Winners And Losers So Far At Texans Training Camp

KILT-AM / SportsRadio 610

Seth Payne and Sean Pendergast were live from day seven of Texans training camp, so they kicked off the show by breaking down some winners and losers from the first six days.

Transcript

00:00Kamari Lassiter, we know he's been running with the ones.

00:03He's had his good moments, he's had his bad moments like a lot of the rookies have.

00:07Man, the footage, the little cut of D'Amico miked up from practice a couple days ago that

00:13popped up with Kamari Lassiter. Maybe he's cheering everybody on like this out of practice,

00:17maybe it's just D'Amico, but this is the one that popped up on social media,

00:21so this is the one I shall use. This is D'Amico marveling at the effort of the

00:26young rookie cornerback. Way to finish! Way to finish! Way to finish, 14! Way to finish!

00:35That kid freaking competing every snap. Love it! Love it! Every snap! Love it! There you go,

00:42Kamari! Let's go! Yeah, that was the Houston Texans Twitter account that put that out.

00:49I think that's the consistent thing that keeps coming up with Casario and Matt Burke and D'Amico

00:56is that they do not shy away from putting praise on this rookie. The consistency is,

01:01I mean, that's what you fear most with a rookie is, all right, is this guy going to get me fired?

01:07Is this a guy that's going to go have five mental errors in a game and let the ball sail over his

01:13head? Not because he can't physically do it, but because he's a boneheaded rookie.

01:19When they gush about a guy's consistency early in camp, it's a really good sign that they trust

01:24him to play and that he's not, whatever their tests they're putting in front of him, I think

01:29they trust that he's going to continue. He'll continue to get better throughout camp as long

01:33as he keeps working, as long as he stays healthy. So it doesn't mean he's going to be all pro or

01:38anything like that. I think you just, you need somebody opposite of Derek Singley that you can

01:41trust. Well, and I think the defense as a whole, yeah, absolutely, on Lasseter for sure. I think

01:48the defense as a whole, as long as we're doing winners and losers here, look, the offense,

01:52league-wide, the story of this team is the offense and Stefan Diggs coming in and CJ Stroud in year

01:57two and all the pieces they have and the continuity was slow at coming back and everything else.

02:02I've been really encouraged by how often the defense has won out here through the first

02:05six practices. It's been very even and I think the defensive line has been a big catalyst.

02:13That's one of those double-sided swords where, okay, yeah, I feel like the defensive line has

02:19played very well, but what does that say about the offensive line? And, okay, how much credit can

02:24I give the defensive line for going against an offensive line that doesn't have Laramie Tunsell

02:28and has a couple question marks still at left guard and center? What exactly am I seeing here?

02:34Am I just seeing a really good defensive line or am I seeing them just beat up on the hapless

02:40Texans offensive line? Because I do, the praise that I've given to Blake Fisher and Kenyon Green

02:45and Drew Scruggs so far is a little bit with a grain of salt. I haven't seen the egregious

02:50stuff that I would worry about, but they all have some work to do. But the defensive tackle

02:55position specifically, just by virtue of the experience and the different body types,

03:01I feel good about them having solid defensive tackles. And you're never

03:07going to have all pros at every single position on defense. It's just a matter of, all right,

03:12are your guys who aren't your studs, are they credible NFL players? And they did,

03:18they loaded it up with a whole lot of viable players that are competing like hell out there.

03:24And the fun thing about having veteran defensive linemen, because they've got four guys who will

03:29be over 30 years old or over on the defensive line this year, a lot of the stuff, a lot of the more

03:34nuanced stuff, the games that they run, and when you're not blitzing, but you're just running stunts

03:40with each other on the defensive line, that's the kind of stuff that gets better with age,

03:44because guys get better at the deceptive part of it. They understand better which pass protection

03:49they're going to get, because you can call that on your own on the field. A lot of defensive

03:52end and defensive tackle work together. And if they realize that it's going to be slide protection

03:57or something, they call the right game for it between themselves. A lot of times they can just

04:01do it with eye contact. So a lot of that stuff that you don't get out of younger players,

04:06they have that and they're working with Will Anderson on all that stuff.

04:09Yeah. As far as the loser side of the ledger so far, I have a hard time finding big ones aside

04:16from guys who've just not been able to be out here. And as I'm going through camp the first

04:20six days and I'm trying to kind of come up with both sides of the winners and losers ledger,

04:25it gets a little boring because I'm like, well, Christian Harris, he hasn't been out here.

04:28Joe Mixon's missed three practices. John Mechie's missed a couple practices. I guess if you're a

04:33guy who's fighting for a roster spot, which Mechie is, then if you're starting to miss practices,

04:39you fall onto that side of the equation. I would say if we're doing six practices in,

04:44the thing about Mechie is that he flashed before he got injured. So I don't think that it's,

04:50it's not like it's a huge setback or anything. I think if I look at the receiving core,

04:54Robert Woods is the guy that I look at as, man, there's a lot of talented veterans and there's

05:00a couple of very promising young guys, man. I mean, you know, when Woods lines up out there

05:05and you've also got Tank Dell and Stefan Diggs, he's not getting a lot of targets.

05:11Some of the guys I've kind of been noticing, I've been thinking, all right, who hasn't gotten a lot

05:16of targets and maybe I've just missed it, but I haven't seen Troy Harrison, the fullback,

05:21get a whole lot of targets that I can remember. And I think just in this, in the modern NFL,

05:28teams love to have a fullback, but he's got to be a fullback who can also be a receiver.

05:32And, you know, it's not like he's going to be the primary choice or anything. And maybe it's

05:36just a simple matter of that. CJ has had too many other options, but that Andrew Beck would be the

05:41obvious loser so far because he's supposed to be in competition with Troy Harrison, a fullback,

05:46but Beck hasn't practiced at all. That's a good one. That's a good one. That kind of flies under

05:50the radar. Nick has said that every time the receiving group gets brought up post dig straight

05:54is that we're going to end up cutting a couple of good players. They're going to,

05:59they're going to wind up cutting at least one guy, maybe two that immediately wind up on somebody

06:04else's team. Like if Robert Woods gets cut, he'll be in the NFL for week one. I'm pretty confident

06:09about that. You know, he'll be on a team somewhere. And then, you know, and you start to look and you

06:13go, okay, well, I think Mechie is going to make the team. I think you're right. It, it,

06:18I'd like to see him out here, but I think he makes the team. And you've still got Xavier Hutchinson

06:23from last year. You've got Skaronic, you've got Steven Sims, who maybe the kick returner

06:27and is occupying a receiver spot. And Robert Woods, there's a lot of guys. They picked up

06:31Quintess Cephas off the waiver wire. I got a lot of bodies, the guys that I'm emotionally pulling

06:36for right now are Kendrick green, the back of the offensive lineman. He's been playing both guard

06:43and center. I actually saw him at right guard at one point when he was filling in for somebody.

06:47And just cause he's undersized, but he's very, very scrappy. Like he does everything that you

06:53an undersized guy does to our Jordan. I'm incredibly intrigued by just cause he's,

06:57he's shown some real flashes, but he's undersized and we haven't seen,

07:00seen him play tackle football yet and haven't seen him go against the ones a lot. So I just,

07:05I'm excited to see him in preseason. Yeah. In game for sure. I'm excited to see him again today.

07:09He looked really good on, on, on Wednesday when we were out here.

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