Reaction To Cardinals vs. Houston Texans

Reaction To Cardinals vs. Houston Texans

You know, it’s uh it’s really nice when you can win a team 40 to 20 and still have it feel like it didn’t go the way you had planned because there’s some weird things in this game, but like right off the bat, some of the things that you should expect or plan for went exactly the way you think they should, including Nico Collins touchdown right off the get-go. I mean, in a in a stretch of plays where it seemed like the Cardinals were on the field for six or seven plays before anything even went well for him. Nico Collins over the middle. Um, there were multiple times in this game and I’ve got a couple of Nico Collins plays on here, but he just dices people up and CJ again has found his rhythm with him on those inb breaking routes. excited about Nico. Like my favorite my favorite Nico Collins moment in here that I don’t have is the um the play he caught over the middle in the second half where like he’s there’s times where he’s a defenseless receiver and he ends up delivering a blow just by being in that space just by occupying space. I swear going back to the first Jaguars game this year when Eric Murray hit him and and it could have been a penalty against Eric Murray for hitting an unprotected receiver uh or a defenseless receiver and Eric Murray got rocked back like three yards. He did it to Buddha Baker today when he was on the run. Um on that play, poor Buddha Baker just just launched launched aside like a toddler or something. That was nice. Uh the Jamal Hill forced pump fumble immediately after that. Agmba picks it up and kids, you want to see how you’re supposed to secure a tackle but also try to knock the ball out. There’s Jamal Hill, last year’s draft pick. Boom. Gets his head across the bow to secure the tackle. Helmet on the ball. Ball comes out. A Gumbbo uh ends up coming with the foot up with the football. And then we get the Woody Marks touchdown after that. Well, let’s see. First there had been uh they scored a field goal off of that drive. The Cardinals go three and out and then up on third and goal after getting stuffed a couple of times up the middle. We get from in I’ll tell you in live action this looked from up above it looked like this is exactly what they plan to do and then I looked up on the TV monitor and I saw I saw CJ’s face and there’s no reason for him to have that expression on his face if he’s trying to fool the defense. He was he was nervous, man. uh he explained in the press conference afterwards. Oh, full credit for the launch when no launch was required and also just where it ends with that still shot. But if you look at one thing about this play that I liked is a the football gods graced us by the ball going directly to Woody Marks. But the look at the line of scrimmage uh and I watched I think the Cardinals players kept playing. and they might have been a little bit confused, but they pushed the line of scrimmage into the end zone there. And there were a lot of issues down on the goal line today. Again, they weren’t efficient in the red zone. Um, they started off what, two for five, which is below 40%. They ended up better than that, but like it’s they’ve still got red zone issues versus a defense that I felt like they should have been able to run the ball more at will against, but the thing that would come over is um the Jaw Jordan touchdown run or excuse me, the Jaward Jordan experience in general. Jaward Jordan becomes the first running back with over a hundred yards this season in a game. Uh and uh the like many of you have asked about Jaward Jordan and I have said look yes he’s looked good in training camp and then in the preseason he’s small. I don’t know necessarily what’s holding him back. You don’t want him to be a feature back necessarily but as as many of you pointed out to me some of you are pissed off that it’s taken this long for Jaward Jordan to to get on the field if this is what he’s capable of doing. I I can’t argue with you. Oh. Oh, good call too, Eric, because I didn’t have any of these on here, but the uh the special teams and uh the obviously I showed the one special teams, but just Jaylen Null as a returner really coming into his own, that was a huge factor in this. I mean, all three phases of the game, the defense was really the least noteworthy. And we’ll just jump to that one. Kamari Lacier and his interception. Um look, for one, just a great job with his ball skills. Good job on the near. Didn’t quite pull it off. I don’t know if he went down into a Wolverine there. I like I like Caleb Pulock just kind of watching and I don’t know wondering if he’s going to be okay or seeing what he’s necessarily up to, but that that right there. Uh so Carl Lacier’s got outside leverage on this. And you can see to his left you’ve got Kayn Bullock and Kalin’s got to make a decision. and the receiver, I can’t remember who was running the route versus Kamari, did a good job of trying to bend it out, but then he breaks back in and and credit to Kamari. He didn’t have perfect, you know, like the guy had inside leverage on him, but Kamari was in position still and there to make the play and you’re playing against Jacobe Brassette who’s not always going to nail those throws. So that series, that’s when the game really got out of hand starting with that sequence right there. So you have that interception by Kamari Lacier. Then you have Jamar Jordan entering. This is already after he had a nice reception. Starts off to the right. Cade Stove does a good job of holding off on a block there. And then he cuts back across the field. And uh Nico Collins down here in that tough position of trying to stay in front of the guy, but not I mean really look in a year where and in a game where we had some stupid penalties. Um good job both those guys. Kade Stove could have easily turned that into an illegal block and it could have gotten called back. Nico could have taken some juice off of it there at the end. Uh just a generally great awareness from all those guys. And then Daltton Schultz after CJ has to scramble a good amount, gets the touchdown. And this is one thing CJ all day long really had to make a lot of plays on the move. This one they had five offensive linemen in. They didn’t have the six offensive line. One of my complaints that’s starting to kind of grow into flatout anger and disgust is the 60 line package. And it the problem I have with it is this. You’re taking you’ve got five receiving options. You put you put um you put uh Blake Fiser there who as far as we know isn’t a receiving threat. So now CJ’s only got four receiving options. teams know that the Texans are not running the ball incredibly well or with a lot of intimidation just because they have six offensive linemen in the game. So, it doesn’t have their it doesn’t give you the desired result. You’re bringing an extra offensive lineman on who I doesn’t necessarily improve things in terms of your ability to impose your will on people. And CJ ends up having fewer options. So, he ends up scrambling anyway, but he’s only got four guys to throw to. This is bothering me. Like I don’t the the Texans lead the league in using a six offensive line package and I feel like one of the reasons they lead the league is because other teams are looking at it and saying like ah yeah we’re good we’re cool. We don’t have to do it quite as much as you guys do. Uh but Jaward Jordan I think is like he’s a revelation on a day where you really uh without Nick Chub and you know expecting have to use a gumbo a fair amount and Woody Marks being just he’s banged up. He’s feeling it. This is in his rookie season. and he’s a smaller guy. He’s had a boatload of t of touches. Um this is this is a really nice development and it’s not necessarily one that I had foreseen. I mean they they signed Cody Schrader earlier this week, the running back uh who has a lot of Woody Marks type elements and three days later they cut him. They elevate Harrison Bryant or signed Harris Harrison Bryant the tight end. Uh but uh you know Jaw Jordan was there the whole time as many of you pointed out and that’s who they ended up liking uh instead. the defense. Oh, to get to the defense. So, it didn’t feel good, right? It doesn’t feel good watching Trey McBride go off the way he did. That guy is a I told you. Told you he’s a stud. He’s a freaking stud, that guy. And he’s going to fight four quarters. No matter how bad the the score is, he’s under contract for like four more years. So, unless the Texans trade for him aggressively or something, uh I I’m feeling good about Cade Stove right now. And obviously Daltton Schultz had a good game. So those two guys were uh and especially with Cade Stove coming along were cool there. But defensively, as soon as the score was as lopsided as it was at 17 nothing and with EJ speed out, this was the hard part was I think the Texans played pretty conservatively on defense and in their coverages when Christian Harris is out there instead of EJ Speed, there’s a big drop off. Um, and I don’t know if you could tell on the TV copy or not, but it’s like what I’ve been saying about Christian Harris is whatever that calf injury was last year, he’s just not moving the way he used to. Um, and he certainly doesn’t move the way EJ Speed does right now. So, I think the Texans were willing to be more bend but don’t break this week. You didn’t see as many different defense. You know, the way they approached Travis Kelce last week, it was all hands on deck. I think they played a little bit more vanilla today. And when you do that, Trey McBride’s going to go off. He did have that one versus a blitz which was single high coverage and if the blitz doesn’t get home, you know, Trey McBride’s going to find a way to get open. So, I’m not overly concerned about that. Uh it it’s funny like we’re in a spot now. That was the first time the Texans have given up 20 points or more in a game. I’m going to look at Cody. Cody had it. Let’s see. It’s been over a month since the Texans allowed 20 or more points. So, Cody Stes on Houston football does a good recap of the games. uh the the tight end he said try tight end Trey McBride is unstoppable. He gets open so many different ways. He’s a huge mismatch for opposing defenses. So EJ Speed has been probably one of the signings of the year for the Texans. Some of these one-year deal guys are the short-term guys uh that that have come on board that you didn’t think much of. I know Ed Ingram has been way better than than I would have expected. EJ Speed’s a big one and hopefully he’s back and healthy. But by and large, like that’s how good the defense is. That then they allow 20 points in a game where they’re playing bend but don’t break and the offense has scored 40 points and you have a multiple touchdown lead the entire time. Still feels frustrating when you don’t get to see the defense at their best. But by and large, this is a game where look, we were worried about a trap game, worried that they’re not not going to, you know, come in and just take care of business. like they came in right from the beginning and you know I I think John Harris had said one of his keys to the game was take this take their spirit early just establish yourself early and that’s that’s exactly what they did the first three possessions of the game were just complete and total Texans domination let’s see happy Texans win Sunday I was thinking about Trey being on our team he plays very swarmlike him and you know Buddha Baker didn’t have a chance necessarily to be very swarm like today. But the look the turnovers, this is this is how games get lopsided. They took care of the ball on offense and they took the ball away on defense. CJ has been doing a really good job of being a mature I like I hate to use the term game manager, but he understands the game flow and the situations. And I think there’s multiple times today where he very smartly threw the ball away. He didn’t make sacks that I can remember uh worse than they need to be or anything like that. Like he’s it’s like a doctor with a hypocratic oath. First do no harm and then and then using your running backs as weapons that it’s not it’s like check down is not a dirty word. And we saw Jaw Jordan, we saw a Gumbbo. Those things are I think some of the things that CJ’s really starting to feel in the offense of, you know, saying taking what the defense gives you doesn’t always mean that you’re just going to be doing the simple vanilla stuff and death by a thousand paper cuts and all that. Sometimes take what the defense gives you is that all right, guys wide open because they’re covering, you know, because they’re worried about something else and then your running back takes off or somebody over the middle turns it into a a 57 yard reception. I felt really good about that. Let’s see. Did we come out with any worrying injuries? I think Woody Marx is and uh Demo talked about Woody Marks in the post game and I think he said they just figured all right with the lead they’ll they’ll take it easy with him because he’s been perpetually banged up. Jamal Hill, it is good to see him and he’s a guy remember with Jamal Hill, Jamal Hill was very raw. He is a guy that had moved from safety to linebacker at Oregon and it’s not like he was playing an NFL style of linebacker when he was at Oregon. So, he’s he’s had a lot to learn. He does athletically do some things that are are really noticeable for a guy that’s his size that moves as well as he does. I’ve always thought he looks a little bit like a young Christian Harris before Christian Harris had this calf injury. So, we’ll uh with you know, he’s he’s somebody to definitely keep an eye on. Pre- snap penalties, 100% I agree with you. These are my my if I had to have any complaints about this game, you know, the red zone, uh, just not punching it in in the red zone, the procedural issues, the Blake Fischer, I know, uh, look, I know he said that he did this. This one thing I hear over and over again, is when you’re checking in as an eligible receiver, and you’d think when the officials realize that it’s happening about twothirds of the time in this game, at least for a spell, that he’s going to see you every time. But you got to get the the eye contact and the and the yes and all of that. It’s like practicing defensive driving. You got to assume that the official doesn’t actually know how to do his job and uh is uh like you can’t assume that he’s paying attention all the time. It’s like when you’re driving through a traffic circle and you see an elderly person that looks kind of confused as they approach the traffic circle and you know there’s a good chance that the elderly person is just going to say, “I’ve lived a good life.” And they put their head down and they go through. They just go. There is no yielding. That’s how you have to treat officials. Like not all elderly drivers, but just some elderly drivers that just are in yolo mode all the time. Uh we’re pretty sure Demo took his foot off the gas on defense play call. Yes. Um 100% 100%. And without going back and watching the AL22 yet, that was very much the sense that I got that they were they were playing it conservatively. They were in their 4-3 base a lot. uh partly because of the personnel that the the Cardinals were using and if if they’d wanted to be more aggressive, they could have been a nickel more, but they just sat out there and and kind of allowed guys to just do death by a thousand cuts a little bit. But the death by a thousand cuts when you’re when you’ve got a 17-point leader, so that’s that’s the life you live. So, I’m not overly worried about that at all or anything without having to watch the AL22. Uh got to run over to KHOU to do some stuff. You guys can watch me tonight around 10:30, 11 with Jason Bristol and the crew. And I’ll do some uh hopefully be able to have time to do the the press conferences tonight as well.

Former Houston Texans player Seth Payne gives his reaction to Houston’s 40-20 victory over the Cardinals in Cardinals vs Texans.