Texans Finish Back-To-Back 10-Win Seasons After Beating Titans

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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.

Transcript

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.

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