Should Expectations Change For The Texans?

KILT-AM / SportsRadio 610

Is it possible the Texans just are not as good as they were hyped up to be this season? Payne and Pendergast discuss whether the expectations should change.

Transcript

00:00text message, five-hour energy fan line,

00:02morning boys, worst six and three team in the league.

00:06I think they're the only six and three team in the league,

00:09but I get what you're saying right now.

00:10There'll be more after this weekend.

00:12Shows that it's all luck so far.

00:14Why won't the OC open up the playbook to longer passes?

00:18All right, we'll put the OC question aside for a second.

00:20We've batted Bobby Slowick around plenty here

00:22over the last couple of segments.

00:24What is this team right now?

00:27What are the expectations for a team, Seth,

00:30that has spent the better part of the last month and a half

00:33in the top five or six of everybody's power rankings?

00:37And I think a lot of that is because the people

00:39that do these power rankings don't watch every snap

00:42of every game and the game flow with the Texans

00:45and maybe aren't in tune with the fact

00:46that they protect CJ Stroud abysmally.

00:50They don't score in the second half of football games.

00:54They've allowed teams to stay in the games

00:56with just silly mistakes.

00:57There's a sloppy team by and large.

00:59They are a sloppy six and three team

01:02and now everybody's seeing it

01:04on national television last night.

01:05So the Texans right now, and this is something

01:08that we've been pointing out pretty regularly

01:11that all right, it's not like their scoring margin

01:15is all that great.

01:16It's not like, we've been saying,

01:18they've been playing like a 500 team.

01:20So there's lots of 500 teams that are

01:25are plus five in the scoring margin.

01:29You look at the Falcons are five and three

01:31and they're minus, they're plus one in scoring margin.

01:35Right now the Texans are six and three,

01:37but they're plus one.

01:39They're a 500 football team, much like many

01:42of the other four and four teams in the league

01:44or like the five and three Falcons, right?

01:47They're not, they've been too high

01:49in some of the power rankings based on the way

01:51some of their games have gone against good opponents.

01:54And yes, they've got a nice win versus the Bills,

01:56but that was with the Bills without their best receiver

01:58at the time and before Amari Cooper.

02:00They're not the same team as the Bills.

02:02They're not, and I get what you're doing with the comps

02:04to some of those other teams right there.

02:05I think for purposes of what we were all hoping

02:08the Texans would be this year.

02:09And again, to the point of where I think

02:11some national pundits think they are, but they may not be.

02:15The teams that they are around the same part

02:17of the standings in the AFC right now,

02:19the Bills are six and two

02:22and they're scoring differentials plus 84.

02:25This-

02:26Is that more than one?

02:27I'm not a mathematician, Sean.

02:28It's 84 times the amount that plus one is, yes.

02:32They're 8,400% better than the Texans.

02:35Something like that, yes, yes.

02:37Or is that 840%, they're 840%, no, it's 8,400%.

02:40No, it's a lot, yeah, it's a lot, it's a lot of zeros.

02:43The Steelers are six and two,

02:45like the Texans were this time yesterday.

02:48They are plus 68 and that's with bad,

02:51mediocre, not bad, but mediocre quarterback play

02:54for most of the year, they're plus 68.

02:56The Baltimore Ravens, who are five and three

02:58and play the Texans on Christmas day,

03:00they're plus 33 and that's at five and three right now.

03:03The Texans are plus one.

03:06I mean, I get all the celebrating, hey, win's a win.

03:09And if you win by three and you win by 20,

03:11it's the same thing.

03:12And it is, in the standings, it's the same thing.

03:15But in terms of what your team is capable of accomplishing

03:19or what I care to predict,

03:21they're capable of accomplishing.

03:23Like, am I backing you right now with a Super Bowl bet

03:25at plus one scoring differential on a six and three team?

03:28Hell no, I'm not right now.

03:30No.

03:31Yeah, I can't do it, man.

03:32They're, I mean, the one thing that you just,

03:39that you can't look past is that,

03:42as we've said all year long,

03:44you don't need the advanced stats to tell you

03:45that they're a middling offense.

03:47They entered this week as the 14th scoring offense

03:51in the NFL.

03:52And yes, that was a good chunk without Nico Collins,

03:55but you still had Stefan Diggs.

03:56You still had Tank Dell, who last night showed

03:58that he's still very much a viable wide receiver.

04:01That's with Joe Mixon having multiple hundred yard games,

04:04but he missed a little bit of time.

04:05But this is, this game last night versus the Jets,

04:08I'm glad, you know what?

04:09I'm glad they had this versus the Jets, at least,

04:10if they had to get a really, really bad loss out of the way,

04:13because it was against a team that had won two games,

04:17against a team that had looked lost

04:19and disheveled last week.

04:20Not even last week, this week.

04:23This week, by the normal calendar.

04:27The first day of the week is Sunday.

04:29Yeah, I know it's a different NFL week,

04:33but it was four days prior.

04:34They looked like they couldn't get out of their own way.

04:37And they came out, and in the second half,

04:38especially the Jets offense was surgical against you.

04:42In the second half, the Jets defense did,

04:46would expect from looking at their depth chart,

04:48but which they hadn't been doing previously,

04:50it was just a complete dismantling.

04:52So you can spare me the,

04:54well, they don't have Nico Collins or Stefan Diggs.

04:57Lots of teams don't have Nico Collins or Stefan Diggs,

04:59and those teams have put up better performances

05:01versus the freaking Jets.

05:03So I don't want to hear that.

05:05I don't want to hear that.

05:06I would have accepted that versus the Lions,

05:08but not against the Jets.

05:10Not against Aaron Rodgers,

05:11who had looked like the worst version of himself

05:13that we have ever seen

05:14since maybe the first year that he started.

05:16Like, no, I'm not in any mood for that.

05:18It was his worst half as a pro in the first half

05:22of that game.

05:22Like, threw for 32 yards, I want to say.

05:24I've got, hang on, I got it right here.

05:25Aaron Rodgers at the half.

05:2635, I believe.

05:27It was 32.

05:28I'm looking at it.

05:29Oh, wow.

05:29He was seven of 14 for 32 yards

05:33in the first half of the game yesterday.

05:35So yeah, it was, look, right now,

05:38until we see otherwise with this offensive line,

05:41this Texans team is a version

05:44of what previous Texans teams have been at their peak,

05:47which is they're good enough to win the AFC South.

05:50They probably will win the AFC South.

05:52They still have three very, very winnable games

05:55inside the division,

05:57and they've got a couple other games on the schedule

05:59that are there for the taking if they play their A game.

06:04But the ceiling for this team right now,

06:06until we see the offensive line do otherwise,

06:08or until we see some substantive change

06:11with who's coaching the offensive line,

06:13or who's calling plays, or something,

06:15or see C.J. Stroud get back to normal,

06:17then this team is just a different version

06:20of the Bill O'Brien teams that won the division,

06:22the Gary Kubiak teams that won the division,

06:26playoff game, and then just bad enough

06:28to go get their teeth kicked in

06:29in the second round of the playoffs,

06:31just like they were last season.

06:33You know, and I think a lot of it, too,

06:34is when you look at some of the near wins

06:38early in the season, or the loss versus the Packers,

06:41which, hey, you could call that a quality loss

06:43or whatever you want on the road, I don't know,

06:45and they just got completely destroyed by the Vikings.

06:49Like, even the wins were marred by

06:54the thing that would come to roost last night,

06:56which is, oh, wow, you should have won by more,

06:59but, yeah, you keep shooting yourself in the foot,

07:02or you're just not playing well

07:03in crunch moments or what have you.

07:05This is more discouraging because they continue

07:08to do all those stupid things,

07:09but then they also just got physically destroyed

07:12in the second half.

07:13There's no, Titus Howard saying that

07:15they know they're the better team

07:16and they let this one slip away.

07:18What part of 30 minutes of football

07:20feels like slipping away to you?

07:21Not to mention, I'll say going into the first half

07:24for the offense, you said the Jets gift you,

07:28gift you a seven-point swing.

07:30They drop the ball, a rookie running back

07:33drops the ball three centimeters before the goal line,

07:37and you don't come out of that half

07:41with anything more than a one-score margin,

07:43and then you do nothing in the second half.

07:45For three games in a row, the offense hasn't scored

07:47a single touchdown in the second half.

07:50Again, plenty of teams in the league

07:52don't have Nico Collins or Stephon Diggs,

07:55but have managed to score a touchdown in the second half.

07:58You know, like, it's not a high bar

08:00we're even measuring them.

08:02That's not even Super Bowl contender stuff we're talking.

08:06Can you out-Nico Collins?

08:07Turns out, no.

08:08Not in the second half, you can't.

08:10Not in the second half.

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