Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - LOCKED ON COLTS -5/17- 2017 AFC South Look Ahead: Houston Texans W/@HSTPodcast

Episode Date: May 17, 2017

To finish out our #AFCSouth look ahead to the 2017 season, Matt brings in Robert Land (Locked on Texans) to discuss the Texans' offseason, top draft picks and how the team will progress after a very impressive 2016 season without a capable quarterback and their best defensive player. #Colts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

No, I'm not for sale. You are Locked On Colts, your daily Indianapolis Colts podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome back to Locked On Colts, ladies and gentlemen. I'm your host, Matt Dainley, and thank you guys for joining me here on a Wednesday. We're finishing out this series, going through all the AFC South teams. We've done the Titans. We've done the Jaguars.

Now we're on to the Houston Texans, and we're here with Robert Land, host of Locked On Texans. Robert, what's going on, man? How's it going? It's been a little bit exciting. It's good to get back into the football mode over at Rookie Manicamp on Saturday. So that was a lot of fun just to start seeing the guys and hear them talk about what they think. You don't get a whole lot, Matt, from the rookies, especially with Bill O'Brien, the coach.

He's got a little bit of a short leash on our guys, so you get a lot of generic answers out of them. But it was just good to see them and feel like we're starting to get back into football mode. We just saw a little bit of practice from the guys, too. That was pretty cool. Yeah, and that's very much the way the Colts are too. I've not been able to get to a rookie mini camp, but I plan on getting my friend George back on the show who is down there all the time. George Brimmer is a fantastic outlet for us here and he gets a lot of the front row

stuff. So he'll have a lot to talk about. I'm excited to get him on the show and see what he's had to say about what the Colts guys have brought. Cause I mean, they've already made, uh, you know, they've already brought guys in, they've already released some guys. So I'm curious as to see how all of that's gone down. But, uh, today we're here to talk about you and the Texans, and I'd love to hear what your thoughts are about basically the first, uh, part of the offseason. I mean, you guys didn't do much of anything as far as in free agency, but you did make a couple moves. Nothing with too much excitement necessarily, aside from that one guy, Brock Osweiler, I think is his name. And you guys finally rid yourselves of him.

Talk about your offseason a little bit previous to the draft. Well, the Brock Osweiler move was huge, obviously, because what it did was open up the cap space, which we still don't know what they're going to do with that or if they can do anything with that. That's really one of the big question marks that we still have left in the offseason. But getting rid of Brock, I think, was something that had to be done. I think this was as much about the locker room as getting rid of the cap money. I just think they just didn't want to have Brock around. The more you heard the stories, the more it came out that Bill O'Brien and Brock were oil and water. And there was a lot of just real, maybe, I don't know if you would call it subordination issues or things like that, but those guys did not get along.

And so for a Texans fan, just knowing that Brock Osweiler cannot get into the game this year is probably the biggest deal. We just don't want to see him anymore out on the field because to say he was the worst quarterback in the NFL last year might be an understatement. His rankings were worse than that. Yeah, and I definitely didn't think he was the worst quarterback in the NFL last year might be an understatement. You know, his rankings were worse than that. Yeah, and I definitely didn't think he was going to be that bad until, and you start to see the season go forward, and it's like, wow, this dude just really is that bad. I mean, I was actually, you know, I'm one of those guys who enjoys the competition getting better in the division. You know what I mean? I want good quarterbacks. I

want good defenses and I want to see good football through the division for a couple reasons. One, because I think that makes whoever, hopefully the Colts, obviously that helps them with their in-season competition, even when they're, you know, within the division to allow them to get themselves ready for further on in the season and possibly the, the, uh, post season. And then not only that, but it just, you don't have that stigma hanging over your head. Well, Oh, he won, they won the AFC South, you know, where, you know, it's hard to tell basically what teams are going to do in the post season when they win. But now, you know, I was, but then I guess even, even then, and now, uh, I was excited to see Osweiler come because I thought

he was at least a decent guy at quarterback position. I thought he was at least going to give them a little bit of firepower was going to give them some knowledge was hoping that once he took the starting role, that he was going to be able to do something with it. And it just did not turn out that way. You were also excited to see him come after he died here. Cause he was undermining what the Texans were doing at every single point. But I tell you what, the one thing I will say is that maybe the game of the year for him, and it really was a huge game for the Texans, was the game against the Colts. Yeah, that was just awful. Yeah, that was.

That was terrible. That was the worst seven minutes of any Colts fans life. I mean, you, I mean, how many times do you see a running back catch a ball and then go through all 11 defenders at some point or another between 15 yard line and the end zone? I mean, it just, oh, it's heartbreaking. It was heartbreaking. And the thing about that particular game is, you know, that might have given Brock an extra leash for a longer few games, you know, with how he played this year. And then you also look at something that has come out, I think, as we've gone through the offseason. And there's nothing official about this. But apparently what was going to happen was Tom Savage was going to start against Green Bay. He was going to start two or three games before he actually got into the game against Jacksonville late in the season and then became the quarterback. But he had the arm infection. And so that Colts game could have changed history because maybe he starts a couple of games before the Packers game. You don't know. And what does that change about what the Texans do in the postseason

when Savage gets the concussion that last game? Do they maybe think about going back to Tom Savage? Maybe it's a no-brainer you go back to Tom Savage for the Patriots game. I personally thought it was a no-brainer to go back to Savage for the Patriots game after the concussion in week 17. But, you know, the Texans, for whatever reason, they thought, well, we're going to go with the veteran in the Patriots game. And, you know, it's just one of those deals. And I think we talked about this not long after the season, but you felt like if you just got just mediocre quarterback play in that game against the Patriots, they could possibly have won that game. And of course, that changes the whole 2016-2017 season for the entire NFL because we saw what the

Patriots went on to do. Absolutely. And you know what? And now we no longer have to talk about Osweiler because he's not in the division. He's not on the Texans. He's nowhere. So that's good. He's over at the Browns and who knows what his career is going to end up being. But one of the other moves that you guys did make was that you guys basically released George Godsey of his duties as offensive coordinator. Now you guys don't have one. How does that affect you guys moving forward? And do you see the Texans actually adding another offensive coordinator? Or did you just see Bill O'Brien basically being the play caller? Bill O'Brien is the play caller. And one of the most interesting things we talked about this in our Monday podcast about mini camp is when he talked in this press conference, Bill O'Brien said he's done more coaching in the last three or four weeks than he'd done in his previous three years. Basically, he was talking about hands-on coaching.

And that's because he's now officially taken over the offense. And I think for the first time by himself without any help, we'd always assume that he was doing a lot more than he said he was doing. But you get the feeling as this thing plays out a little bit, he had handed a lot of the reins to Godsey. And later on, I know you wanted to ask me later on, what's the biggest move that the Texans made in the offseason? And you might be expecting me to say a player or maybe getting rid of Brock Osweiler. Maybe the biggest move is George Godsey's gone.

Bill O'Brien is officially in charge of this offense. And we're going to see how good an offensive mind Bill O'Brien is, because that was his calling card when he came to the Texans. Does that give fans, do you think, more excitement about going into this season with the offense, especially with the getting rid of Osweiler and then who we're going to get to here in just a second, but they're, you know, your quarterback now, aside from, you know, you know, who you had in the past or, or who's going to come in as backup or just whatever, does that, you know, bring a little more excitement to the fan base? Do you think with O'Brien really holding the reins? I don't think so. I think the big excitement is that number one, Brock's not going to be the quarterback. And number two, you have two guys now that have potential, that look like they might be an NFL quarterback for a long time, that have talent. They have some things that they do very well that we've seen. One more in the pros, one more in college. But there's hope.

There's a little bit more hope that you're not putting in one of these guys that's just somebody else's cast off. And that's what they've been dealing with over the last few years, whether it be Ryan Fitzpatrick, Ryan Mallett, Brian Hoyer, Brock Osweiler, and the list goes on and on. Yeah. So let's get into the draft then. Let's talk about Deshaun Watson. First round pick for you guys, 12th overall. You love it? I love the fact that they were aggressive.

And that's something that we're seeing over the last couple of years. Before, you probably would have said the Texans were a very conservative team. They're not going to do anything major. It's going to be kind of, we're going to take our pick or whatever. As we've gotten into this Bill O'Brien administration, the further we go down into it, and maybe this is Rick Smith changing what he does. And I think he has changed a little bit of how he's doing the draft. He's going after guys that he wants instead of waiting for guys at that point in the draft where you

take him. And so the aggression of number one, whether you like it or not, they went after Brock Osweiler. It turned out to be a big swing and a miss. And now you go after Deshaun Watson. So a team that we know is badly needed quarterback over the last three or four years has gone after two guys. They've zeroed in on who they want and they've done everything in their power to make it happen. And I don't know what Deshaun Watson is going to become. He won't fail because of football character. This guy, as everybody that's watched him over the last couple of years with Clemson knows, he is clutch. He makes big plays and big games. He is an incredible guy off the field. I mean, you could talk about growing up poor, a major part in that. It was his deal, and Warwick Dunn, the former NFL player, the former Tampa Bay Buccaneer, was picked number 12 in the draft, as was Deshaun Watson. So there was this really cool coincidence there. He's dealt

with his mom's cancer and the family fight and the struggle that they've had as she's tried to overcome cancer. I think she lost part of her tongue. They had to rebuild that. She's okay now. And he gave her a car on Saturday, the third day of the draft, because that was his mother's birthday. So he gets drafted by the Texans on Thursday. And for his mother's birthday, he gets her a car on Saturday. So it's a great story from that perspective. The only thing that you worried about with him at all is the interceptions, 17 interceptions his last year, 13 interceptions the year before. Bill O'Brien said, well, he throws the ball a lot. So that was kind of his reasoning for it. You also might factor in some other things. I talked to somebody that covers Clemson for SB Nation. He said there were some injuries that weren't talked about as much his senior year that could have affected his accuracy. His wide receivers

may have been not running the right routes. There may have been other things behind the inconsistency as far as his accuracy is concerned, but that's what it's going to come down to. Can he handle a pro-style offense and can he take care of the football? I agree. And I don't think that there's any major issues with Watson, to be quite honest with you. I mean, the interceptions are one thing, but when you look at the way the guy plays the game, you look at the way he approaches it from all angles. He's going to be a guy that can feed the ball. I mean, you've got Lamar Miller down there.

He's a little scat back. Didn't have a great season last year. I mean, you can look at stats. You can look at a multitude of things. But they do have a backfield. They've got an offensive line in progress, I guess you could say. But I think that Deshaun Watson coming into that system with O'Brien, I personally like O'Brien. I don't follow it nearly as close as you guys do,

but I think that's a match made in heaven to be quite honest with you. The interesting thing is everybody assumed Bill O'Brien wouldn't want a guy that wasn't a straight up pocket passer, that statue, that six foot four, six foot five guy that, you know, he's going to stay in the pocket, hold there, not scramble around a whole lot, not improvise. So from that perspective, it's interesting to see what Deshaun Watson does. But as far as character goes, the Texans have always been about that. You know, he checks every box there. And the other interesting thing that you're going to have to throw into this mix is Tom Savage. He's still considered the starting quarterback going into this season. That's what they're saying. Bill O'Brien said, hey, there's a competition there. There's a competition for every position, but there was no doubt made by Rick Smith or Bill O'Brien after the draft, Tom Savage was going to be the starting quarterback. So Tom Savage is a guy that, you know, it's going to be interesting to see what he's able to do because this will be, I guess, his second start in the NFL to this point. This is only a second start,

the first game of the season, if he's the starting quarterback. And he showed some real potential, I thought, when he played last year. So, you know, this is also he's a free agent after the end of this season. So what's going to happen there? You know, does he do well enough to where they decide that they're going to sign him? Because if he has a good enough season that he starts impressing other people, then you have to make a tough decision. Do we want to pay him or do we want to just go forward with Deshaun Watson? Because then you're paying the first round pick and you're paying Tom Savage. My personal feeling is you can't have enough good quarterbacks around. So, you know, half the season, something like that. I don't know that it's going to happen, but I think that that would better serve the Texans' long-term goals, to be quite honest with you. So let's go on to the second round pick, Zach Cunningham.

Now, you guys lost John Simon to us over the offseason, but you guys replace him with Zach Cunningham. Well, I mean, he's a little bit of a hybrid guy back there. I mean, he can play a little bit of everywhere. But good size, good player, freaky dude. How much of this guy's athletic profile do you love? I mean, this guy has it all, basically. And for a second-round pick where you guys got him, I think that you guys got him with some good value and stuff.

I think that Cunningham's a good role filler for sure. And I think him behind some of those defensive studs that you guys have got on your front seven, that's going to prove to be a really good pick in the end. The key to Zach Cunningham and what he brings is the ability to cover guys out of the backfield or tight ends. The Texans' middle linebackers are slow. As good as Bernard McKinney has been as a middle linebacker, he's not a good coverage guy. Brian Cushing is not what he was. It's been a long time since he was the Brian Cushing that was pro bowl caliber middle linebacker. He's there mostly because he's a leader and he's a good quarterback of the defense. But the Texans badly needed somebody that could cover guys,

and they badly needed speed from the middle linebacker position. This was a definite need that they were able to get in the second round. And here's a guy that not only brings you that, but he's a really good special teams player. This is going to go underrated by people outside of the Texans organization, but the Texans special teams has been an atrocity for years. It's been terrible. It's something that's got to get better. They've had a great defense and terrible special teams and a terrible offense for the last couple of seasons. And Zach Cunningham is fast and he's been a really good special teams player. And they're hoping that's where maybe he

makes his most immediate impact for them along with the coverage out of the backfield. But yeah, that pick right there, if he brings what they hope is exactly what they need. I think he's a good, I thought it was a great pick to be honest with you. Now, when we get to your third round pick, Dante Foreman, this might've been my favorite pick of the, of their draft, to be quite honest with you. You get a little fire and ice, a little thunder and lightning here with Lamar Miller in the backfield. You guys have got some other guys back there as third and fourth guys in the rotation, but I think that Dante Foreman is a guy that's going to really impress some people.

And then to keep him in the same state as where he went to school. That's a, that's, I mean, he almost feels like he's at home, I think for sure. And then you get, like I said, you've got Lamar Miller back there, a different kind of back. This is one of the better one, two punches in the backfield in the division. You made a great point. You know, he's the perfect compliment to Lamar Miller. It's exactly what you said. They were terrible running the ball up the middle last year with Lamar Miller, but they kept trying to do it. I don't know why. I wasn't happy with Godsey

or Bill O'Brien or whoever was making those play calls. It just seemed like that was never going to work. Lamar Miller was never going to be an inside runner. Their offensive line didn't exactly move anybody last year. Deontay Foreman doesn't need an offensive line to move people. He can move people. Three-fourths of his yardage with Texas was after he got hit. This is a guy that can break tackles, can make things happen. You talk about a guy that wanted to be a Texan. He grew up a Texan. He grew up down the road. He's probably, you know, I'm near downtown Houston, and he's probably like a 45 or 50 minute drive from me with no traffic. He grew up in or went to high school in Texas City, which is which is not too far down the road towards Galveston,

if people know where that's at. But Deontay Foreman goes to the University of Texas. He wins the Earl Campbell Tyler Rose Award. Now, Earl Campbell is a god in Houston, you know, 39 years ago, drafted by the Oilers. And he went to the University of Texas and he grew up in Tyler in East Texas. The two guys almost took the same path at the press conference on Saturday for Deontay Foreman. He was asked, did he get a call from Earl Campbell? He said, yes, I did. We had a good conversation after the draft. You know, that's a guy that can be a mentor for him, you know, dealing with all of the same things that Earl Campbell did, you know, his path to get to Houston.

And Deontay Foreman went through a hell of a lot. Everybody that watched ESPN and the draft knows this story. I mean, this is a kid that, you know, had a had an infant son that died right after he was born. Deontay Jr. in the middle of last season, he was going through all of that as he was racking up 2000 yards for the Longhorns. So this is a guy that, you know, everything about it says, rings the bell of this is a great story about to happen. And if you're a Texan fan, he's the guy that you're most excited about because he's probably the guy that makes the biggest impact immediately of all the draft picks. I agree. Totally. I agree. And that was just a backstory on that, uh, on his story. That was heart-wrenching. I watched that story where him and his twin were on that.

Maybe it was in like an E60 or outside the lines or something like that, where they were telling his story about him losing his child, but his girlfriend or wife or whatever, she's pregnant again. So that was, you know, I don't know, just made you feel better. I mean, because it just, like I said, as a father, I mean, it just, it was heart wrenching to see that. I don't know, just made you feel better. I mean, cause it just, it, like I said, uh, as a father, I mean, it just, it was heart wrenching to see that. I don't know how somebody comes back from that and, and for him to dig right back in and to, you know, make sure that he gets the rest of his family, uh, protected by doing everything he can to get into the league right now for financial reasons and for the love of the game and everything I thought was a fantastic story. And she's pregnant again, as you said, and the baby is for the love of the game and everything, I thought was a fantastic story.

And she's pregnant again, as you said, and the baby is due the same day that the other three or something. Yeah, it's it's going to be in the middle of the football season. So that's that'll be something interesting to follow as the football season goes along. But the Texans, I'm telling you, Matt, they're just loaded with great stories in this draft. I know you want to go to the fourth round. Now, there are two fourth round picks. One of them, I want to get to in a second, which is the right tackle, Julie Owen Davenport out of Bucknell, which that part of the story makes it really interesting. And I'm going to tell you in a little bit why he was officially the player to be named later of the draft but the other story Carlos Watkins or this is a guy drafted out of Clemson defensive tackle

they're going to look for him to to help out DJ Reeder who they drafted last year also out of Clemson those guys were teammates along the defensive line and they might be rotating at nose tackle with Vince Wolfwork from everything we understand, he's much retired. So he's not coming back. So it's those two guys that are going to have to handle the middle of the Texans line this coming season. But Watkins, I believe it was in 2013, he nearly dies in a car accident. And the driver of the car was his cousin and one of his best friends. It was his car.

He felt guilty that he should have been the one driving. Ment and one of his best friends. It was his car. He felt guilty that he should have been the one driving. Mentally, it wrecked him. Physically, it wasn't good either. And he was able to come back from that, continue to play again. And then, of course, as everybody knows, be a part of that national championship game this past season. And Watkins is a guy that from everything that I've read, people think this is a great pick for the Texans to get with that supplemental pick in the fourth round. And I agree. I love that pick. Now, if we run back to Julian Davenport real quick, that was a guy now just because of who the Colts took as a developmental offensive lineman. The Colts need, they need, I want to

say they need depth. They need quality depth at a couple spots. They didn't need a plug and play type starter. And I thought that where they drafted Banner, Zach Banner out of USC, I thought that they drafted him basically for nothing. I thought it was a waste of a pick. Whereas if they would have gone for a guy like Davenport, who is raw, you know, in the sense of the word anyways, needs some structure, needs some development. But I think that he's going to end up being a phenomenal offensive lineman. I really do. I think he's got a lot to it. I talked to some scouts down at the combine and those guys were really high on him. I talked to others and they're like, eh, he's okay. You

know, then I watched for myself and I thought this guy's got good qualities. He's got a lot of athleticism and he's got what it takes to become an NFL starter. And that's a guy who's going to end up being, I think he's going to be, I really do. In two years from now, I think he's going to be one of the better linemen for the Texans, to be quite honest with you, depending on who they draft in afterwards. But I thought that that was a good pick. I thought that that was a quality spot for him in the fourth round there as well. And like you said, they had two fourth rounders and Watkins, who's going to help you on the interior on the defensive line, was another great pick. I thought that the Texans had really good draft picks towards the meat of the draft as well.

And really all the way through because they got needs and they got quality players at the same time. Yeah, you heard me say that Davenport was the proverbial player to be named later in the draft. What I mean is, this is interesting. So I had the Bucknell Bison voice of the football team on my podcast. And I asked him to start with about Davenport's name because I read in an article that his name was not pronounced Julianne,

it was pronounced Julione. It's spelled J-U-L-I-E. And the other thing was there is an asterisk over the E, not an apostrophe after the E-N. So it looks like J-U-L-I-E-N. So everybody assumed Julian or Julian. And that's what the voice of the Bucknell Bison was calling him throughout his career. Well, in an article that I saw after the draft, this guy that had done sort of a following Davenport around through the draft said, oh, he pronounces his name this way. And I got the impression from the article that that wasn't widely known. And I talked to the Bucknell

voice and he said, yeah, I've been calling him Julian. I guess I've been calling him the wrong name. Tell me what they say. And that is exactly what it is. It's Julie Owen Davenport. And they had also gotten the entire time that he was there, they had gotten the name wrong as far as how to spell it in the book. Because again, they had the, they had an apostrophe after the E instead of an asterisk over the E. So it's like, it's gotten really complicated for me, Matt, here when I'm on Twitter. Cause I have to do that thing where you, you know, you hold down the E or if I'm typing it up on my computer, you know, who, who in the hell knows how to do it? An asterisk over a letter. Yeah. To get the accent over it. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So that's the most interesting

thing about, uh, his background, obviously Bucknell. Also, this is a guy that was raised by his mother by herself. And, you know, she was going through school trying to raise kids and like four kids. And this guy also has been through a ton. Another really interesting story. Now, as far as football goes, the thing that you talked about is he's a right tackle that has definite potential. But the key is potential. From everything that we understand, it's going to be a project.

What the Texans don't have is a right tackle right now, and they can't afford a project. They had Chris Clark, who was bad last season. That's their biggest weakness outside of quarterback, probably of any position, is that right tackle position. So they need him to get to be a starter and get to be a starter fast. And the big news coming out as we're recording this is that they signed veteran Brenno Giacomini. I'm going to give it a little Italian twist to to it he was the right tackle for the jets last year he won a super bowl for the seahawks back in 2013 he's been around but

he's a guy that's kind of bounced from team to team started with the packers then the seahawks and then the jets so not a not a major uh pickup kind of an under-the-radar guy that maybe they're hoping can just help bridge the gap until Davenport can get it up to speed. Yeah, a little water plug. I mean, I think that Davenport will be there sooner rather than later, to be quite honest with you, because he's got the light feet. He's got the athleticism. And he's tall, 6'7", but he's not an enormous guy with flat, heavy feet. You know what I mean? I think that a lot of his technique is going to be in the upper body

that he's going to have to learn. I think he'll be fine. I really do. I think within a year he'll be a solid offensive lineman. So I don't think that you guys will be too bad after that. But the last two picks you guys came home with were in round five, Treston DeCowd at safety out of Oregon State. And in the seventh round, you guys took a center at Kyle Fuller. So you addressed another couple needs here. What do you know about these guys?

Fuller is a guy that was listed as a center coming out. And he's the guy that I know least about so far. Probably the guy that they're you know this is a guy that there might just be lucky if he makes the team we'll see what happens but i think the thought with him is because the texans you know they started greg vance last year and he did a really nice job for him he's a he was an undrafted guy but he ends up doing a really good job and turns out to be one of the more solid guys on the offensive line next to Dwayne Brown, their left tackle. The guy that was supposed to start last year was their second round pick, Nick Martin, who they had a lot of high hopes for.

And he's got injured. He was out the entire season. So one of those guys might end up being moved to guard. But you figure one of those two guys for sure is your starting center. Fuller, if anything, might be a guy that they're going to use as a backup that can play center, that can play guard. Maybe if they're really, really lucky, he can help out there. The more important guy for them, though, this year is Tristan Ducoud. They lost A.J. Boye, which was huge.

I'm not a fan of the fact that they let Boye go. It didn't look like there was a great deal of money difference between what them and Jacksonville were doing. It was interesting timing, Matt. I don't know if you noticed this, but the Brock deal happened almost the day after the Boye thing fell through for the Texans and they went goes to Jacksonville so do the Texans maybe sign Boye who shot uh you know off the you know shot up the boards of everybody's best cornerbacks in the NFL this past season uh and and so he was a guy that they really needed to hold on to I thought because Jonathan Joseph is getting long in the tooth. Kareem Jackson is getting up there. Jackson, you thought they might even move over to safety and have him play

a little bit more safety this season. And so their two starting cornerbacks have been injury riddled over the last couple of seasons. They're starting to get older. You figured you got to keep A.J. Boy, they also have Kevin Johnson, who was their first round pick a couple of years ago. The problem with him was a foot injury, the same foot, the same injury knocked him out the last two straight seasons. That's scary. I'm a Houston sports fan. I saw Yao Ming deal with foot injuries. I don't want to see a bunch of foot injuries from a guy that's a first round pick. So losing Boye was big. So they had to find some help at cornerback, especially with these other guys being injury prone. So Dekoud, it's going to be a big thing. And the thing about him, he's a big guy. He tackles really well. He might end up being a safety at some point, but he looks to me like everything

from what I read is he seems like he's more of a guy that would be good for a zone scheme situations over man. Because I don't know if his speed is there to be a top flight cornerback, maybe even to be a really, really strong cornerback. But he's a guy that, again, special teams, great tackler, you know, decent speed. That's the kind of guy that you want on special teams. So maybe where he helps out most is there. But, you know, you can't have too many quarterbacks in the NFL. And you guys know that. Absolutely.

Yes, we know that. Yeah, we're lucky if you have enough, let alone having too many. I mean, I would take five more right now if it was in the cards for sure. So, well, let's go on to kind of run through all of these guys. And what was your favorite pick out of all of them? Favorite pick is probably Deontay Foreman. I think it's the most can't miss of all of the guys. The most important pick, there's no doubt it's Deshaun Watson. It's one of those things where you get scared because we watched what happened. We were really close because there's so many Longhorns people in this area

to Vince Young. Vince Young, everybody remembers. He had a fantastic game in the Rose Bowl, his second to last year. He does this incredible game. They win that game. His final year, they go and win the national championship over a team that nobody thought you could beat with a bunch of NFL guys on that team in USC. The exact same scenario almost that Deshaun Watson had, where he has these two huge games at the end of the season, his last two years, two big seasons, his last two seasons, and ends his career with the big win. The difference, hopefully, between Deshaun Watson and Vince Young is his ability to handle a pro-style offense. But the other big difference and the one that you know to start off with is I think the football character, the study habits, the little stuff that Deshaun Watson has that maybe Vince Young didn't have. Vince, I think, had gotten a little bit too big of a head, and that might have cost him quite a bit in his NFL career.

Deshaun Watson, he comes in much more humble from everything that you know about his story. Yeah, I agree. I don't think that'll be an issue for him, for sure. We've already talked about the biggest offseason issue, and that was basically Godsey being released from offensive coordinator. But you guys lost Simon. You lost Bouye, like you said. You still sticking with Godsey there as the biggest offseason move? I don't know for sure if it's Godsey. It might just be the change in quarterbacks in general, just not seeing Brock out there on a regular basis. And Savage or Watson

gives you a little bit more hope. I think both of those guys have a much better chance to be, if nothing else, a serviceable quarterback. Maybe that's just wishful thinking, but those two moves without question, those are the ones that are going to matter. I think everything else is just, I don't think it's going to be that big of a deal. Under the radar move that people might have missed, Romeo Cornell moving away from the defensive coordinator role. He's now assistant head coach, so he will still be around. But Mike Vrabel, who's thought of very highly in NFL circles, he's been up for some coaching head coaching positions. He's been up for some defensive coordinator positions around the league. The Texans did their best to keep him around. And I think they've they've really hoped that he could stick around because they really like Mike Vrabel a lot. Great. Not only leader, I think, from his days in New England, but just to watch him coach. He is the most interesting guy, Matt, to watch when you're at practice because he's out there

doing very specific technique stuff. He's loud. He's a character. He's the guy that I think might have caught people's attention a little bit if you watched Hard Knocks. That guy was kind of interesting. I mean, O'Brien obviously was the big highlight from Hard Knocks, but Vrabel's definitely an interesting guy to watch. And it'll be real interesting to see if he can keep up what Romeo Cornell has done as defensive coordinator because he's just done a remarkable job, the number one defense in the NFL last year. And there is one other kind of major addition for the Texans this year. It's a guy named J.J. Watt.

I don't know if you've heard of him. He's going to be back. No, tell me about him. Yeah, get back. Your three time defensive player of the year will be a big deal. And the other thing is just that's going to be an interesting story to watch because this is a guy that's come off of two back surgeries. And, boy, it's scary when you talk about back surgeries

and somebody like J.J. Watt. Yeah, it sure is. You're right. I mean, you know, and it's kind of interesting just the way everything's come together for that team. You know, you've been without the quarterback, you've got the defense, and now you've got some extra building that needs to be done. It looks like they've done a pretty nice job this offseason in trying to get that done. Is there an undrafted guy that came in that you've got your eye on? The main guy that

I'm hearing a lot of interesting stuff about is Dylan Cole out of Missouri State, inside linebacker. Apparently, this guy is a physical specimen. Pro Football Focus had him as their 14th ranked undrafted free agent guy that I don't know what the latest with him is. I haven't heard a ton recently, but Joe Mathis, they call him Jojo Mathis out of Washington. He's a really good, he was a tremendous. He's a good edge guy. I like him. Edge guy. Yeah. And, and, and, and, and that's a guy that was pro football focuses. Number one guy, he had an injury that ended his season and I thought they were going to pick him up. That was the rumor, what we heard right after the draft. I haven't heard much about him since then, though, and he's not on their list of undrafted free agents. Yeah, I was surprised because he had even confirmed that on Twitter that he was going to the Texans.

And I haven't heard anything about him since. I just assumed that it happened. Yeah. And I don't know what's the latest with that. And I haven't heard anything. I heard maybe that he was going to try out with them, but I can't even tell you that for sure. I mean, I wish I had more, more on that. That's crazy. I didn't even think about that as a, as you know, something to bring up. And then I'm looking through the list of the names here and realize that he's not on there, but yeah, he's, he's a guy that was a, he was a, he would be a perfect edge setting guy. Uh, I thought, I didn't think he would get drafted as a, as a rushing, uh, edge, but I thought he would get drafted as a guy who could be in on running downs

and help out for sure. I mean, that, you know, that's something I'm going to look into actually after, after we get off of here because that's crazy. I didn't even think about that since then. It's been a while. He was one of the guys actually that I was hoping the Colts were targeting and then saw that he was going to the Texans and just forgot about it after that. So that's crazy.

You guys have had some success with edge rush guys named Mathis, right? Yeah, one of them. Yes. So I'm hoping that – relation right no relation no no and i don't think that uh jojo is much of an uh a sack artist by any means like i said he's definitely that edge setter type guy that that physical presence real violent hands too i mean i really i was actually really impressed with that part of his game. Uh, I didn't think it would get him drafted very high, but I mean, dude, I mean, I don't, there's not really another way to describe him other than violent because he is. And I'm kind of glad that he's not on the, you know, on that list now for some reason, trying to figure out what's going on with that. But, uh, Robert, thanks again, man, for, for

joining me tonight. It was good to kind of catch up on everything that the Texans have done this offseason, get your point of view on the draft picks and such. But I wanted to ask you, it was something that Ryan Day asked me yesterday on the pod, and I was curious, I'll be curious to get your information on this too. What kind of a record do you think wins the division this year? Oh, brother, that's a good question. Because he asked me and I said, or he, well, he asked me, I guess what I thought the Colts were capable of this year. And I told him nine wins. And he asked if it would, if I thought that that would win the division. I think the team that has the most potential outside of Houston of getting to 10 and six, which maybe would be my,

I'll go with that. I'll go with 10 and six, maybe wins the division. And the team that has the most potential to do that is the Titans just because they were right there last year. And I think you're, you're going to see more growth from the quarterback position there. And they they're, they're continuing to bring in, I think, some pretty good guys. You add a wide receiver that's a long threat, which they badly needed. To me, Marriott is scary if you're a Texans fan or you're a Colts fan, because if that guy turns into a really good quarterback, the Titans are going to be a tough team to beat for a long time. Yeah, I agree. And I said the same thing as far as about the, uh, the team he asked if I thought that would win the division. I said, no, I think 10 wins

will win it. And he just, he was kind of surprised that I thought that any of the division teams would get to 10 wins, but I think it's certainly possible, uh, this year. So interesting thing. I was curious to get your input on that. So, but Robert, thanks again, man. Like I said, always appreciate it. Great stuff from you. Uh, and it was good catching again, man. Like I said, always appreciate it. Great stuff from you. And it was good catching up, man. Absolutely. Good to talk to you. If you want to see what we're doing, it's at LockedOnTexans. I also do another podcast called Houston Sports Talk at HST Podcast.

And that's been a lot of fun, too, because the Astros are just killing it right now. They're just unbelievable. I have not watched a lick of baseball this season and I don't miss it a bit. I can't tell you. Not a bit, not a bit. Thank you guys all for listening. We'll be back with some regular stuff. We'll have some more guests on the rest of the week. We'll get into hopefully some of the rookie minicamp stuff with George. We'll have Jake Arthur back on here to kind of talk, get his input on some things as well. But thanks you guys for joining me every day. Get to iTunes or Apple

Podcasts. I'm never going to get used to that. Give us a rating and review. Make sure that you guys are hitting me up on Twitter at mdanley underscore NFL or the podcast at LockedOnColts. The email is LockedOnColtsPod at gmail.com, and you guys know where to find me any other way. So thank you guys for joining me. I'll talk to you all tomorrow right here on LockedOnColts. You are LockedOnColts, your daily podcast on the Indianapolis Colts,

part of the LockedOn Podcast Network, your team every day.