Texans
Texans OL coach Cole Popovich detailed what he’s looking for in his offensive line and wants them to be intelligent and tough.
“The two main things are tough and smart, I just want to see tough and physical play,” Popovich said, via Click2Houston. “When you’re watching the tape, you’re really looking for awareness. Does the guy communicate with other people? That’s kind of like the smart piece of it. How does this guy learn? What does he know? What doesn’t he know? Does he have an ability to learn new stuff or not? Those two traits stand out more than anything else. They’ve got to be tough and they’ve got to be smart. I’m happy with all the additions. We don’t even have any pads on right now. So, they’ve got a long way to go. Once we get to camp, we’ll really see what we’ve got.”
Texans HC DeMeco Ryans raved about Popovich and how good a coach he believes Popovich is.
“Cole is a brilliant coach,” Ryans said. “He’s a very smart guy, and he’s not just offensive line driven. He’s very thoughtful and seeing the entire picture of the offensive line, and how it all fits together. He’s very thoughtful in making sure, which guys do I need, what do they do well, and he does a really good job. If you guys ever get the opportunity to see him work with his individuals and how he takes the time to coach the guys up on all the fine, small details, that’s really important for an offensive lineman. It’s him being detailed, being thorough as a coach and never stuck on what he’s always done. He’s always trying to help his players, always trying to improve his players. To me that’s the sign of a really good coach. He is an excellent communicator. Does a really great job on gameday as well. We need to make adjustments. Cole is the guy who sees it, can make the adjustments and get us in the right situations. He’s all the things you want in a coach.”
ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler polled coaches and execs around the league for the top-10 safeties in football, with Texans S Calen Bullock landing at number 10: “He’s probably an adequate-to-average tackler, but his range is elite,” an NFL coordinator said. “So I value that superpower. I’d rather you take the ball away and just be an adequate tackler than the other way around.”
Texans S Jalen Pitre received an honorable mention on this list as well: “He’s a nickel but can play safety. Don’t think he gets nearly enough credit. Would love to have him,” an NFC scout said. (Fowler)
Houston LB Azeez Al-Shaair came in at number six on the off-ball linebacker version of the ranking: “He’s the Dennis Rodman of linebackers,” an NFL personnel evaluator said. “He gets in everyone’s head. He can run all day and can play every down.” (Fowler)
“He’s specialized by scheme a bit, but he’s explosive and good in coverage,” an NFL coordinator said. (Fowler)
Texans OC Nick Caley said he sees the team playing much faster offensively and that the players have a much better understanding of the system in his second year as the play-caller.
“Sure, it’s growth,” Caley said, via Click2Houston. “It’s year two. We should be further along. You talk about just overall understanding of the offense. Last year, we’re teaching the language for the first time at this time of the year. It’s the what is this concept? What’s it called? What are the details of it? I think last year there’s things we did this time of the year that we ended up getting away from for a variety of reasons, whether that was not really fitting what we wanted to do, personnel. You have guys that have experience in the system, in the verbiage, and now we’re a step ahead. Things are processing faster. How can we make them better? How can we learn from things last year good and bad? The best thing I’ve taken from this spring is just a hungry, ambitious group. It’s been a good progression. Got a ways to go, but I’ve been very, very pleased with where we’re at year two as opposed to a year ago.”
Texans HC DeMeco Ryans added that he sees a distinct improvement in his offense this year.
“When I go back and look at film from our last year practices, we had trouble just snapping the football, getting plays started,” Ryans said. “Communication, the play clock going down in last year’s practice. When I say we’re ahead, we’re ahead. We’re doing a better job with our cadence from the quarterback position. All three guys are using voice inflection really well. They’re getting our defensive line to jump offsides several times. They’re using their snap points, the cadence, the rhythm and timing, they’re changing it up a lot, which does wonders for an offense when you talk about operating fast and you operate at your pace. You control the tempo and our offense is doing a better job at controlling the tempo this year. I’m excited to see how we keep going with it. We’re light years ahead of where we were last year.”
Texans WR Nico Collins added that the team being more comfortable in the offense and a faster tempo allows for more thorough pre-snap reads.
“Yeah, I feel like it’s really just getting the play call, getting in the huddle, hear it, and running out of the huddle, getting lined up and seeing where the defense is,” Collins said. “That’s pretty much the pre-snap situation. As an offense you want to hurry up because the play clock is going and you’ve got 25 seconds and it’s clicking by the time they roll it in. By the time you get to play, it’s about 15 seconds. That’s the pre-snap urgency we need. Go out, get lined up, see what the defense is in, wide outs, see who the safeties are, if you’re hot or not, communicate that with C.J., the quarterback. A lot goes on before you say hike, before you call snap. I feel like that’s things we’re working on now in two-minute, just hurry-up offense so on Sundays we’re not thinking about it. If we say we want to change the play, put you on this route, it’s natural.”
Caley added that he and QB C.J. Stroud have a great relationship and highlighted their communication.
“I’ve always had a good relationship with C.J.,” Caley said. “We always have transparent and honest conversations, but you’re always trying to dive deeper, to continue to expand those finer points of the relationship. It’s great. We get to talk ball. We’re highly collaborative. He has great perspective on it. He sees the game really, really well. So I’ve had a blast being around him every single day, just like last year. And we’ve gotten to take it a step further, just more time on task, more time in the film room, more opportunities to evolve and do some different things here from an offensive standpoint. It’s been a hell of a lot of fun.”
Looking for the latest NFL Insider News & Rumors?
Be sure to follow NFL Trade Rumors on X.com and FACEBOOK for breaking NFL News and Rumors for all 32 teams!