Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Ultimate Division Crossover - Texans

Episode Date: February 10, 2020

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What's going on, everybody? This is Locked On Texans, your daily Texans talking news update, where you can find us on all of the major podcasting platforms, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Megaphone, and Spotify. I'm John, some sports guy Hickman here, along with my co-host in crime, Cody Davis. But we're not by ourselves today. We are starting the epic, I'm going to call this the epic crossover. Can I say battle? Because, I mean, this is the AFC South. You know, at the end of the day, we really don't like each other. But we have our brothers from Locked On Titans and Locked On Jaguars, Tyler and Tony.

What's going on, brothers? What's going on, man? You know, it's Sunday. I'm ready. I normally don't fight on sunday i'm a peaceful man on sunday but i'm ready i got my boxing gloves on today duty calls man how are you guys doing today i'm doing great uh the city of houston just changed the weather it was sunny yesterday night skies and now it's cloudy again but But I'm doing great. I actually like you guys. I don't want to fight.

I just want to talk a little bit about our teams in this past season and what we can do going into next season to kind of ensure that things are different. So it's going to be a fun episode. Well, one thing we can all take pride in is the AFC South has been one of the most competitive divisions in the NFL the last few years. So although we all have our battles and disagreements collectively, we've been a pretty impressive group. So that's one thing we can all stand on.

That's a fact. And that's a fact. You know, I used to have this joke and I had to let it go. I called the AFC South the Mountain West of the NFL. That's not true anymore because they've been representing it and going into the playoffs and making some noise. So I got to drop that one off. But, you know, I'm the guy that's had the least amount of success

here in Jacksonville. And even TikTok Titans knows this. One of his listeners or one of his guys on Twitter said, why is he so negative? Because we've had four winning seasons in 25 years. That's why I'm so damn negative. You know what I'm saying? That's just, you know.

It's hard to be positive. It is. And the fans expect you to be honest. So that's why I'm so honest. And sometimes, you know, I have to be to be uh as honest as i want to be but all that success you guys have had with tennessee and and with houston you know that that means something for the afc south well to say one thing i want to say one thing is those four winning seasons for you guys have at least led to a conference game. Tennessee has went to a conference game this past season playing against the Chiefs.

You guys went a couple years ago. We know the Colts have been within the last decade. We know how that whole story played out. We are the only team in this division to not make a conference game. And so that's frustrating down here. Now that we have a franchise quarterback and we have Hopkins who fortunately should not have to go out like Dre Johnson did, playing a lot of those meaningless years,

we want to get to that title game, and then we want to make it to the Super Bowl. So we got some things to work on down here in Houston as well. What are those things, though? Because when I look at the team, it seems like they're built for success. It seems like they're built to be competitive. It's just hard for me to understand what exactly are they missing. It doesn't seem like it's something on the field.

It seems like it's something off the field. Yeah, absolutely, off the field. I just feel like we have no sense of direction now that Cal McNair is the owner. And you can kind of see Bob. Bob used to do a lot of things to make sure he's involved with the team daily. He birthed this team, so to speak, and he was super hands-on. Now that he's passed away. Cal McNair, I think, may have done the most questionable move,

and that's solidified, not promoted, but solidified Bill O'Brien as GM while he's still actively the head coach. And the problem with that is, yeah, you did a very great job at GM, but you're still complacent at head coach. There are still moments throughout a 16-game season, two playoff games where your clock management is just terrible. Your knowledge of where you are in the game is questionable. Your play calling is still dull and very vanilla. So on the field with the roster, we have a lot of talent.

Yes, that trade to get Thompson may have been a lot, but when you look at your franchise quarterback, the one thing you need is kind of his best friend on that field, and that's the guy who's going to protect him. If this is a nightclub and he's a rapper, you need that bodyguard to make sure nothing's going to happen to him. And that's what Deshaun Watson is. He's a superstar.

We have Hopkins. We have Kenny Stills, who I like a lot. Even with our tight end core, we're not asking much of them, but when we do, they're a pretty solid as a unit. I believe that it's Bill O'Brien and the way that he calls plays, how laid back he is, how forceful he is to do it his way or the highway, and it's only so much you can do that way in this NFL. Well, I have a question for you, Cody, and I'm looking at this Texans team. And like you guys said, you have a lot of talent on the field, but is there anywhere on the field where that talent maybe didn't perform in 2019

as much as you expected them to? Is there any kind of unit on the team you expected more from that didn't really produce? Of course. and it goes back to the Texans secondary. I mean, you just take a look at, just listen to the names that John just threw out. Every single one of those names were offensive players. And yes, we have a dynamic offense down here in Houston, but at the end of the day, on the other side of the ball, especially the secondary, it is by far their weakest part of this team. You take a look at nearly every single week. I've been saying it all season long. It has been a roller coaster ride for the Texans secondary. Some games, like the game against the New England Patriots, we came here, oh man, the Texans secondary looking like they are actually worth something.

They actually put in some good work. Then the very next week, we lose an embarrassing game against the Denver Broncos, and we have a rookie. I believe he was starting in his very first game for the Broncos, and the Texans secondary just did not show up. So, to me, I feel like we have all the necessary pieces on the offensive side of the ball, but this offseason, Bill O'Brien needs to make sure that improving that secondary needs to get the job done

because if we don't, we're going to see another repeat of the same season we saw in 2018 and in 2019. Well, here's the thing, though. When you say that, Bradley Roby is a free agent. Are they going to resign Bradley Roby? And they let Tyron Matthews go. And I know there's some people. Landry Locker's my boy.

He works there in Houston on radio. And he always goes in on Tyron Matthew, but not Tyron Matthew is the champion and was voted the team MVP. How do you do that when you don't retain? And three years ago, they let go of AJ Boye, who's here at Jacksonville was probably going to be released by the Jaguars. How do you do that when you don't retain your best players? And are they going to try to keep Bradley will be around because he made a lot of big plays I don't know how he played all year but I know when he

played Jacksonville he played really really well it's funny that you just mentioned uh Matthews because I actually did a show I believe not last week but two weeks ago I actually broke down that the Houston Texans made a huge mistakes by letting Matthews go because I compared his 2018 season and his 2019 season. Now, granted, 2018, his only year in Houston, he did not have the performance that everyone thought he was going to have here. But when you compare it to his 2019 and you take a look at what all of the Texans defensive backs did, he would have been the best one on this team this year. But once again, before we got Bill O'Brien, the only hope is now that last offseason,

we had a general manager who went by the name of Brian Game. I don't know if you know him or not. I'm pretty sure you guys do. This man made a lot of dumb decisions during free agency. One of them was letting Matthews go. And I even posed the question to our listeners. I said, do you think the Texans made a mistake in letting him go? And for the most part, it was a 50-50 split, but a lot of more people towards the end of the day was leaning towards yes. Now, when it comes to Bradley Roby, the Texans need to make sure they keep him. I'm pretty sure they're going to, but now that Bill O'Brien is the general manager, there are a couple players on this team that the Texans need to make sure they take care of first. Those guys

are Laramie Tunsil and Carlos Hyde. Once you get those two guys taken care of, I'm pretty sure they're going to see what they're going to do with Roby next. But once again, we cannot continue to lose another solid defensive player the same way we did with Matthews. Well, I want to say this about Matthew and Honey Badger. First of all, congrats to him and the whole Kansas City team for winning that championship the way they did. I was okay with him leaving because I don't think he was in the right fit

for his skill set. And I also believe that Gibson, when we brought him in, he was much better for what we wanted. Covering the tight end, and that's something that Honey Badger really, really struggled with last year when he was in Houston. And I think when he got to Kansas City and after some time, Spag was able to get that defense where he wanted it to be, then everybody kind of turned up on that defensive side,

and he just continued to anchor that defense being that vocal leader. When we look at Roby, I want him to return. I think we all know Jonathan Joseph is past his age where he needs to be playing football. You know, when you play football at 67, you're kind of done, over-exaggerating a little bit. And then we also look at we have a second-year corner that will be going into his second year next year, Lonnie Johnson Jr.

He still has a lot of football and coverage to learn, and then we have Garyon Conley, who I like. We'll keep him, but what I'm getting at is Bradley Roby should definitely be at the top of our list to get a deal done. I think he had a very solid year, and I think when he had a very solid year, and I think when he was on the field healthy, he made up for a lot of what the other cornerbacks were having issues and difficulties with.

Had a couple of drop interceptions this year, but those are some things where if you drop it, at least I know the other team isn't catching it. The problem with that is we are now in a rock, between a rock and a hard place right now because DJ really needs to get signed. I'm on the board of, on the boat of DJ really needs to get signed as a priority over Bradley Roby.

I think we may lose out on both of those guys because of the money situation. Tunstall has to get signed. We'll have to see if they're going to wait on signing Watson until next season. But if that's the case, we run the risk of if we wait and Patrick Mahomes resets the contract for quarterbacks, the market, then that could be a problem. And then there are other guys.

We have like 20-something free agents going into this year on our roster. But if I could place any priority on any of these guys' heads 20-something free agents going into this year on our roster. But if I could place any priority on any of these guys' heads outside of Tunsil and then I wait and see with Watson, it would definitely be Roby and DJ Reader, but I would rather see Reader first. Fellas, let's talk about the bedroom. Remember the days when you were always ready to go? Now you can increase your performance and get that extra confidence in bed. Listen up.

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I'd just go ahead and pay Derrick Henry. You know what I'm saying? The other thing is the other thing is it's a good thing and a bad thing when you are in a situation where you have to make a choice on what good players to have to pay you already did not pay and you got rid of Jadavion Clowney and I would be very interested

to find out from you guys in Houston if you think that was a mistake because I think Clowney is a transcendent player but all the guys you just mentioned are very very good players so that means that the team is doing something right. However, when you don't win, when you have those guys, and we're doing that here in Jacksonville, when you have guys that come in and you don't pay them and then they leave, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that Malik Jackson went to the Pro Bowl here in Jacksonville.

It doesn't matter that Tevin Smith went to the Pro Bowl. It doesn't matter that they may not be able to keep Calais Campbell because he was here, and he's done really well on and off the field for this franchise. If they don't keep him, it doesn't matter that they went out and signed him. It doesn't matter that Dante Fowler had double-digit sacks and Jalen Ramsey is a very good player. It doesn't matter.

If you don't win, it doesn't matter that those guys, the GM here gets, you know, Dave Caldwell. I like Dave. Dave's a friend of mine, but the thing is is he can always say, well, look, these guys did pan out, but the bottom line is, it's about team building team building means something. Well, that's the biggest question for the Texans that building the team. They've had all the issues that they've mentioned have been related to the general manager making questionable decisions and that kind of leads

me into my next question is now that Bill O'Brien is kind of officially the general manager how do you guys see the team being built going forward you let that's a great point that they let a guy like Jadavia and clowny go because they wanted to save that money and use it elsewhere how do you see bill o'brien trying to build out this team now that he's the general manager i'm okay with it actually um when he was thrown of course him in the committee also with jack easterby but when they were thrown into that fire of okay well brianane did a terrible job. We have to let him go, but we still need to manage this team.

We're going to bring you into the trust fold along with a few other guys. What can you do? Well, right before the season started, the talk of the time was, we can't let Deshaun Watson go out and get another close to 70 sack season or this would be Carr all over again. Well, we made the trade. And like I said, I'm okay with giving up those two first-round picks. For one, you don't know what those first-round picks are going to give you.

You know, they can definitely be bust. And for two, if you're going to make Watson your franchise quarterback, you have to have a bully on the other side protecting his blind side. And I like Tunsell. He made his first pro bowl right before the season started. We was about to cut Martinez Rankin. Instead, we traded him for Carlos Hyde, was really helped out. Carlos Hyde gave us his first 1,000-yard rushing season,

and he played pretty good for us throughout the course of 16 games. Also, the in-season trade to pull off for Gary Young Conley. I like that move. When guys were going down, they did not just stand still with their hands in their pocket. With the talent, or lack thereof, at that cornerback position on the roster, they went out and got a first-round talent. And in a new scenery, in a better scheme, Garyon Conley played damn good. So I like a lot of the moves that he made, majority of them. The only questionable one for me is Jadeveon Clowney, and I personally think that was a personal move that was going on between Clowney and B.O.B. But outside of that, moving forward, I have faith in him that he'll do the

right thing for the team as far as bringing players in. My only beef with Bill O'Brien and the entire organization is he had difficulties throughout the course of the last few years as only a head coach and play caller. Now he's wearing another hat. That's too many hats for him. That's too many hats for him, and it just seems like he doesn't trust his OCs or he doesn't trust his assistant coaches to do their job a lot of times, and that's where my beef comes in. But as GM, I have faith in him. And I have faith in him.

The Titans are going through. Sorry, Cody. I was just saying that's a very similar thought over here. Cody, I did want to ask you a question first, but go ahead and finish your thought there. Oh, no, I was just going to follow up the same thing John said. Like down here in Houston, a lot of people, including myself, we really don't have that much of a problem with Bill O'Brien

being the general manager. But the only problem is, one, he's still on the sideline as a head coach. And two, like John said, he actually had problems just being a head coach. So now you're wearing two hats. But me personally, I actually have more faith in him as a general manager versus just a head coach because John already ran through all the moves. He went out and one, he was aggressive. And two, every single move went out and, one, he was aggressive, and, two, every single move worked out in our favor, except for the Jadeveon Clowney situation.

But I personally do believe by the time he had stepped in to be that general manager, the relationship between Clowney and the Texans were already done. Yeah, that seems like it's a fair assessment. But I do like Laramie Tunsil, so if they're going to use a lot of the clowny money to keep Tunsil, then yeah, I guess you're right. That move does seem to work out in their favor. Speaking of the secondary that I asked you about in the first question

as the disappointment, I know you guys mentioned all the talent on the offensive side, but going into 2020, is there a specific position or a group on offense that you guys still think needs a lot of work? Yeah, on offense, I definitely believe so. One thing we have to do, I think you guys may even be tired of it. Well, damn, Will Fuller's not playing again?

And so I think that's an area where we have to say, hey, we got to go find a solid, consistent talent on the other side of Hopkins. I think Kenny Stills can be that guy, but however, our depth at wide receiver right now is kind of piss poor. Once Fuller goes down, that bumps up Kenny Stills, but after that, Kiki QT has been in the doghouse all season. DeAndre Carter, he hasn't been what you would want out of your third receiver. So finding another receiver, I'm okay with that. And when I look at the offense, I'm going to take a step outside of the actual roster,

and I'm going to look at the coaches, and I would like to see a different offensive line coach outside of Mike Devlin. Really? That's very interesting that you said that because when you're at Jacksonville and you look at Houston Texans, the things that you worry about are obviously DeAndre Hopkins

and Deshaun Watson. But the one thing that doesn't really normally concern you is the offensive line, because you think that's the perceived weakness. The offensive line and the secondary. Those are perceived weaknesses from the outside looking in. So I'm glad that we're sitting here talking about it and addressing it. But then you look at the success of Carlos Hyde, especially against Jacksonville.

He had 160 yards in one game this year. And we were like, where did that come from so um sometimes when you have that success statistically you then turn and look back at the the play calling ability being up 24 to nothing is there anything that could have been done differently in that championship game? Or was it just a simple fact that they were just lucky and fortunate to be up by that because Kansas City came out and didn't play well? Honestly, I think they were lucky to be up 24 to zero because Kansas City was just not playing as well as they should have been playing. But I will say this, and everybody knows this.

You guys know this. On the other side of the field, we flip the field, fourth and one. You don't go forward. You kick the three. All right, cool. You go up 24-0 when you could have went up 28-0. But on your side of the field, instead of kicking the punt, going ahead and punting, you go for it on fourth and third on a fake punt.

So your offense, who was hot, and you have DeAndre Hopkins and you have Deshaun Watson and you have Duke Johnson, who I really like, and I love to see him, what he can do with more touches, but you have these offensive weapons, but yet you choose to go for it on fourth and three with a fake punt. Worst call I ever seen. I ain't going to lie to you. Now, I was in Jamaica. We were on vacation, me and my wife.

And I'm looking and I'm like, don't kick that field goal, man. Just go for it. Just send a message. Even if you don't make it, send a message to your team that we're trying to do this thing. We're going for a title but then when he didn't i said okay cool you know he went for the field goal i thought the fake punt was absolutely the worst call i've ever seen anybody it was ridiculous it was just for a

quick moment it was ridiculous he had the decisions backwards he did it backwards he made he made like the right call but he flipped them backwards you go for it when you're in the red zone on a fourth and short and then you go ahead and just kick and punt when you're in your own territory it it was baffling i feel bad for you guys because as a fan it's hard to lose a game sometimes i tell myself it may sound weird but sometimes i tell myself like if we're gonna lose let's just let's just lose you know what I mean just a regular loss when you lose a game when you're up like that and the coach is doing stuff that 12 year old kids on Madden wouldn't do like it doesn't make sense sometimes I do feel bad for Texans fans I can't say that because

that that was just perplexing. I'd rather go out doing normal stuff and just get beat. And the Chiefs would have won either way, I'm sure, even if they didn't start out playing bad. But it's hard to have your coach kind of implode the team like that. And that has me wondering, all of us, no matter where you're at or where you want to be, at this point, it looks like you're going to have to go through the Chiefs going forward. Is there anything specific that you guys think the Texans have to do to be able to beat the Chiefs going forward?

Because that's going to be the benchmark for every move that gets made by any AFC contender for the next probably decade. Yeah, not only just the AFC, but their 2017 draft class. It's still mind-boggling to me that the Bats chose Mitchell Trubisky over those two guys. And traded up for it. One of the worst, that'll go down in NFL history as one of the dumbest moves of all time. They traded up to get the worst quarterback of the three first-rounders.

Why? The thing about it was, it was no need for a trade-up at all. Right, they traded up one spot. What were they doing? Nobody was going to take Trubisky. Nobody. I don't know what the Bears were seeing in him, but they're going to have to stick with him at least in the next couple years.

But when I look at what the Chiefs have and what the Texans have and what propelled the Chiefs over the Texans and the rest of the NFL, and now they won the championship, they just get creative with the talent they have on their roster. And they improved on areas that they needed to improve on. for the Houston Texas, one thing that, you know, we've been crying for, for the longest, but especially since Deshaun Watson have gotten here is open up the playbook. Now, when we played the chiefs, the fake screen leak out to Kenny Stills that first touchdown, that first touchdown to Kenny Stills that opened up the game, that play was set up from, from a couple of plays before then with the screen to Hopkins that set that play up.

So over the course of 16-game seasons, find ways to get creative. You know, how many times do we get the ball and the first thing we do is run the ball? And stats show that when we run the ball in the first play, I think we've scored maybe like 10 points in the first quarter of the entire season. That's awful. Go out and open up the playbook.

Get creative. Allow your OC to be your OC. Stop trying to micromanage everything because when you do that, as Bill O'Brien, who I'm talking to, but with you guys, you're ruining the potential you have for this offense. And this is an offensive league. If your offense is dull, you're not going to get far. And then on the backside, stop signing guys to one-year deals.

We wouldn't have to worry about Roby if we would have signed him to more than a one-year deal, especially knowing going into the year, this was a position where we needed to solidify. Make smart decisions in free agency and signing guys back because that's what the Kansas City Chiefs did, and they are now the prime who are we going to beat. When you look at the NFL, that's who you got to beat now. We're in the same conference. Quick reset.

This is Tony Wiggins with Locked on Jaguars, joined by Cody and John from Locked On Texans, and my man Tyler, who's the Locked On Texans or Tick Tock Texans. Is that right, Tyler? I want to make sure I get it right. Tick Tock Titans. Yeah. Yeah.

Tick Tock Titans. The thing is, is, man, we all come together to do this. We talk to each other throughout the year, twice a year, about these teams. And you guys are in a good place. And it doesn't seem like it to your fan base, but you really are. Both

the Titans and the Texans are in a good place. At some point, we'll get to my business and my family problems sooner or later. But what do you do moving forward? And how is the – what's the temperature like in Houston in terms of – because what I'm saying is Jaguar fans will love your problems

because at least you're going into the playoffs and you have Deshaun Watson. So what do you guys – what's the temperature like and what do you do moving forward? And what's going to happen in terms of Bill O'Brien and the whole deal involving Houston? And if you guys don't mind, after you kind of give us a temperature check on the Texans right there to kind of round us out for

today's show also give us a prediction of what you think the Texans are going to do in 2020 before we kind of close things up well like you said the Texans are not in a bad spot. But here's the problem. I do believe going into this offseason, when free agency opens up, this is by far is going to be the biggest offseason in Texans history because we have the pieces we need to win. There are a couple of things that we do have problems with, i.e. the whole Bill O'Brien situation. But at the end of the day, we don't have a terrible coach. Of course, we would love a better one, but we don't have a terrible coach. Our offense outside of Will Fuller, who I hope they part ways with this offseason, if you just make a couple tweaks there, fill in some open problems that you have on the defensive side of the ball, I do believe the Houston Texans will be able to challenge Kansas City, not only for the 2020 season, but for years to come.

Because this team is so close to being one of, if not the top team in the NFL. We have Deshaun Watson. You have arguably the best wide receiver in the game in DeAndre Hopkins. Our offensive line has looked so much better. Even when you look on the flip side of the ball, the front seven has looked pretty, pretty well. There's still some questions going on there, but at the end of the day, that's always been one of the Texans' strong suits when you talk

about the defensive team. But once again, if they could fix that secondary, do something with Will Fuller to bring in either another receiver or whatnot. And like I say, the Bill O'Brien situation, he's going to be a good general manager, but he needs to be a little bit more aggressive as a head coach because you have the talent on that team and you need to make sure you are utilizing every single player's potential to its fullest. That's the only way because I do believe if Bill O'Brien wasn't so doggone timid as a head coach, we would have came out victorious against Kansas City. Do I believe we would have continued as a blowout like we were when we was up 24-0? Nah, I don't think so because Kansas City is a team we've seen it time and time again. This is a team who can score 28 points in

the quarter. But I do believe we would have been able to hold on to that lead a little bit more longer. So looking ahead to the 2020 season, like I said, this is going to be the most important offseason in history because if they do well, they fix up some minor tweaks that they have, this team can really challenge Kansas City moving forward. So with that being said, it's way too early to predict where this team is going to go from here when you're looking at next season. But I'm going to say that Bill O'Brien, based off the job that he has done since taking over as general manager, I believe he's going to fix those problems. And I believe that we will be facing Kansas City again next season,

but this time in the AFC Championship game. So with the two-minute warning arriving, John, what's your quick temperature check and prediction to take us out? Quick temp check, I think right now if we're on a scale of one to ten, the city of Houston, the fan base, I think we're about a seven. And that fluctuates with the weather down here in Houston. It goes up, it goes down. So you never really know.

There are things we have to work on. I think for the entirety of this organization, especially since 2010, work on. I think for the entirety of this organization, especially since 2010, there's just been a lack of sense of urgency in a lot of areas. And we just want to win. The talent is here for the first time at a lot of positions, at the main position quarterback that has ever been, and the Texans just want to win. Moving forward, this is the first year for forever. That's how I like to look at it. 2020, free agency, draft, which we have limited draft picks. You have to do your due diligence. I know they're at the senior bowl.

You're going to do all the things you have to do in scouting to bring in the right talent for your team. And let's just get it done.