Texans vs Colts FULL Preview + Predictions

Texans vs Colts FULL Preview + Predictions

Hey guys, real quick. Only 40% of our viewers are actually subscribed. So, let’s change that right now. Hit that subscribe button right below. Houston Texans at the Indianapolis Colts. It’s Sunday at 1. We’re on to Sunday, by the way. Uh Colts favored by 4 and a half here. And now things are getting interesting in the AFC South. How hard could it be? Uh Texans 6 and5, Colts 8 and three. The Colts are they they they’re a game up on the Jags. They’re two games up on the Texans. And the Colts have to play four games against those teams, Texans and Jags. So the the division, even though the Colts got out to a great lead and a great start and the Texans were like two and five just a couple weeks ago, the division’s wide open now because of all these head-to-head matchups. Yeah, it is. Um, and in Skip Bis world, you know, the we have to ask the question, is Daniel Jones now the problem in Indianapolis? Mary had a is Indiana Jones I need a pawn off Indiana? Well, Indiana Jones disappeared. Um, using Sam Hoppins uh, quarterback composite stats thing, I see that Daniel Jones now ranks 18th in PFF grade on the season. So, he’s now back to being a below average. Average to below average. That’s average. That’s average. Uh, starting quarterback just like he’s always been. Where is he in EPA? Uh, uh, EPA per play, he is fifth. Fifth. So when you success rate third when you read that when you read low PFF high EPA success rate you’re you’re thinking okay playmakers scheme there’s something there elevating the quarterback the production’s higher than the level of quarterback play and if you’re a Colts fan like that’s fine like I don’t care where the production comes from if I’m a Colts fan or if I’m even the Colts I don’t care as long as theoretically all you want is points but all you want is like EPI if the EPA A is good. That’s good for the offense, right? Um and that usually leads to points. That’s all I really care about. But when you get to the underlying metrics, it comes down to a game like last week. When you have a team that takes away Jonathan Taylor, when you have a team that is really difficult on third down like the Chiefs or like the Texans, the way they rush the passer, and they’ve got uh ball hawks in the secondary, they have the two elite pass rushers, Will Anderson and Denil Hunter. That’s where it’s a little concerning where if the quarterback’s not playing as well as the production and you get into a game where it’s got to be more quarterback driven, do you trust Daniel Jones? And it’s it’s multiple weeks of not just the turnover worthy plays that was there only one against Kansas City, fired it into double coverage in crunch time and it was dropped. But it’s still I still go back to the fumbles before the by-week. I go back to just a little fidgety in the pocket. Little fidgety, right? Little happy feet in the pocket from Daniel Jones. And that’s where I think I’ve got some concerns about where it’s trending for the Colts despite how efficient that offense has been. Yeah. I mean, you can’t I don’t think you can be in any way, shape, or form confident on about Daniel Jones against reasonable opposition. And remember, we’re talking about a defense that just made Josh Allen, you know, have a really, really, really rough game. Um, this Texans defense is pretty terrifying in various ways. Uh they’re one of like they’re one of those three defenses that make you wake up the next day and contemplate everything about your offense. Are we were we never that good? What do we do? Is Josh Allen over the hill? Like they make you rethink everything because that defense is so good. Yeah. Meanwhile, you’ve got Daniel Jones coming off like three consecutive fairly rough games um which have totaled I think 10 turnover worthy plays in those three weeks as you said. Okay. only one of them last week, but that one was again forced throw into double coverage in critical crunch time late in the game. Like that’s as bad as a a turnover worthy type of play as you’re going to get, but also the efficiency generally is down. Like everything’s down uh over the last three weeks. He hasn’t played well. He’s put the ball in harm’s way. These are all bad things. It’s a three-week trend and none of those defenses are as good as the Houston defense. So, as a trend, that’s pretty concerning. Now, all that said, the Colts, they’ve been a little bit better at home. They got the dome. Um, and they’re still a good team, right? They’re still a very good team. CJ Strad, I assume, will be back here. We don’t have an injury report, but um, he’ll probably be back here. It is fair to we’re in this world now with with the Texans. CJ Strad’s had a bit of a roller coaster ride the last year and a half really, all of last season, beginning of this year. Davis Mills had like five touchdowns, one interception in relief. I think there was a handful of huge throws in a scramble from Davis Mills, a game-winning scramble against the Jags. Made some big plays when it was needed. I thought he did a nice job. There’s a little bit of Mills playing like Flaco behind an offensive line that theoretically was having issues, but they made it look a little bit better. And and Straoud when he played the offensive line wasn’t always looking bad. It was just against teams that had really good pass rushes. when they played Denver, when they played um those fierce pass rush Seattle. So, it’s going to be a really interesting dynamic here to see if like I think Straoud’s better than Davis Mills. I’ll go out there and say it, but there’s elements to his game where maybe if he’s not protecting the line as well as Mills, he won’t be able to have that same kind of success. Well, I don’t think so. I don’t think he’s helping it in two different ways. Um, I don’t think he I don’t think his play style necessarily helps an offensive line and that that’s an issue. But also remember this is the year that they gave him responsibility at the line to set protections, to adjust, to change things, and that was supposed to improve this offensive line. That was a complete disaster last year. Like it was like they’d never seen a stunt. They’d never seen a pressure package. anytime you threw anything complicated at them and I’m not even particularly complicated just any sort of wrinkle beyond rush four guys in a straight line up um they completely collapse and you’re like well we’re going to fix that because now CJ Strad will have control at the line he’ll be able to see what’s happening he’ll be able to adjust it he’ll be able to get the protection in the right place and it hasn’t had any kind of positive effect so I think there may be an element where Davis Mills might be better at that than CJ Stout is and I’m not saying that as a massive feather in the cap of Davis Mills as much as it might be problematic for CJ Strad. Um, but in every other way, he’s I think a much better quarterback than Davis Mills. Um, Straoud pressured about 5% four to 5% higher than Mills so far this year, which is a fair chunk. It is. And look, some of it’s I know Mills came in in the Denver game and everything, but you know, Straoud against Seattle, that was a rough one, I believe, off the top of my head. Um, there were some some tough ones in there, but like we said, when they played say the Niners or teams that couldn’t get pressure, it didn’t look as bad. So, again, Straoud’s a better quarterback. I think the ceiling for this offense is much higher with CJ Strad, which is why I’ve been so optimistic about the Texans, the way this defense plays, sitting on this two years worth of potential offensively. And now you’ve got the rookies showing all these flashes, especially the last couple weeks. Woody Marks at running back, Jaden Higgins at wide receiver. I think there’s I think they’re trending in the right direction, man. Houston riding this defense with uh with Strad coming back can be really dangerous here. Um and they’ve got a stretch, you know, they’re going to play the Chiefs in a couple weeks. They get the Colts here twice. Um so they’ve got everything in front of them, as the coaches would say. All their goals still in front of the Houston Texans who started the season so poorly. The last thing about this Houston defense, by the way, is that they have a naturally good run defense to the point where it’s not like the Colts can just lean on Jonathan Taylor and be like, “Ah, don’t worry. We’re going to take the ball out of Daniel Jones hands. It’s going to be Jonathan Taylor making everything happen.” I mean, he’s been very good, so maybe he can have some success anyway. But the Texans have a good run defense, which will help everything about that side of the ball. Uh Will Anderson, by the way, 59 pressures per NFL pro. And what did I say? It’s 64 per pff. Just for perspective here, because we always pick on Tyrie Wilson and Trayvon Walker. Uh draft classmate Trayvon uh Tyreek Wilson has 84 career pressures per PFF and Will Anderson has 64, you know, this year. Actual pressures this year. Yeah, it’s not great. Not great at There were some people that had some teams that had Tyrie Wilson above Will Anderson on their draft boards. There were. And that never made any sense to me. But look, I’m not the draft is difficult. Everybody’s got their hits and misses. There are a few that just seem blatantly obvious. Yeah. I mean, you shouldn’t even have to debate. It’s one of those ones where it’s like, you know, the draft is difficult and everyone’s going to get things wrong. There are some times though where it feels like even within, you know, everything’s possible. It’s all a range of outcomes. It’s like the vent, the crossover area, ven diagram here where this actually ends up true feels so small. It’s not the area we should be shooting for. Tyrie number 127 on my draft board. Will Anderson also uh tied for the league lead in quick pressures with 28. Um, three players are tied. Who are they? Nick Bonito. Yep. Will Anderson. Will Anderson and Micah Parsons correct? All three 28 quick. I’m back. I’m back at Good guesses. All right, man. Uh, Colts by four and a half. By the way, no Deor Forest Buckner for the Colts. I mean, he’s been on IR. I mean, I thought that was I saw Dano mention it or someone else like that was a big loss, I thought, against Kansas City, not having him, you know, in the middle. And, um, I love the the the matchup now. S Gardner and Travarius Ward on the outside against Nico Collins, Jaden Higgins. That’s going to be a fun one to watch here. So, and that might help their pass rush get home. You know, the fact that they can play 40% man coverage that they can try and slow down the uh the the obvious throws for CJ Strat and make him hold the ball take longer, which he tends to want to do anyway. I mean, there’s a world where this becomes a very lowscoring defensive battle. All right, Colts in the dome. I don’t want to completely sour on them, but favored by four and a half here with a Texans team trending in the right direction. Where you going to go with this? I’m going to go with the Texans. Same. Yeah, I’m taking Houston, man. I’m back riding the Texans train here. Uh Harry’s going to take the Colts, cover the four and a half. Thanks for watching all the way to the end of the video. Check the mic is live Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. So be sure to hit subscribe so you don’t miss a video. You heard the man. Subscribe.

Check The Mic is your exclusive home for all things Steve & Sam with broadcasts live every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday during the season.

Produced by The 33rd Team
Contact harrison@the33rdteam.com for sponsorship opportunities.

Join the Check The Mic Podcast Discord Server: https://discord.gg/7JCRFJDtYX

Follow our Socials & check out our website!

📱 https://x.com/CTM_Show 📱
💻 https://www.the33rdteam.com/ 💻
📱 https://www.instagram.com/the33rdteam 📱
📅 https://x.com/The33rdTeamFB 📅
🎧 https://open.spotify.com/show/4PNXjrEcr3CxbPWq9Qe2SK
🍎 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/check-the-mic-with-steve-palazzolo-sam-monson/id1761398472