The Josh Innes Show - Would A Loss On Wednesday Be Best Case For Texans?

Episode Date: December 23, 2024

So the Texans lost to the Chiefs. That's not a huge shock. We didn't learn anything about them. Tank Dell is out for the year. Did anyone else think it was strange that CJ never recovered from Tank's injury? Moving forward, would it benefit the Texans to lose Wednesdays game? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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we are your local dignity memorial provider find us at dignity memorial.ca the dignity memorial brand name is used to identify a network of licensed funeral cremation and cemetery providers owned and operated by affiliates of service corporation international hello friends it's josh glad you guys are there on this uh december 23rd it's about one o'clock in the afternoon uh sorry i'm a little bit late getting a couple of these out today, but it's the holidays. So who knows how many of you have been listening? But hey, I'm glad you're there. Last night we were able to pump out sure the fact that the NFL-LSU parlay hit again. I think it's three or four weeks in a row that the NFL-LSU parlay has hit. So next week, build an NFL-LSU parlay, usually with receivers, but you can throw in a Joe Burrow touchdown passes.

You can throw in maybe passing yards for Jaden Daniels, although that's a risk. You could throw in the occasional catch from Foster Morrow. Or even yesterday, Kayshaun Booty from the Patriots had a touchdown. So the NFL issue parlay is always there. I mean, they're everywhere making plays. And even when you think it's dead, it comes through. You're like, it's over. And then you get a miracle late touchdown on a free play to Justin or to Jamar Chase in the Bengals game or you get a huge catch late in the third early in the fourth quarter for a touchdown

to Brian Thomas that goes for 60 some odd yards it's wild so the NFLSU parlay it should be built this week and you should make one and win because it doesn't lose. Now, I don't know if my sister's NFLSU parlay hit or not. She said she made one. I know we've talked about it, but I've turned my sister into a real degenerate. My wife over here bets $2, $3 a parlay. My sister is over here like, I'm throwing $25 down on a parlay. Jilly's like, this bitch, what are you doing? Jilly's over here like I'm throwing 25 bucks down on a parlay like Jilly's like this bitch

what are you doing Jilly's over here betting like a child my sister's over here like watch this shit sister's winning 200 bucks uh on a parlay that I sent her and um and Jilly's like why didn't you send me that parlay I'm like well you didn't fucking ask for it neither did my sister but she asked for a college parlay and I was like well I can't send you a college parlay because stupid Louisiana doesn't do college player prop bets so I couldn't send her a college one but I sent her an NFL one and the NFL one was a hit so look I'm a generous guy I don't know what to tell you I'm Santa I'm gambling Santa ho ho ho merry parlaymas Oh, Mary Parlamas. But anyway, stuff going on today. Found out today that Tank Dell's out for the year.

I think that was pretty obvious that was going to be the case after he had to have emergency surgery. He dislocated his kneecap, tore his ACL. And I would hope that the starting quarterback of the Texans wouldn't be sobbing on the sideline for an injury that was going to keep Tank Dell out two weeks. So it was good to know that when CJ was like full on me watching, I don't call him daddy and cats in the cradle music videos at one in the morning on a Sunday night when I'm blitzed on

bush lattes, like he was full on ugly crying, which I've seen people discussing. And look, I have no issue with a dude crying. You cry, that's the way it goes. Everybody cries. I don't care who the fuck you are, no matter how tough you are, everybody cries at some point. You get emotional, you squirt a little bit. Sometimes you squirt a lot a bit.

Sometimes you're just in the shower and something hits you. Sometimes you hear a song on the radio and something hits you. Sometimes you really just want to cry, so you go to youtube when you're hammered and you look up videos of dogs greeting veterans when they return from from war i mean look do what you got to do sometimes you just want to hear wind beneath my wings and you think of your dead grandma people cry it is what it is that said it was a weird blubbering cry from a dude who's the leader of the football team. And like, I guess my biggest issue is not that the starting quarterback is sobbing on the sidelines over a guy fucking up his knee. Like, that's life. I get that you're like best bud. I get all that.

And that's like a big weapon that you have and you're losing. Look, if you were crying because you knew you just lost one of your biggest weapons, hell, we're crying with you, motherfucker. We're all sitting here going, my God, this season with such promise is going to end with a thud in the playoffs against whoever the Texans play because the weapons are all dying. They're dealing with injuries. So, like, we're with you. We all cried.

Watching all these guys get hurt makes us sad too. But if we're going to sit here and we're going to emote over this I'm going to need you to bounce back because the game was still on the line and you still could have won that game against the best team in the AFC but you didn't bounce back it seemed like that injury and then the tears that followed fucked CJ Stroud up royally and he never looked the same again but it was a typical CJ game you know there's moments where he just looks fantastic and he's rolling out making throws on the run and you're like this dude is elite and then there's plays that you don't see that so look I didn't think the Texans were a real threat you know basically based on the last

seven eight weeks of football they haven't looked like a real threat, you know, basically based on the last seven, eight weeks of football, they haven't looked like a real threat. Them beating Kansas City, I don't know if that would have determined or made the point that they are a real threat, but they ain't a threat. Like, they're a threat to keep any game close. I think they're a threat to be competitive. You know, at least this isn't, you know, 2011 Texans, 2012 Texans, Bob McNair, well, technically Bob McNair era slash Bill O'Brien era Texans, where you'd think there's certain teams they could beat, but then they're going to get just walloped by certain others. I don't believe this is a team that's going to go out and embarrass

itself or get its ass kicked by anyone, because for the most part this year, they've avoided that, Minnesota being an example of just getting your ass kicked. I mean, there are some weeks that that's just going to happen. There's not a team that I see the Texans play and go, okay, that team's going to beat the shit out of them. But that doesn't mean I think the Texans are better than those teams either. I don't believe they're better than the Ravens. I don't believe that they're better, even though record-wise, they're right there with the Ravens and they're right there with the Steelers.

If the Steelers get George Pickens back at some point, I think they are a better team than the Texans it's just amazing the difference and I know we've talked about it a lot but when you look at the difference in the Steelers with George Pickens and without him that dude should be getting a billion dollars a year he is the biggest difference maker they've got it ain't Russ like it's good to have Russ but like they need George Pickens and if George Pickens is out there he's going to have Russ, but they need George Pickens. And if George Pickens is out there, he's going to pick apart the Texans and make a couple big plays and beat them. They're not going to beat the Chiefs if they face them at any point.

And then you look down the line, could they beat the Bengals if the Bengals get in? I think the Bengals would torch them. The Bengals' offense can't be stopped. If the miracle of miracles happens and the Bengals get in the playoffs, somehow those two teams met up, which it'd be highly unlikely. But, I mean, the Texans would have to get the two seed for that to happen in the first round. So it wouldn't happen because the Texans are not going to get the two seed.

The Texans have a best case scenario of the three seed. And who knows if they even want the three seed. Problem is, if you're the four seed, you're more than likely potentially facing a team like the Ravens in the first round. So, I mean, look, it's damned if you do, damned if you don the four seed you're more than likely you're potentially facing a team like the Ravens in the first round so I mean look it's damned if you do damned if you don't at this point so line up try to win some football games and see what happens but like the Bengals would beat the Texans I believe that the Chargers when they're healthy are a very good team their defense has looked weaker lately and not as dominant as it looked early but I think a lot of that was based on competition is why their defense looked dominant.

You have to look at the teams you play. So I don't believe that they were ever truly a dominant defense. Could the Broncos beat the Texans? Yeah. I mean, they could. I mean, would you like your chances of facing a rookie quarterback at your place in a first round game? Probably.

But could they beat someone in the first round? Sure. But they are beat up. CJ hasn't looked the same. Tank is gone. And they're not responding to the injuries as well as some teams. Now, if you look at the Lions, the Lions aren't really a fair gauge of this because they played the Bears. The Bears aren't any good. But look at all the injuries. All we hear about all week is that the Lions are facing injuries, facing injuries.oh they're in trouble the Lions are dealing with tons of injuries this guy's hurt this guy's hurt and then they go out and they hang 34 points on the board against the Bears and double them up and we're never really in danger of losing that game and all that's

you know it's happening and now granted it's not like um it's not like they're losing their key playmakers on offense. I mean, yes, they lose David Montgomery, so that's a big part of what they do, but they still have Jameer Gibbs. They still have Amon Ross St. Brown. They've got Jamison Williams. They've got Laporta. They've got their prime weapons on that team still,

and they're keeping Goff clean, and he's thrown for like 350 a game over the last handful of games they're responding to their injuries the Texans it almost feels like the injuries are becoming an excuse and it's becoming a well you know what are you going to do I'm seeing that from some fans injuries injuries and injuries are real the Detroit Lions are dealing with more than anybody and they just keep on finding ways to win important football games and now they find themselves right back in position where they control their own destiny uh to be the number one seed in the nfc so uh texans game like i there was like there was no way let me do this

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Because basically, here's what I would do. If I were them, I'd go out and if you could somehow beat the Ravens, I'd sit everybody week 17, week 18. I guess that'd be week 18, right? I lose track of the time, but week 18. So week 18, I'm sitting everybody and then we're going in and just see what happens. Like a three seed could be in range, but do you want to be the three seed? Do you want to be the four? It doesn't matter really. So I would say if you're able to beat the Ravens, go out on that high note because you don't want to run the risk of running everybody out there and bombing to the fucking Titans and

killing the mojo, right? So if you beat the Ravens, sit everybody, take the L if you have to take the L and see where it goes. But that game didn't really tell me anything I didn't already know about the Texans. I don't believe the Texans are any sort of elite team. I don't believe they're a massive threat to any of the teams ahead of them. But I also believe that on a given day, they could beat a lot of them if all things work out. As I noted, this is not like a situation where, like, you knew that if you played the Bengals in the first round back in 11 and 12, you could beat the Bengals because it was the Bengals. That's who they were.

So you felt like that matchup was good for you. You felt like that the Matt Schaub-led Texans, or in 2011, I guess it would have been the TJ Yates-led Texans. You believed that those teams could beat the Cincinnati Bengals in the first round, but you had no real faith that they were going to go into the second round and take on a Patriots or take on a Ravens in the second round and beat those teams, right? This is a situation where I do believe that you would go into the playoffs not believing you're going to beat anybody, but could beat someone if it worked out for you. Problem with the AFC is there's not just one dog in there. There's not one team you,

and when I say dog, I don't mean like that dude's got that dog in him and there's like a, you know, an x-ray with a pit bull face on a guy's chest. I'm not talking about like that. I'm talking about there's not a dog, like a wounded dog that you look at and go, oh shit, we can take advantage of that team. Whereas a tank, my buddy tank used to call him the pigeon on the offensive line. When you'd be lined up across from the other dude and say, oh, I got me a pigeon. I don't know what the fuck that even meant, but I know what he meant by it,

which was that's a dude you feel like you could take advantage of. That's a dude that you could beat. There's not one team that you feel like, shit, if we get to face them, we feel like we've got a clear cut advantage. Like if you lined up against Denver, would you have a clear-cut advantage? They've got a more accomplished head coach.

Now, granted, you've got a more accomplished quarterback, but their quarterback's been great. They've got weapons on offense. Their defense is stingy. Is that a real advantage? It's not like when you'd line up against the Bengals and you're like, well, the Bengals know how to get into the playoffs because that's what they do. But do you really believe that you're going to lose to Andy Dalton? Do you really believe that you're going to lose

to Marvin Lewis? Like that kind of vibe. There's nobody like that because you look at the quarterbacks up and down there too. There isn't an Andy Dalton. There isn't a guy that you go, ah, Andy Dalton's going to give this one to us. Because you don't look at Justin Herbert and feel that way. Herbert's gotten rid of his dopey coach from before. He's got a legit head coach. You feel better about Justin Herbert. You feel better about Bo Nix because he's with Sean Payton. And I didn't believe that was going to be worth a shit.

But Bo Nix, Sean Payton, looking like Drew and Sean back in 2006. So there's not a weakness there. There's not a weakness in Lamar. I know he hasn't won a Super Bowl, but he's got multiple MVPs, and you don't look over there and say, well, we feel like we got a shot because Lamar is a weak link. Bullshit. Guy's still an outside shot of winning the MVP. He's not gonna, but he's an outside chance of doing it.

Do you look at Russ Wilson? Now, if Russ Wilson, who has won a Super Bowl, should have another, I get that Russ has had his fall off, but if George Pickens is there, they are going to be a threat. It's been proven that when he is healthy, when George Pickens is in, they can beat teams. They've had tougher matchups the last couple of weeks. They've lost. They got run all over by the Eagles a couple weeks ago. This week against the Ravens, it was a tight game until Rusty threw a late pick and that kind of made the score look worse. That was a tight game and Rusty was making some plays. If Rusty's

got his star receiver, if he's got pickings, they could win that game and you could argue should have won that game. So you've got that. You've got Pat Mahomes. He's obviously not a weakness to anybody. So look, up and down those quarterbacks that you're going to potentially face in games in the AFC, there is not one that you go, that's my bitch. Like on the water boy when the guy's got to kick the onside kick, and he looks at that, that's my bitch. There's not one of those.

I don't see one quarterback that's like that. There's not an advantage like that. So they're a weird team because I believe if all things fall their way and you're swagging out and CJ's got the confidence, I think you can beat a lot of teams. I mean, you beat the Bills earlier and then the Bills became the real Bills and they don't lose anymore. I don't know. I just have very little confidence and very little interest and very little faith. Last year was fun because they came out of nowhere. You got to face the Browns in the first round. So you feel good about that. You're like, all right, Browns, the Browns, like it's flat. We can be like, this feels good. And then it was house money after that. And you

gave it a run in the second round. This year you came in with the expectations. This year you came in with the hype. This year you came in with people wanting to believe that you were going to be something. And you've let people down for the most part. You don't really have the quality wins on the schedule. You've got one of them. You've beaten Buffalo. That's nice. But you start looking down the list of these games and these teams.

And you're just like, the injuries have piled up. You haven't responded well to the injuries. The offense has looked for the most part middling for most of the year. They just are who they are. So when you go into this postseason after that Chiefs game, I feel really no different. I wanted to come out of that game feeling different on a positive note. I wanted to come out of that game feeling like, shit, look at that. They've kind of got shit figured out. Like, holy shit, they just gave it to Mahomes. And now like he got a little swag, a little vibe. I feel about the same. And now I feel worse because there's no tank. So that's the way things sit right now. And if you look at the AFC and you look at where they're shaping up right now, if the season ended today, you'd be facing the Ravens. So you'd have that 4-5 matchup with the Ravens. So that's what we'd be looking at right now.

So, eh, like you ain't beating the Ravens. You can play at home. You can do all that. And, hey, who the fuck knows? Here's what's funny. You kind of control essentially who you're going to play. That's kind of where we stand right now. You're controlling your matchup basically, right? Because if the, if you're able to beat the Ravens, the Ravens will then, uh, they're, uh, they're going to fall. So it's intriguing though. It intriguing though it is um again i'm not overly confident about anything moving forward but you do sort of control your own destiny and who you're gonna face

like would you rather face like on if you gave me the option of you get to face russ wilson you get to face lamar i would take lamar or rather i would take Russ with what they've got, but still like, it's kind of intriguing. It's, you know, it's, it's kind of an interesting scenario that you find yourself in right now. Cause if you look at that matchup and you say, who would we rather play? Now you're not going to go out and throw this game or anything like that. You're not playing with that mindset, but as it stands right now with two games left you've got like you kind of control your matchup because the Ravens and Steelers are both in you've already

locked up your division and you could climb to the three but if you beat the Ravens the Ravens are at that point 10 and 6 with one week to go and you'd think the Steelers obviously then have the edge Steelers play that same day so you'll kind of know where they stand too that's interesting I'm intrigued by that like what do you do there like do you like in a way this is gonna sound maybe dumb and maybe it backfires on you and karma does you no good. It's not like you're going to roll CJ Stroud out there and say, Hey, lose this game on purpose. And you're not going to start Davis mills or some shit and fuck with the integrity of the game. So you're going to play it to win it. And I think you could play it to win it and still very well

lose it because it's not like you're exponentially better than the Ravens. You're not better than the Ravens. But who would you rather face? Would you rather face Russ and George Pickens and their defense, which can be salty, but you're going to be at home? Would you rather face the Steelers or the Ravens? And that's kind of where you are right now. Although Chargers could jump up, Broncos could jump up. So there's a bunch of factors in there. But if it strictly came down to Steelers or Ravens, who would you rather face? And I know Lamar hasn't won all the playoff games.

And I know that Rusty's won a Super Bowl and should have won two. So I get that this sounds kind of ridiculous when you really think about it. But who would you rather face? And you would rather face the Steelers. You would rather face Rusty. So it would actually benefit you to lose this game on Christmas. And you're not going to go out and lose on purpose, but if you do lose, are you going to truly be heartbroken over it?

And my guess is no. So it's interesting. You've put yourself in this situation. All right, we'll have more coming up.