The more we hear about Bobby Slowik, the better we feel about C.J. Stroud

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In The Loop's John P. Lopez, Reginald Adetula and Figgy Fig react to the latest ESPN report of how former Texans offensive coordinator failed to connect with players before he was fired.

Transcript

00:00Man, an interesting piece about a very insightful piece by DJ

00:04Bien-Ami at ESPN. I think they came through on Saturday, maybe

00:07if I'm if my memory serves me, where he was kind of going

00:11through and looking at Bobby Slowick's time, right? The

00:15predictability and lack of adjustments that doomed Bobby

00:18Slowick and the Texans. A really interesting piece,

00:21obviously sourced very well by DJ Bien-Ami about this team and

00:25its offense, particularly last year, but under his tenure, and

00:30of course, Bobby Slowick now on to, you know, working with as a

00:33as a senior passing game coordinator of sorts with the

00:37with the Miami Dolphins. But you know, moves on from here. And of

00:41course, we always say it, man, when somebody moves on, then you

00:44get a little bit more of a flow of information of what actually

00:46happened, people feel a little bit more comfortable telling

00:48you. And I think we got some really insightful stuff in this

00:52piece. And it feels like it moved you in a very particular

00:55way. Yeah, I've been trying y'all, you know, listening to

00:57this show the last few weeks, I've been trying to like, say,

01:00okay, let's temper the bash on Bobby stuff. I'm not gonna try

01:05anymore. Oh, wow. Oh, I say it to his face. I gave the man the

01:12benefit of the doubt. You know, I'm like, everybody does that.

01:14Oh, he's gone now like, oh, we played an uptempo basketball

01:17style. Now we're gonna slow it down. Oh, of course you are

01:19because that sucked, you know, or he was a disciplinarian. Now

01:23we're gonna be more player friendly. Of course you are

01:24because that's how people just automatically, you know, default

01:28to, yeah, that guy was awful. I'm not going to defend him

01:30anymore. Because it seems like that guy was really, really

01:33exactly what we what we speculated that he was. And that

01:36was not very flexible. Certainly not very adaptable to to the

01:42players. Because sources around the league and in that building

01:46and a player, you know, have flat out said, a lot of times

01:50the anonymous quotes, you sort of like, we'll see, you know, I

01:54believe it. I believe that was a strong player. I mean, a player

01:57who stated a strong opinion, when they said, I don't think we

02:01had a true identity of what the bleep we wanted to do. Yeah,

02:04so that's not, you know, that's not just the

02:09sort of like backhanded insult. No, that's direct, right? No.

02:12And I mean, these are things that you could see in that

02:15various people who, you know, cover the scene and watch the

02:18team discussed over that time period. It's just it's

02:20interesting to get like that interior sourcing via DJB enemy

02:25and ESPN to kind of confirm that that's what they felt in the

02:29building. I think that these things can be insightful also

02:31and helpful. Alright, what were they feeling? Right? Or did they

02:34believe in this and then ultimately, you know, just move

02:37on? Or did you see things and I mean, some of some of the quotes

02:40in a segment I like to call reading, we simply weren't good

02:43enough offensively as team source told ESPN, we had all

02:46season to make adjustments and improvements. And it never

02:48happened, which that is a hugely damning thing about this

02:53team. And if you could see it again, like you could see it

02:55time and time again, we didn't see real adjustments until real

02:57late in the season when it's fair to assume that somebody

03:00stepped in and forced those adjustments to be had. Otherwise,

03:03you were in the same place doing the same thing and not seeing

03:06results. And then ultimately, you mentioned that a player told

03:08ESPN quote, I don't think we had a true identity of what the

03:11bleep we wanted to do. And those like those might be the biggest

03:15indictments. And of course, those are the things that I think

03:17people latched on to most from this article. And there's a lot

03:21more in there that I found to be interesting, right? And there's

03:23more quotes that I'll read. But more importantly, like, what is

03:26that then? What does that then do for you in spinning this

03:29forward, right? And trying to make this a positive because it

03:31does feel like in hiring Nick Caley, they found somebody to

03:34at least address those things in particular. Well, one of those

03:36things because I feel like the idea of adjustments feels like

03:39something that Nick Caley will do. I mean, we heard similar

03:42things in his opening press conference, I will say we don't

03:45really have a great idea that there's going to be a solid I

03:49because right now at a very early juncture of you know, his

03:54tenure as the office coordinator, we haven't really

03:56gotten anything near concrete on what this offense will look like,

03:59which is fair. However, it is a space to watch as we go through.

04:03No, we haven't. But you know, we talked about the we didn't know

04:06what the bleep we wanted to do quote, and that's the one that's

04:08grabbing the headlines. The second one you read is the one

04:11that really opened my eyes to okay, everything that I'm not

04:15going to temper anything when it comes to Bobby, he was, he

04:17was inflexible, rigid. And frankly, when they say, you

04:22know, we had all season to make adjustments and improvement and

04:25it never happened. That tells me that CJ Stroud was in the

04:30middle of it, because everything trickles down from the

04:32quarterback. I find it almost impossible to believe now that

04:35CJ Stroud at some point when he was getting pummeled, didn't say

04:39Hey, what if we did this, you know, and and on top of that,

04:44coaches, you know, I think it's a very big tell that Cole

04:48Popovich is still on this on this coaching staff. Because a

04:53lot of times if it was just a complete fail offensively,

04:56everybody would have been, you know, replaced. The fact that

04:59they left Cole Popovich tells me that at least one coach him, and

05:03I'm speculating, but him tried to get Bobby slow it to block a

05:08different way to approach the run game or protections a

05:11different way. And he didn't do it. The fact that he said, we

05:15didn't make all season to make adjustments and improvements,

05:17and it never happened. That points directly to Bobby Slowick

05:20and directly to not being flexible and listening to

05:23people. Yeah. And speaking towards the idea of not making

05:26adjustments, right? I think that there was a lot of things that

05:30were here, including a player saying when teams would take

05:32away what we wanted to do, we just didn't have answers for it.

05:36That is a huge that is a huge indictment, right? There's not

05:39really a great reason for you to have a big brain if that brain

05:42does not give you other answers. And now I think that that some

05:44of that is indicative of being inexperienced, like you don't

05:46have the experience to call upon to say, okay, well, in various

05:49different circumstances, these things have worked. So I will go

05:51to those places. But it is problematic that it did not feel

05:54like you did not have answers. How about this when it comes to

05:57and this was something I think you were strong on another

05:59another excerpt. Stroud wasn't allowed to change protections at

06:02the line of scrimmage, often in Slowick's offense. It was the

06:05center's responsibility. A lot of the calls were considered

06:07basic, according to team source sources, according to a team

06:11source, I should say, as simple as having three offensive linemen

06:14zone blocking one side while the other backside blockers were one

06:17on one in protection against backside rushes. But the lack of

06:19communication within those blocking plans versus stunts led

06:22to free rushes, which is why Stroud faced 52 unblocked

06:26pressures, which was the second most in the NFL, right. And then

06:28of course, Strosser's approach wasn't easy for some players

06:30either, according to a team source as he struggled to

06:33connect with the offensive line. But the woes weren't all on

06:36Slowick or Strosser. Sometimes the players just failed to

06:38execute. And that last part we agree with. But going back to

06:41the first part about the idea of like, hey, the protections at

06:44the line and it being simple, and they're not being

06:47communication within it, like that is so damning.

06:49He treated CJ Stroud from what I can gather and from what we've

06:53heard and speculated about on this show for the last few

06:55weeks, is he treated CJ Stroud like a high school quarterback.

06:59No, you do it this way. Here's your first read, here's the

07:02second we read, etc. And that's not how you should treat a

07:06quarterback like CJ Stroud. And in fact, this holds me

07:10encouraging to me, because there's no way that Nick Kaley

07:14is coming in and saying, oh, yeah, we're going to do that.

07:16We're not going to trust the line. We're not going to change

07:18our blocking assignments. We're not going to trust CJ Stroud to

07:22help with protections and such. It's encouraging because I feel

07:25like he's going to get with CJ Stroud or the quarterback coach

07:28or whomever and say, listen, we're listening to you now. Your

07:32voice is going to be heard and we're going to allow you to do

07:35this, this and this. It's actually an encouraging thing.

07:37But boy, I'm done defending Bobby Slowick. It seems like

07:41it's pretty obvious.

07:41Yeah. And I feel like that's a good way of looking at it. And

07:44of course, if we're willing to take Nick Kaley at his word,

07:46which I imagine we probably are, especially at this early

07:48juncture, it seems like again, player focused approach, you

07:51know, it's going to be not focusing a square peg into a

07:54round hole. It seems like very much a lot of what he said will

07:58combat kind of these things. And so it was really insightful to

08:00kind of get some real confirmation from the interior

08:04of what this is looking like. How do you feel about this,

08:06John, though, before we move on from 7-1-3? I put a lot of this

08:08blame on the head coach. Hold D'Amico accountable, too. He

08:14knew he was who he was, and the character not a good sign. I

08:18don't know that this speaks necessarily fully to Bobby's

08:21character. I feel like that might be a bridge too far. But I

08:24think that, yeah, D'Amico probably has a level of

08:26accountability to be held on allowing this kind of to

08:29operate in the way that it did. But how much is there to be said

08:32for letting that man do what he wants to do as that being while

08:36he's in that position, and then judging him accordingly when you

08:38get to the place?

08:39I think D'Amico would tell you his biggest mistake was he just

08:43trusted Bobby Slower. And I don't see that happening again.

08:47I could see his head in some of these early week meeting rooms a

08:52lot more. Asking coaches and assistant coaches, you know,

08:56what do you think we're doing, you know, being having a better

08:59communication, because let's keep let's keep in mind, he's

09:01the defensive coordinator with Matt Burke. And I'm sure he

09:04spent a lot of time on the defensive side. Yeah, but I

09:06mean, but that's not a job as head coach. If you want to be a

09:10defensive coordinator, that's cool. The responsibility

09:12ultimately still falls all the way around.

09:14I think you're going to see a lot from D'Amico this year

09:16because now it's like he's caught. I think he's called in

09:20the plays on the on defense and all that stuff. He got a lot of

09:23hand in the defensive stuff. But now you kind of got to overlook

09:27everything now.

09:28I think D'Amico will tell you that I think that's going to be

09:30the biggest change.

09:30Yeah, so we're gonna we should see what D'Amico really is as a

09:34head coach overlooking everything rather than I'm gonna

09:37focus on the defense and I trust you to have the offense.

09:40Totally agree.

09:40And it does seem like he's accepting that responsibility

09:43that you know, the hectic nature of trying to do all these

09:45things are, you know, relatively new head coach, I think that

09:48he's learning a man there's there's a lot more to it. And

09:50there's a reason why this job is a job in and of itself, right?

09:53Outside of being a play caller. He's definitely going to have to

09:57you know, answer for or maybe not answer specifically for it

09:59in a way that I think we would talk about, but he's definitely

10:01going to have to account for how to be better at managing those

10:04things and being more, more hands on and more attentive to

10:09what's happening offensively. But I think that look, if we're

10:11willing to take the entry level press conference for what it is

10:14at face value, it seems like some of these things at least

10:17will be there will be a focus and a clear effort to make sure

10:21that these don't happen again, next year for your Houston Tech.

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