The Texans completed back-to-back 10-win seasons with their road victory over the Tennessee Titans on Sunday. Seth Payne and Sean Pendergast react to it here.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00I'm Sean Pendergast, he is Seth Payne, and we are striving six days in to be the best
00:05in the world.
00:06Yes, best in the world.
00:07That's our goal in 2025.
00:08Division champions.
00:09That's a start.
00:10Oh, yeah, okay, we gotta be better than that.
00:12That's a start.
00:13Yep.
00:14But I'm so happy with these division champions.
00:15I know.
00:16We get t-shirts.
00:17By the way, you get your t-shirts at Academy.
00:19Ready to roll, it says on it.
00:20You know what I learned last night, Seth, watching Dan Campbell's victory speech after
00:25the Lions clinched the number one seed?
00:27That ready to roll motto that's on the Texans divisional champion t-shirts?
00:32I believe that's an NFL thing, because it's on the Lions t-shirts as well.
00:35Oh, really?
00:36Either that or the Lions are trying to copy the Texans.
00:39Classic Lions.
00:40Yeah.
00:4115-2, trying to copy the Texans.
00:43Yep.
00:44There are all kinds of crazy stats about that game yesterday.
00:45It was the first time in NFL history that a regular season game was played between two
00:51teams that had a combined 28 wins.
00:53Oh, yeah.
00:54I just can't remember, like, oh, okay, there's an extra game.
00:57So it's a little easier to pull off, but still pretty damn impressive.
01:00Well, the next closest was 25, so they both pulled it off by last week.
01:04If they had played last week, it would have been the most.
01:06So that's, yeah.
01:07Yeah.
01:08Yeah, that was fun last night.
01:09It was fun yesterday, man.
01:10It's always fun beating the Titans, especially when Amy Adams gets to cry.
01:14I'm assuming she cried after the game.
01:15She cried when they were 12, assuming she was sobbing her ass off in week 18.
01:21In a way, I almost, I was almost kind of grateful that she's decided to pull off this
01:27little schtick every year in that, all right, it was an emotionally, it was something to
01:33get up for maybe a little bit.
01:35And towards the end of the year, Sean, you might ask, like, okay, well, what do a bunch
01:38of guys who aren't from Houston care about whether or not the Titans are wearing the
01:42Oilers uniforms?
01:44This is a time of year when you're finding stuff to hate the other team for.
01:47And you can, if a few guys on that team, because there was a certain amount of chippiness,
01:51I feel like, okay, you know what?
01:54You go in for that.
01:55All right.
01:56You know, it seems like our owners, at least Hannah McNair, isn't all that happy about
02:01this whole scenario.
02:02Let's do it for Hannah.
02:03Yeah.
02:04It's just, you find anything to latch on to.
02:06Absolutely.
02:07Absolutely.
02:08In this world where hate is around every corner, sometimes you still find yourself out of hate
02:12towards the end of a season when you're tired.
02:14Sometimes hate is the right potion for what it is you're looking to accomplish.
02:18We'll get into exactly what was accomplished yesterday in the next segment.
02:21For now, I mean, I was watching intently.
02:26I was so back and forth on whether I wanted to play the Steelers or the Chargers yesterday
02:29afternoon.
02:30I don't know where you were on the whole thing.
02:32I wanted the Steelers.
02:35I just, the Steelers are...
02:38They're bad right now.
02:39Looks like the Texans.
02:40They're running on fumes.
02:41Yes.
02:42Russell Wilson just looks like whatever that little line up is that used to take him over
02:47the top.
02:48That's gone out the window and he's just, he feels like a deflated withering balloon
02:53of a man and the Steelers defense isn't as, Steelers defense isn't as good as they were
02:58at the beginning of the year.
02:59You could say the same thing about the Chargers and yet the Chargers have the best scoring
03:04defense in the NFL.
03:05Yeah.
03:06And then, Harbaugh versus Tomlin, they're both good coaches, but the way that this team,
03:15this Chargers team is constructed, I just think it's a tougher test for the Texans,
03:19but it's neither here nor there.
03:20Either way, you get a home game.
03:21So there you go.
03:22The odds makers agree with you.
03:24The Chargers are a favorite in this game.
03:26Chargers, Chargers, fairly substantial for a wildcard team coming into another team stadium
03:32in the playoffs.
03:33Three point favorite on the road in the Chargers are not exactly a team that have draped themselves
03:38in.
03:39I shouldn't say a team.
03:40It's a good team, a franchise that's draped themselves in glory in the post season in
03:44the right.
03:45You got all kinds of historical narratives you're running up against here.
03:49Chargers the constantly have been playoff disappointments, even after their most impressive
03:55regular season, regular seasons throughout history that has nothing to do with Jim Harbaugh
03:59or anything.
04:00And yet CJ Stroud has never beaten Jim Harbaugh.
04:04Yeah, I'd forgotten they were acquainted with each other.
04:07Yeah.
04:08Yeah.
04:09Back in the day.
04:10So I've got Nico and CJ.
04:11I'll have to do something with a voodoo doll or something to try to just come to terms
04:15with that whole part of it.
04:16Yeah.
04:17So, yeah.
04:18So it'll be Chargers.
04:19It'll be Saturday at 3.30 and I'm excited about it, man.
04:25We're getting texts in already early in the show here.
04:27I'm happy with the performance.
04:28As a fan, it gave me some hope.
04:30Yeah.
04:31I was actually more excited about the victory than I thought I would be.
04:35Now a part of this thing, the D'Amico's plan and what he wanted to accomplish, although
04:41I disagreed with it a little bit, he had a plan.
04:44He wanted to get out there.
04:45I think he wanted to give the offense, especially maybe a little bit more confidence.
04:50He wanted to remind the defense what they're capable of.
04:53And on that first drive for the sixth time all season, they were able to go down and
04:58score a touchdown on the opening drive.
05:00That feels like a lot because I lived through the Bill O'Brien era.
05:02Yeah.
05:03Yeah.
05:04Well, no, and they've done a good job of scoring on opening drives.
05:07They just haven't necessarily scored a lot of touchdowns on opening drives.
05:09So they've scored six touchdowns on opening drives this year?
05:13Yeah.
05:14Wow.
05:15I'm not even being snarky or tongue in cheek.
05:18That feels like more than the entire Bill O'Brien era combined, like in six years.
05:22Well, Bill O'Brien was awesome at closing out games in the second half, whereas Bobby
05:28Sloak has usually shown that he shows his best stuff in the first quarter, maybe sometimes
05:33in the second quarter, and then falls apart completely in the second half.
05:36So any of those things that might have plagued this Texans offense, you weren't going to
05:39have an opportunity to see.
05:41Plenty of excuses abound for why they only scored 16 points in this game on offense.
05:46So that went about as well as you could have hoped for, given D'Amico's plan was to try
05:51to just maybe inject some confidence and get feeling right going into the playoffs.
05:57So that one looked good.
05:58I mean, I hated that I was keeping count and that I was very aware of this as soon
06:04as Nikko Collins caught the touchdown.
06:07Nikko Collins touched the ball four times on that truck.
06:09Yeah, feed him.
06:10I like that.
06:11If they're going to do that in the playoffs, they should do that.
06:13Now, if you're going to get Nikko Collins 48 touchdowns in a game, then so be it.
06:18It'll be a performance for the ages.
06:21But it wasn't like that drive was one that was textbook, oh yeah.
06:26They're firing on all cylinders right now.
06:28No, no.
06:29But regardless of who CJ was throwing to, I liked the way he threw the football on that
06:33truck.
06:34Yes.
06:35That was my big takeaway from that is that, okay, CJ looked decisive that that corner
06:39blitz that, or at least without the unblocked man coming off the edge.
06:45He did exactly what he needed to do, threw into the teeth of the blitz, got it to Nikko.
06:50Luckily the Titans were too dumb to challenge the fumble and they kept rolling on.
06:56Third and two, they decide to go back shoulder to Nikko and Hey, it was, they, they made
07:02it look easy.
07:03So there you go.
07:04I think getting Nikko involved in the shorter part of the game, that's, that's a good thing.
07:10I think they, they need to continue to work on that.
07:13But then you get CJ out, he stays healthy and you're off to the races.
07:18I, uh, that third and third and short play that you're talking about with Nikko, the
07:22one where he went up over the guy and tippy toed on the sideline.
07:25I mean, that was, unless you were going for it on fourth down, that was a bad play call.
07:30That was a little similar to the wheel route to Joe Mixon on third and two that they ran.
07:34I forget which game might've been the, it might've been the Tennessee game.
07:37Actually.
07:38I forget which game it was, but I was kind of hoping that that would be incomplete just
07:42to see like, okay, now let's let, now let's see what game management looks like on the
07:46opening drive.
07:47You know, do you throw a low, a low percentage pass like that, knowing that you're going
07:52forward on fourth down?
07:53Cause if I, if I'm not mistaken, after that Mixon third and two up, they put it on fourth
07:58and two in that game.
07:59I think that was the Titans game.
08:00If I remember it was at home, I remember that.
08:02So, um, but I'm with you, man, opening drive and they got him out of there and leave CJ
08:06out there to, to lose his confidence or get hurt or anything like that.
08:10The riskiest move of the game was D'Amico going into it with that strategy of wanting
08:16to get some confidence because if it hadn't worked out, uh, if let's say Dalton Schultz
08:21had had one of his ultra frequent drops this season on that, on that bootleg or if CJ hadn't
08:27been able to connect with Nico on that third and short, uh, and then if you go out there
08:32again and you stall out or, or something, then all of a sudden it becomes you're, you're
08:37compounding the bad feelings in the lack of confidence and all of that.
08:41So I thought it was the right move just to have that taste of success and then get CJ
08:46out of there.
08:47They left, they left Laramie in for a lot longer than I thought they would have.
08:51And Laramie to his credit, I think is really tried to do things the right way in totality
08:57in the second half of the season.
08:59I mean, he's, he's always been an astoundingly good pass protector.
09:03It's the run game and the screens and all of that.
09:05I think they've made some progress there.
09:07The two false starts, I'm going to just try to chalk off to like, all right, I know none
09:12of the other offensive linemen had an issue with Davis Mills cadence, but whatever, Laramie's
09:17been good at when CJ has been in there.
09:18I was ashamed of Ross Tucker trying to make excuses for Laramie Tunsell.
09:22And I thought Ross had an A plus performance yesterday, but he's going sometimes the cadence
09:26changes.
09:27I'm like, Ross, you do more research than anybody.
09:29I know as a color commentator, you know, that he's leading the league in these things.
09:33I was, I was shocked and astounded at a couple of things yesterday, respond on social media.
09:38One was that I pointed out the point I just made that like, look, look, I was, I was basically
09:43responding to Ross after the second false start of Laramie's I said, well, look, if
09:47it's, if it's only a problem for one guy, then the problem isn't Davis Mills cadence.
09:52Right.
09:53But I was amazed at how many people were like, Hey man, he's gotten better.
09:56I'm like, are you talking about Davis?
09:58No, no, no, no.
10:00Talking about the Laramie's gotten better.
10:01Laramie's got, I'm like, no, he went the month of December without a false start, including
10:06in which they had a bye week.
10:08Like that's not, I mean, technically, but then no included with Davis though to people
10:13saying like, wow, Davis had a great game.
10:15That's what I thought you were talking about.
10:16Yeah.
10:17No, I'm talking about both of those.
10:18I'm like, what, how far, how far of our standards fallen that a 50% completion percentage and,
10:26and Laramie only having two false starts in the last five weeks is like a huge jump of
10:31progress.
10:32I don't get that.
10:33We're damaged.
10:34We're damaged.
10:35We're damaged by this offense.
10:36Yeah.
10:37David, someone asked me on Twitter, is this the best game Davis has ever had?
10:40I'm like, no, he was, there's a reason he was the starter going into 2022.
10:45He was really good.
10:46The last five games of his rookie year, he had a pass rating of, he had a passer rating
10:49of 102 in his last five games of his rookie.
10:52Like, no, it's not even close to the best game he's ever had.
10:54I was really, honestly, I had to go back and reevaluate it.
10:58I had to go back and watch all of Davis mills throws.
11:00Cause I had all these people saying, wow, Davis looked really good.
11:03He did some nice things, but it wasn't a nice thing, but he was, he was, I mean, like, and
11:07look and CJ's had games like this this year.
11:09And I haven't said there were good games, 54 and a half percent completion percentage
11:12for 128 yards.
11:13No touchdowns.
11:14No, that's not a good game for it or anything.
11:18The game was what it was.
11:20It was a glorified preseason game.