the idea that you have eight sacks, you have performances from your
11:03edges, your pass rushers at that level, and you don't get a win is
11:07because you had so flatly across the board, so many, you know, failure,
11:12big or small from all sorts of guys across this team that didn't allow
11:15you to get a win against a team that you probably should.
11:18I mean, D'Amico said it and we'll play it at some point.
11:21One of the most frustrating things about this game is that with all
11:24of the things that you did not accomplish or that you did not play
11:28up to the standard of in this game, you still had a chance to win.
11:31Yeah.
11:32Frustrating.