LIVE: The Houston Texans address the media

LIVE: The Houston Texans address the media

Good. Good break. Good little getaway. Too early, but had to take it. We don’t control that, but no, it was a good break. Good getaway for sure. Done so far. What are some things I’m messing with you. Was it close? No. JSN has done an outstanding job this year for Seattle. Darnell has found a a nice target to throw through and he’s throw to and he’s he’s made that entire offense go. Uh whether you’re covering them or not, he’s making explosive plays uh game after game. He continues to shows up show up. And you know, JSN, he’s definitely having a Pro Bowl caliber year. He’s doing an outstanding job. What makes that Seattle defensive front seven so good? And starting up front with their defensive line, like the interior piece with their tackles, Murphy, Reed, Williams, they’re really big guys inside, strong. Uh it’s hard to move those guys inside. So, it starts there and then on the edge is really smart players on the edge with Inosu, with Maf, uh with all the guys that they have. um Demarcus Lawrence, like all those guys doing a really nice job on the edges. Their entire defense line feel like that’s the very that’s the strength of their defense, right? And it’s going to be a a challenge for us to handle their front. It’s all going to start there. Uh any team that’s been able to move the ball versus these guys, you have to do a good job versus their front and they’re good in the run game, also in the pass game with the stunts that they run, uh they don’t have to pressure much because they get a lot of pressure with their front four guys. So be a huge challenge for us. challenge for our offensive line this week. What do you remember most? You’ve been in that stadium a lot about going in that stadium and playing there. Yeah, it’s it’s a it’s a fun place to play because of the environment. I think when you think about football environments and different stadiums, Seattle is one of those stadiums that ranks pretty high to me when it comes to just you talk about a a rowdy bunch that’s gonna it’s going to be loud. The crowd noise is going to be there. The fans are going to be into it. uh their players do a good job of, you know, making plays and feeding into the crowd, getting the crowd hyped up. So, it’s always a a fun place to play. Always a tough place to play. It’s challenging because of the, you know, the noise, the environment, right? But you have to be able to block that out. And the most time as many times I’ve been in there, when you can block that out and just focus on executing, doing the things you need to do to play good football, that’s what’s going to help you, all right, to quiet the crowd. with the exception of the Oh, does somebody else want to go ahead. Oh, with the exception of of the Bills, like a lot of the top teams in the AFC um have already lost quite a few games. I’m just curious, what do you make of that? And is that possibly something y’all can lean on kind of moving forward that that it is right there is wide open? That doesn’t creep into my mind at all about where the other AFC teams are, what their record is. It’s still early in the season, right? A lot of teams had a lot of, you know, really good starts to the season, but and we all know and that’s our focus. It’s all about how you finish the season. It’s all about how your team grows throughout the season. Just because you have a great start doesn’t mean it’s going to be a great finish. It’s just continuing to work, control what you can control. And you truly focus on one game at a time, that’s all that matters. Can’t focus on what the other teams are doing, the outcome of their games. It it really doesn’t matter, right? is has nothing to do with how you go and play, how you go and prepare. You don’t do anything different because other teams are where they are record-wise. It’s truly focusing on us and getting better. What do you think is the biggest reason why your defense has played so well to the point where they’re ranked number one and scoring defense? Our defense has done a really nice job because of the players and the work that they put in. Uh we have we have outstanding players, outstanding men, not just players who go out, they work the right way every single week, every single day in practice, they work together and when they play together is a tough unit to beat, right? Guys who we’re on it mentally. We’re not making mistakes like we make people have to, you know, make plays to beat us. And we know we’ll be that’ll be the challenge this week, right? Just because we’re covering them and we’re in position. Seen JSN many times, right? These guys are in coverage. They’re on him and he still goes up. The ball is up. You got to be able to make a play and compete on the football. That’ll be the challenge this week. But I I I’m really proud of where our guys are. It’s been a a great start, but you have to keep working. You have to keep plowing because we know teams are going to give us their best shot. Uh what do you think about the season Jaylen Petri is having for you guys so far and what he’s doing for the team? Jaylen is playing lights out for us. He is all over the field. He’s asked to do many different things throughout a game and he’s the one guy who’s uh very cerebral enough, smart enough to go out and handle whatever we ask of him defensively. Whether that’s, you know, blitzing, whether it’s playing in coverage, whether it’s playing back deep, like what all three levels of the defense, Jaylen provides us that flexibility to be able to move him around wherever we need to put him each each week. And so to have a player who is as smart as he is and as reliable as he is, it really, you know, gives you a comfort as a play caller. It gives you comfort to be able to know that if we want something to happen, you you turn Jaylen on. When he’s on, he’s going to find a way to make plays in the back field. He finds a way to get the football right. The way he’s attacking the football, I love to see that continue. He’s doing a great job of being a true spark plug for our entire team. Obviously, it’s a different position, but does he remind you at all of you when you were a player? Not at all. He’s way better than me. He’s all I had one little position right in the middle. Uh stop the run, that’s about it. But no, Jaylen is, you know, tremendous guy off the field, too. He was a Walter Peyton man of the year. Uh last year, uh he was that recipient because of the great things he’s done in the community. Just all around. Talk about a great guy on the field, off the field. Like that’s what it looks like in Jaylen Petri is I’m I’m proud to say that I’m able to coach Jaylen Peter. Studied your offensive improvement and you and Nick some other staff looked at what’s working the last few weeks with the offense and particular CJ Strad. What are some things that jumped out to you? The things that worked the past couple weeks offensively is us being able to stay committed to the run game and run the football. You can run the ball. You can sustain drives. That’s the key, right? And that’ll be the key for us moving forward. We can do that. We can control the line of scrimmage, get positive plays in the running game. That allows our That allows Kaye, right, to be able to open up the playbook and call whatever he wants, whatever he’s installed that particular week. Everything is at his disposal when you’re disposal when you can stay on schedule. And that’s what has been the past two weeks. Seattle’s been the uh they’re by far the number one team in the league. Play action pass. What do you think makes them so good at that and what goes into defending that? And for Seattle, they’re good at the play action pass game because, you know, Kubak’s done a good job wherever he’s been as a play caller, he’s done a really good job of establishing the outside zone scheme, right? And with the outside zone scheme comes the keepers off of the outside zone action. So, he’s done a really good job of marrying both run game and passing game, meaning they both look very similar. So the the play action pass game works because of the offensive line and how they come off the football, right? How they make the run look exactly like the pass. It puts the second level defenders in a bind to where are you stepping up to defend the run or are you can you key it and diagnose it quick enough to understand that it’s pass and now I need to drop in coverage. So they’ve done a really good job starting with Kenneth Walker as in the run game. He’s a really, really good running back in this league and he’s done a really nice job. And when you have him running the ball the way he runs it, all right, guys are going to commit. And once you get guys to step up two or three steps off and now Darnold’s done a good job of getting on the edges, making good decisions down the field and he’s had a lot of guys open in those play action passing concepts. That’s why they’ve been successful as well. A lot of guys are wide open. Um, statistically, just piggy back off DJ’s question earlier. statistically y’all are playing some of y’all’s best uh defense in your three years here. Um why why is it do you feel like you all have made those steps and and what did it take to get to that point? For me the the defense what we’ve done and we haven’t changed what we’ve done and again the defense is credit to the players. Nothing to do with coaches and what we what we do as coaches. It’s all about the players and what they’re doing on the field. That’s why the defense is good. It’s not a magical answer that’s out there. Our guys have played well starting with our front. Our Dline’s played well specifically versus the run game after the Tampa Bay game. Felt like we’ve done a really nice job of playing the run and we’ve improved our tackling as the as the uh season has gone on. But if we continue to improve the things we need to improve, uh that’s that’s tackling, stopping the run, that’s attacking the football. We do those things and that’s what the players have done. That’s why we playing good ball on defense. activation or can you talk about EJ’s speed and just what you’ve seen from him as he continues to develop in this defense? EJ’s done a really nice job for us when it comes to the wheel linebacker position. Having a guy as athletic, fast sideline to sideline as EJ, that’s what he’s provided for us. He can cover up space really well. He’s done a good job of tackling as well and that’s why he he’s been out there for us. He’s been making plays for us and he’s earned that right to get more opportunities. So pleased with where he is. He still has room to grow. He’s still learning it and growing as we go throughout the season, but encouraged with where he is right now. Plans for someone to uh be activated this week, say like a Jaylen Reed or a Dina or someone returning to practice that’s a reserve guy? Yeah, we’ll we’ll see how the week goes. Follow up on Andrew’s question with the play action. Um they live a lot in 12 and 21 personnel. You guys live a lot in kind of nickel package. Um, which is kind of like that balance of going against a team that kind of lives in that 12 21 package and they can get some explosives off of that. What’s kind of just like that balance for you determining, okay, how much do I go to nickel overs? How much do I go to base? Like what’s just kind of that chess match for you as you get ready? Yeah, for us when it comes to that chess match, not going to give all my secrets away to you, DJ, but we’ll try to keep them on their toes as best as we can. coach. U one of the units that gets a lot of criticism when they’re not when they’re playing bad is the offensive line unit, but as of late, they’ve been playing very very well. And so, um when we got a chance to speak to uh Nick Cacerio, he talked about how Titus doesn’t get the amount of credit that he deserves. Can you just talk about how he has led that unit and has over the last, you know, two games helped them to take that next step? I would say this about this when guys get criticized on the football field, right? It’s easy, right, to it’s easy to criticize offensive linemen, corners, right, and a quarterback because that’s the easiest thing for everybody to see, right, when things go bad. But there’s a lot of good that’s been going on with our offensive line. And you know, definitely I highlight that in our team meetings and Titus is one of the guys who’s he’s been consistent. That’s what Oline play is about. It’s about it’s about playing consistent. It’s about playing within yourself, not getting overextended, but doing your job down in and down out without a lot of glory, without a lot of pats on the back, right? It’s very it’s a very selfless position, right? And he’s done a really great job throughout this year so far. He’s improved. He’s done a great job of anchoring the right side for us and very proud of him, not only for his play, but Titus has also grown as a leader, right? Seeing him become more vocal, right? Communicating amongst the offensive linemen, right? That’s what I’m most proud of with Titus besides the play is how he’s grown into that leadership role and that’s what we needed from him. Thank you. All right. Thank you guys. Thank you.

The Houston Texans address the media.

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