Houston in ASCENDING! 🗣️ Stephen A. sees Texans WINNING the AFC 👀+ Bills’ inconsistency | First Take

Houston in ASCENDING! 🗣️ Stephen A. sees Texans WINNING the AFC 👀+ Bills’ inconsistency | First Take

Jake Cornet here with you on First Take along with Ryan Clark, Dan Orowski. Stephen A. Smith is there and so is Cam Newton. Good morning everyone. How are we feeling after last night? Good morning. Good morning. How are you? Good. Good morning everybody. Hi Stephen A. Hello Cam. How are you? Well, hello there. How are you? Everything’s great on this. Why the hell does the hell does Cam Newton sound like he meditating? Meditating on a Friday morning. What’s up? And Brian and Ry and Ryan and Ryan Clark and and and Dio with the blazers and the hoodies on. Look at looking like brothers from another mother. What’s the name of that movie again? Will I forgot what was Will the brother best friends? Can you touch my drums? They were ready for that this morning. Uh let’s go to last night. We knew something had to give, right? The best defense in the league. The Texans met a top five scoring offense in the Bills. And unfortunately, Josh Allen had to pay. Buffalo’s quarterback was sacked eight times through two interceptions which included that game- ending pick. sealed the deal for Houston who have now won three in a row. And so here is Will Anderson after a dominant defensive performance by the Texans. Coach put up a picture of like some Wolves in a Buffalo and like we just had that energy all week long. Like man, we got to go hunt. Like it got to be relentless. Like no matter what you got going on, no matter how you feeling, bro, it’s no we links out there on the field. Like if you want a piece of the gazelle, you got to go hunt for the gazelle. So like it’s just funny, man, seeing everybody scratching crap for the the gazelle, man. But it’s fun. It was awesome. Got to love Will Anderson. Uh RC, are you more encouraged by what you saw out of Houston’s defense last night or discouraged by Buffalo’s offense? Well, two things can be true, but this was the most predictable result of the night. This is a bad matchup for the Buffalo Bills offense. You have guys up front in Will Anderson and Denil Hunter that can not only just hunt but have the athleticism to match Josh Allen who in so many moments like we saw last week goes above and beyond what the schematics of the play are because he’s that freaking talented. You can’t get away from those dudes. And the fact that Khil Shakir and Gabe Davis and the wide receivers of the Buffalo Bills couldn’t get open on Kamari Lacader and Derek Stingley Jr. I’m not shocked. So, it was going to be, like I said yesterday, if James Cook could run the football and now you could play out of the that and Josh Allen could not turn the football over, then you might have a chance to win. But you didn’t. But look at the Houston Texans, the Denver game. CJ Stra was playing extremely well. That defense held Bo Knicks down to 15 points throughout that game. They should have won, but Davis Mills was inserted because of injury. And then you go beat the Jacksonville Jaguars late. Then you beat the Tennessee Titans late. And then now you find a way to beat the Buffalo Bills. This Houston Texans team is ascending and I think last night was evidence of that. It’s Houston and they’re the one team that nobody in the AFC wants in the playoffs. This team has won six of eight. Okay. Um they’re one of those losses is to Denver by three that RC is referencing. The teams that they’ve lost to, okay, this this this best defense in football. The teams that they’ve lost to, they’ve lost to by five, seven, eight, one, and three. Those are their five losses. Every team they’ve lost to is a playoff team. They’re 8-2, 8-2. every team they’ve lost to as a playoff team. I’d say this right now as far as yards per game, this is the best defense we’ve seen in the NFL in close to like 15 years. 2009, the Jets with Rex Ryan. That was the last time we saw a defense at least yards per game give up what this defense gives up. They got a defensive player of the year candidate in Will Anderson. They got a pass rush specialist in Dil Hunter. They got a linebacker group that is as downhill as anyone. They got a secondary that hunts and hawks the football. they can cover and they take the ball away. This is an offense right now that is starting to find itself. And my takeaway last night, my two takeaways are this is a defense that you don’t want to see in the playoffs. And I would say this, and I love him, put a lot of pressure on CJ Strad now because once CJ Strad went out because of the head, they started to win some games. He’s now going to come back and they’re no longer on the outside looking in from the playoff perspective. They’re they’re right on that line and it’s an expectation now to get in. Yeah. Yes. So, I think the message last night was heard throughout the league from the from the uh Houston Texans. This team came in with the attitude that we’re going to dominate. and not only dominate, we’re going to really make Josh Allen extremely uncomfortable from the first snap to the last snap. And Danielle, you can relate to this one because during a game, a quarterback when you start to see signs of frustration, okay, body language, okay, you’re starting to read his lips and you’re starting to say, “Golly, like where is this guy coming from? Where is that guy coming from?” Josh Allen is a improvising quarterback. He can scramble. He can attack you in many different ways. When he starts to play hesitant, that’s any kryptonite to any skill a quarterback may have, no matter how skillful that you are. What the Houston Texans defense showed and proved yesterday is that, hey, with an opportunity, we will keep our offense in the game. So, to your point, Danielle, I will second that. CJ Strad is coming back to a team that now puts so much onus on him to do his job and Nico Collins and those guys and you do not have a lot of excuses when you have the number one defense and the way that they’re playing and very opportunistic uh that we’ve seen as well too. Here’s the deal y’all. To me, I’m more encouraged by the Texans because I’m looking at the Texans and I’m saying these brothers can end up winning the AFC. And the reason why I say that is because we we’re looking at a guy in Patrick Mahomes. Uh we know what happened when he lost his two Super Bowls. We knew he was running for his life against Tampa. We saw him running for his life last year against the Philadelphia Eagles. We go from there and then we look at somebody who the next two quarterbacks we going to think about in the AFC. We going to think about Josh Allen. We going to think about Lamar Jackson. Okay? Those are the two quarterbacks that we look at religiously as knocking on the door and nipping at the heels of Patrick Mahomes, finding a way to overcome that hump. We saw what they did to Josh Allen last night. We never saw him get slaughtered the way he got slaughtered last night being sacked eight times, okay, with Anderson and Hunt all over the place, all over him. And RC, you’re absolutely right about what they were doing in their secondary with Stingley and obviously Lassa. And we can’t forget Bulock at the safety spot and the job that he’s been doing. But then I’m looking at the rest of the AFC. Okay, so Lamar Jackson is on the come up and we know how elusive and electrifying he could be. That’s a given. But we know what’s happened to Patrick Mahomes in the past. We saw what happened to a guy like Josh Allen last night. And then look at the rest of the quarterbacks within the AFC and suddenly things become incredibly incredibly interesting. You got Daniel Jones in Indie. You got Trevor Lawrence in Jacksonville. Okay. You got Aaron Rogers who’s a relatively stationary target in Pittsburgh if Pittsburgh is able to to to stay afloat in the AFC North. Okay, you got Drake May who’s got some who can ball and got some wheels on them and we’ve talked about him. So, that’s a different challenge for them in and of itself. And of course, you’ve got Bo Nicks in Denver. I’m just looking at what happened with Josh Allen last night and I’m saying to myself, who who can’t Houston do that to? The answer’s nobody. They could potentially do that to anybody. And like you said, Dio, CJ Stra comes back. Well, you know what? Davis Mills is decent, but he ain’t CJ Stra. you know what CJ Stra could bring to the table when he’s on his game. So, you are absolutely right. He’s in the eye of the storm right now because now universally the NFL has recognized that the Houston Texas defense is for real. We going to see what happens. But this team, as ferocious as that defense looked and as ferocious as they can look, oh my lord, if CJ Stra can give you anything, and we have no reason to believe he can’t, you know, with his skill set, Houston could could end up winning the AFC. They can get they got to get in there because they’re at the eighth spot right now. Got to get in there. They can make some noise. Specifically, their defense, but let’s go to the Bills side of things now. Okay, there’s been three games where they’ve scored under 20 points. It’s their third straight game last night was with at least three turnovers. We’ve ridden this wave with them. A bad loss against Miami. Now, this isn’t necessarily a bad loss, but nonetheless, a loss in prime time against a really good Houston team. No one’s concerned about what we’re seeing out of Buffalo and Josh Allen. Well, I think what I think we know who Buffalo is this year. I I I know Buffalo last year, this is the fundamental difference between this team and last year because the team for the most part are the same humans. Last year they were plus 24 in giveaways, turnover differential. This year they’re minus two. Th this defense wasn’t very good last year. They just masked it by constantly taking the football away. This offense didn’t have a ton of playmakers last year. Concincade’s health, but Concaid wasn’t always healthy last year. He wasn’t even that impactful last year. And so it’s it’s mainly the same parts. This year they give the ball away a lot more. Josh has not played nearly at the level this year that he has last year. And so concerned I’ve felt this year felt this way for about a month now. If Buffalo’s at home, I think they can be fine. I think they can get to the AFC Championship game. If they got to go on the road, they could be one and out. That’s just where this football team is. And it’s a it while being for the most part the same team, they’re just playing style-wise a completely different brand of football. Stephen A, go ahead. Well, can I check Let me chime in here because I just want to be quick because I want to come to to to you guys because I got a question. The Buffalo Bills have more turnovers in the last three games than they’ve had the entirety of last season. Nine turnovers in the last three games. They had eight all of last season. This is bad. Okay, forgive me for bringing this up, but I h I cannot help it. I’m looking at Shawn McDermott and I’m like, “No, Keon Coleman, you know, he’s got some growing to do. No doubt about that. even when he’s on the field. You know, your quarterback needs all the damn help he can get. You know, Shakur showed up last night had 110 receiving yards even though he got, you know, got stripped for the fumble and all of that, but the bottom line is he had a relatively good game, but you need all the help that you can get and and and and do y’all agree, and this is the only thing that I wanted to ask. Y’all agree with the decision, you know, a healthy scratch for Keon Coleman knowing that Josh Allen’s already been handicapped. you didn’t go out there and get what you needed to get for him before the trading deadline expired and and y’all y’all agree with y’all y’all agree with the decision to sit out of wide receiver knowing this man needs all the help he can get. How do y’all feel about that? Ryan Cam, somebody tell me I go ahead. I look at it through this lens. When you see the type of performance that was displayed last night for the Buffalo Bills, the first thing that I did even for preparation for the who was out, right? who could have been inserted into the lineup from the offensive line. You know, obviously Dalton Cade is out from the receiver position that could have assisted in not allowing this type of performance to happen. And all eyes or all fingers point to Keon Coleman. So with this type of distraction, do I think Keon Coleman being there would have made a big difference? No. I really questioned the protection of the Buffalo Bills for Josh Allen because every single starter was readily available. Those are the things that you kind of look at. If anything, between Shawn McDermott and Brandon Bean, the general manager, I think the ball was dropped and it showed more than ever last night because you do not have a star to assist your star. And that’s from the receiver position or from the offensive line standpoint. And that’s was extremely frustrating to kind of witness. One, Buffalo tried to trade for Jaylen Wadd at least by reports at at the trade that night. They knew it. They knew it, right? The last thing Kim could speak to it as well. The last thing I would want as a quarterback is a receiver out there that’s unreliable. I’d rather give give me someone who I can rely on that I trust. He may not be as talented, but I don’t want somebody out there that that is maybe more talented that I don’t know what they’re going to do. And I You’re saying from a a route standpoint? All of it. Yeah. I mean, from a route standpoint, from a ball in the air standpoint to from a blocking standpoint, from a blocking on the perimeter standpoint. So, Keon’s got some growing up to do. It’s been a massive disappoint massive massive disappointment this year. Uh but I don’t I don’t disagree with the decision if they think in house that was the right one.

On First Take, Cam Newton joins Stephen A. Smith, Dan Orlovsky, Ryan Clark and Shae Cornette to break down their biggest takeaways from Thursday Night Football between the Buffalo Bills vs. Houston Texans.

0:00 RC & Dan are twinning
0:42 Will Anderson reacts to Texans’ dominance
1:31 More concerned with Bills or encouraged by Texans?
5:46 Stephen A. says Houston can win the AFC
8:14 Trouble for Bills compared to last season
10:14 Decision to scratch Keon Coleman

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