The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Aaron Reiss: Getting Cooks The Ball Was Clearly A Point Of Emphasis

Episode Date: October 13, 2020

Aaron Reiss: Getting Cooks The Ball Was Clearly A Point Of Emphasis

Elijah on back to Kenny. Another three. Kenny tries one more. Yes! Clutch City. This is Kenny to Jet Smith, and you're listening to Sports Talk 790. 135, Sports Talk 790.

Matt Thomas Show continues. We always enjoy spending 10 quality minutes with our friend Aaron Reese from the athletic. He is all things Texans, and will be a very keen observer of the game between the Buffalo Bills and tennis and Titans because the Titans and Texans will play Sunday. in Nashville. So, Aaron, what do you make of how Tennessee's handled this first and foremost, and what kind of energy are they going to have for tonight? I guess, more importantly, Sunday when the Texans and Titans meet in Nashville. Yeah, you know, it's interesting.

I thought I was thinking about this this morning regarding this game on Sunday and how they're going to go out of the schedule. I mean, in terms of how they've gone about it, I think it'd be hard to argue that they were being super responsible given that they weren't following the protocols and working out at a high school has been reported. I do think to some degree, though, it's like we should be focusing less on which team did this and more or which team that's happened to. This is kind of probably the nature of the year we're living in and the season they're trying to do under very abnormal circumstances.

So, you know, I think this was bound to have it eventually. The big thing is like, will it happen again? Because I don't know how much more reconfiguring of the schedule, the NFL can continue to do if it doesn't want to add weeks to the season. As far as the next game, you know, I think the best example or thing to look at is how the biking schedule worked when they had their running with the Titans when this whole thing began, right? Their facility was closed on Wednesday and then the players came back on Thursday. And they basically had Thursday was a Wednesday practice. Friday was a Thursday practice.

And then a Saturday morning like walk through before they got on a plane to come Houston basically functioned at their Friday practice. So I imagine that's probably what the Titans will do. I haven't seen that report anywhere, but that would seem to make them a sense to me because the rules this season don't allow the team to come in the next day after a game. So that would seem like what they have to do. All right. Now to the Texans a little bit. Benardric McKinney is done for the season.

A lot of money spent on the two inside linebackers between McKinney and Cunningham. Tyrol Adams, if one week is a indictment of how a player is, he was very good, very active, have led the team in tackles, I believe. If you're a McKinney fan, I don't know how many there are, are you worried that his days as a Houston, Texan may be numbered because of, A, the injury, and B, the money that is now spent on that inside linebacker position? Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think if he's not done with the Texans, we haven't seen him in the last game

of him, he certainly will not continue to play on the contract that he's set to play on. I think his cap hits over the next three years of this deal range for many or for like 8.5 to 10.5 million. That's a lot of money for an anti-linebacker period, but especially when you're also paying that coming in. But there's no guarantees left on his contract. So they have a lot of leverage to renegotiate here this next off season. The next GM does is the best what they choose to do because the free agent market is probably going to be pretty dry. You know, the same reason the Texans would want to renegotiate because the cap will likely be going down. and they're projected to be about $15 million over the salary floor of $175 million

would be a reason a lot of other teams probably wouldn't want to spend big on a veteran inside landbacker like him. So they might keep them, but it will definitely be at a cheaper price. I think that these final 12 games, or 11 games, though, will give them the opportunity to evaluate Dylan Cole, Tyrol Adams, if either one of those guys, someone they could see bringing back at a cheaper price and still having some continuity in the system, Cole and Adams are both unrestricted for agents. Yeah, Adam's name was brought up a lot, obviously, during the course of the game, because he was in on many, many tackles. What did you think of him before the game? What has the organization spoken of him?

I mean, any opinion at all before what he did against the Jacks this past Sunday? You know, I mean, he, Bill O'Brien, at least for his opinion, obviously the worst much anymore. But, you know, he liked him. And, you know, he played well when he came into the – when he played in relief from McKinney last year. You know, you've had a pretty good game against Tampa, week 16, when they clinched the division. I want to say he forced to fumble in that game or he recovered a fumble. So, I mean, he's a guy who's played well when he's been given the opportunity. I was a little surprised that we didn't see a single snap of Dylan Cole on defense.

He was active, you know, but I think that maybe speaks. I don't know if that speaks more to Adams kind of being a really good standing or Cole just not being physically there yet. I mean, he had, he was dealing with an knee injury coming back off that and kind of eased into camp. And so I don't know what the combination of those things are, but it seems like Tyrell Adams is certainly the leader to kind of step in for McKinney for the rest of the season. Not to try to oversell it, but I do trust your opinion. What did you definitely notice differently in the game? Now, again, the run production, the run defense was much better. Probably one of the weaker running backs they have seen, although, you know, Jacksonville had a decent ground game.

Two or three observations about the play itself, not about the vibe on the sideline or the high fives or Romeo's dancing at the end of the game. in the locker room. Philosophically, what did you see differently this past Sunday that you didn't see in previous games? Or does the answer, I didn't see a whole lot different? Well, I think one thing was that Brennan Cook, Brennan Cook was clearly just it was a point of emphasis to get him involved. You know, I mean, he was the first play of the game was, was to him on that deep shot.

I mean, Dachan Watson was looking his way a lot. You know, I think after they had come off that game against the Vikings where he had no receptions on three targets, it was just clearly something they need a They need more of. And, you know, I think Jack Easterby is now kind of in charge of football ops. And, you know, he's the one who wanted coach. You know, he targeted him and thought he was a good character or culture fit. So, you know, I think he, though he's kind of not going to be the GM who passed, you know,

this interim phase, like he, you know, his voice still has sway in their building. And I think, you know, he wanted to get him involved. And they did get him involved. The other thing that stood out on offense to me was just that they seemed to have a much better plan picking up with this, you know. And I know that there's a lot of deep balls and that kind of was what seemed to be. the highlights of the game. But the thing that stood out is just like, Deshaun Watson did not get hit a lot. He only got sacked once, and granted Jacksonville's pass rush is not great. But I think a lot of

it has had to do, like, when they brought extra pressure, he had a solution. And that's not something we've seen a lot this season. I think that's a large reason why his sack numbers and his hit numbers haven't been much better than they were in 2018, despite the fact that they've made, you know, a ton of changes to the lines of them. Let's get the offensive line for a second. I'll listen with Aaron Reese from the Texans and the athletic at Aaron J. Reese on Twitter. So last year's surprise offensive lineman had to be Max Sharping, right? I mean, in terms of playing, stepping in, no experience, did a nice job.

Sineo Calamante has taken his spot. What happened there and what has happened to Max for him to fall in a favor right now? You know, I think he just didn't look great. You know, he and Zach Fulton were two of the kind of like leaders in Blum Block among offensive linemen, I think, at week four. Zach Fulton being the right guard. So I think that he just didn't really kind of make the year two sort of jump they were looking for. And I think they view Calamede as a little bit more of a savvier veteran, just a little more know-how and maybe a little more reliable.

What I do find a little curious about the move, though, is that I don't, I mean, I'm not to say I'm an expert in this stuff, but I don't see a noticeable difference in the quality of play between Zach Fulton and Max Sharping. So if I'm going to swap one of them out, I'm going to swap out Zach Fulton because the nature. of his contract, he's probably a guy who they're going to want to move on from at the end of this year, whereas, you know, Sharping has two more years on his rookie deal after this one. So even if, you know, he's not great this year, you know, this is also a, an 0 or 1 in 4 team. Chances may even playoffs aren't that high, even though they say they're still competing for the rest of the season. I probably am more invested in getting that guy reps, getting to do a real evaluation of him,

giving him more opportunities to improve so that he has a better chance of providing this team some sort of value on his rookie contract. But maybe that'll happen eventually this season, but so far they've chose McCall in the left guard leave Zach Fulton in. Look, clearly winning is going to solve a lot of the issues, and JJ's feeling better and everybody's feeling better. There's probably a much more positive uplifting vibe in there. But I think for people really to embrace this team

and to think that this division can be, you know, you can be a player in the division, is if you go beat somebody you're not supposed to beat. Where do you, and again, it's hard to do this because we're not talking about two games, but where do you value Tennessee at this point? Indianapolis looks very up and down. We've already seen Jacksonville. They're a mess.

So how vulnerable do you think the Titans are and how much improvement can the Texans make? I think the easiest answer to this question, I'm trying to give you an answer to a question I'm asking you, is what can the Texans do in the next two weeks to prove that the Jacksonville win wasn't a fluke? You know, I think if they can make a lot of progress in terms of stopping Derek Henry on the ground, I think that will be a sign that maybe they're running. defense has taken a step up. But that's probably the biggest thing to me. I'd also like to see if the pass rushes, past protection can continue to be, you know, good against a better pass rushing unit.

Like I said, Jacksonville is not bad. That's not necessarily Tennessee either. But I will be interested in see how they hold up against cloning. I just, you know, they need to be better teams. That's kind of the simple way to say. I think that can start pretty simply with Tennessee. Jacksonville does not teach pretty much. But, you know, I'll be interested to see kind of what we make of the division here in a few weeks.

You know, like, what is Tennessee going to look like tonight? If the Texans somehow beat the Titans, then what do you make of the Titans 3-0 start? I think Philip Rivers has not looked good these past two games. So, you know, I still think it's a long way for the Texans to make the playoffs. But I think they could be interesting here on the back half of the season. I got 30 seconds. David Johnson, best game for him. Didn't reach the end zone, but certainly in terms of production on the ground was his best night.

Is that a one-game scenario, or do you think that things will start to open up for him over the next handful of weeks? I mean, I think it was a one-game scenario, and I think kind of where even maybe over-stating how good the game was. I mean, he had 29 yards on a run when the game was out of reach, and he had one 11-yard run on first down. But if you go by like kind of, if you try to measure him by consistency and his success rate on first-down runs, he's still way below average. He ranks 18,020 running back in at least 60 carries and success. So I just, I'm still pretty out on him. Great stuff, my friend. Thanks again for the visit.

We'll talk to you next Tuesday. Yeah, thanks, that. You got Aaron J. Reese on Twitter of The Athletic and the Texans Beat.