Texans vs. Cardinals All Access Preview | Defense Sets the Tone, Offense Raises the Ceiling

Texans vs. Cardinals All Access Preview | Defense Sets the Tone, Offense Raises the Ceiling

Game preview. Texans and Cardinals back to NRG Stadium as the Houston Texans are riding a fivegame winning streak into this one. Noon kickoff. Kids Day presented by Texas Children’s at NRG. And Johnny, the Cardinals, not a good team, but they have some things they can do to make life difficult for the Houston Texans. You can’t look past anybody in this league. Case in point, last year the Tennessee Titans in November. Need we say more? Carolina the year before that on the road. You’ve got to keep your guard up in this one. This team, you mentioned it’s got a lot of talent. The record hasn’t been good. They’ve lost close games. Very close. Now, last week against LA Rams, 4517. It started getting away from him. Away you go. They’re missing James Connor. They uh have Paris Johnson Jr. left tackle who probably won’t play in this game. Marvin Harrison Jr. has been banged up. So, some of that talent has not been able to play, but they have played some close games. They probably should have beaten the Jacksonville Jaguars who lead the AFC South. I wish they did. They had the Jags on the ropes and couldn’t pull it off. So, they’ve been in some big games. They won on a Monday night at Dallas. They just haven’t been able to do it consistently. And the two games that they really got blown out were the Rams and then um the other game was the 49ers. Those are the two games where they got blown out. Other than that, it’s been a three-point game, seven-point game. They’ve been in it. This is the type of team where you’ve got to take their spirit early. You got to make them want to get back on the plane and go back home very early in this game and then get out of it hopefully injury-free and then move on. Team with a bad record, the longer you let them hang around, the worse it gets for you. They start to believe and get a coveted victory. Maybe they started off 2 and 0. They had a fivegame losing streak. Then they won a game against the Cowboys and three and five. Okay, maybe. No, not so much. Fivegame losing streak for the Cardinals heading into this one. The Medel matchup. I think this is it. It’s Jacobe Brassette versus the Texans. He’s 5- one as a starter against the Texans with three different teams. This is amazing stuff when you think about it. The Patriots, the Colts, and the Miami Dolphins. He won games against the Texans with all three of those squads, including one as a rookie week three 2016. Amazing at New England. But now he’s a salty veteran with the Cardinals and he’s throwing the ball. Okay. The numbers look pretty good. He can hurt you. Yeah. And he can also tie Sam Darnold. Sam Darnold has beaten the Texans with four different teams. BrT can do it. Hopefully it doesn’t happen. But we’ve had struggles with Jacobe since his rookie year in 2016. I still see him sprinting past me into the end zone in a Thursday night game that the Texans got throttled up in Foxboro in 2016. I still see him going by like nobody even knows he’s got the ball and there he goes in. He’s beaten us a lot of times just guile smarts great leader but I remember in 2019 that’s when he really lit us up throwing the football and that’s what he’s doing a lot of uh with the Cardinals is throwing the football and because of that Medela matchup I’ve got my eyes on is Trey McBride their Pro Bowlpro tight end against our interior cover people. Now, I say it that way because it can be any number of guys that will have the responsibility against Kansas City. Travis Kelsky was covered by Jaylen Petri, Kamari Lacader, Miles Bryant, or any of the linebackers, right? They all had a piece and they all had a role. It’ll be that way against Trey McBride. It’ll be any one of those guys against him, but they’ve got to limit what McBride can do as they did Kelsey last week. Okay. Mattress firm sleeper of the game. I’m going first. Okay. I was going to steal yours from last week, Jaden Higgins, but I’m gonna go with the other cyclone in this one. Jaylen Null. Now, I know Xavier Hutchinson is a Cyclone, too, but the rookie Cyclones. Jaylen Null making big plays in this game. Either, you know, andor return game or as a receiver. Let’s see how it goes for Jaylen Null. Mattress Firm sleeper of the game for me. Want some big moments out of him. I would love to see Jaylen get a little bit more involved in the pass game. I know they tried to get him on that speed sweep, on that short yardage play, and Jaylen Watson made one heck of a tackle. It’s one of the better tackles I’ve seen all year. I’d like to see him get involved in that way, but he can also go down the field. You know, we saw that in the Niners game earlier this year where he was used down the field, and I think that’s where Jaylen could also uh become a factor. So, definitely would love to see that. Mine is because I mentioned Trey McBride. My sleeper ends up being Henry Toato. By the way, if you haven’t seen the miked up of Henry, it is beautiful. Fantastic. Don’t click to it just yet. Yeah. Not yet. No. Watch this all the way through. Stay with us here and then go to it. And then go to it. It’s fantastic. But Henry’s so smart. He’s been so physical. You know, the Cardinals don’t have James Connor anymore. So, the running game isn’t quite there. So, this is going to be really a challenge for the linebackers to make plays in the passing game. And that was something Henry told me all the way back to day one of training camp. It was something that all offseason he worked on. Had to be better in the passing game. had to be better in coverage. Something they really worked on. I think it’s paid off throughout the year, but this is the ultimate test the next two weeks because it’s Trey McBride this week. It’s Brock Bowers the following week. Those are arguably the top two tight ends in in the NFL and they’re both coming to NRG Stadium. You’re already pushing Kelsey to the back burner here. Well, you took care of business against Travis Kelce and that was a really great thing to see. Now, the Texans offense, not a sleeper of the game, but you want to see a step taken in this one. We had Trent Brown in here this week and he talked about, hey, there’s a lot of meat on the bone. There’s a lot we got to do here. We have to improve and they know it. They know there’s a higher ceiling for them. They’re trying to reach it. They’ve made incremental improvements over the weeks, but you want to see at home a really great performance out of this offense. I think when you get a fivegame winning streak going and they always say that, you know, winning masks the problems. When you get a five game winning streak, you’re like, “Yeah, everything’s great. We’re doing awesome. It’s fantastic.” But that hasn’t been the the way with this team. Kamari Ler was asked after the game, “Hey, you’ve won five in a row. You shut down Allen. You shut down Mahomes. You guys have done it all.” And he’s like, “No, sir. We’re not stopping. Like, we’ve got more work to do. We still have left a lot out there.” And it was great when I heard Trent say that because I I do think the offense people have seen the offense kind of struggle at times in the third quarter is a big struggle against Kansas City Chiefs. They know there’s a lot left on the plate for them to take care of to be the team that they really want to be. So it’s good to hear them. Yeah, fivegame winning streak. Okay, but we’re focused on this one. We’re focused on being better in all aspects of this one. And you mentioned it, Mark. You don’t really need to go any further than last year, week 12 against the Tennessee Titans. That team comes in the building, I think, with two wins and Will Leves goes crazy and you end up losing 32-27 to a team you had no business losing to and you sacked them seven times in the game in the first half. Ridiculous. So, you can’t let that happen. You got to bring Jacobe down. Got to turn them over a little bit and the offense has got to be highly efficient and productive. Texans and Arizona Sunday at NRG Stadium, noon kick. Go Texans.

Back to NRG Stadium. The Houston Texans ride a five-game winning streak into a noon kickoff on Kids Day presented by Texas Children’s — and the message is simple: don’t look past anybody.

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