The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Aaron Reiss: You Could See Texans Fall Behind Early Again This Week

Episode Date: September 15, 2020

Aaron Reiss: You Could See Texans Fall Behind Early Again This Week

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Our Tuesday visit with Aaron Reese is now. We always appreciate his coverage of the Texans at Aaron. Jay Reese, worthy of getting a subscription to The Athletic, too. They don't pay me to say this. I'm just telling you, it's just good behind-the-scenes stuff. I don't need to know what practice squad player got signed or whatever. I want to know behind-the-scenes stuff, and Aaron does a fantastic job with that. Aaron, first of all, we're glad you actually made it to the game in Kansas City. How long did you spend at the airport last Thursday?

It wasn't too bad. I think my flight took off at 1230 and it was supposed to take off at 930, but it was a little scary because the whole kind of reason I was going, obviously, was to get, like, a whole sense of the mood of the game and stuff, including the tailgating and whatnot. And there was the chance the flight was going to get canceled. And maybe I have taken 2.30 flight, at which point I basically would be landing and then just getting to the game in time for kickoff.

So I was happy it all worked out. But it was more stressful, and I'd never been before. I'd never traveled on the day of a game before. Well, we've got to get to athletic budget up a little bit. I'll talk to Ginny Dowell about that. So what was the tailgast? getting like. You know, like obviously if you could look out from above, you'd see, you know, the parking lot was not full, not even close. But when you're actually just like standing in the rows of

people who were tailgating, it felt like almost like oddly normal. You know, I mean, there were cones, I guess, in every other parking spot that was supposed to, you know, separate each, each tailgating spot or whatever. But, you know, people are kind of intermingling and talking to strangers, high-fiving strangers. No one has a mask on. So when you're just walking through the roads and tailgating, it doesn't, it feels like a normal time, which I guess, you know, depending on what your opinion is of the moment we're living and that's the good thing or a bad thing. But when you're actually at the game, it wouldn't feel like that. People didn't have to keep their mask on. They were stationed far apart, and obviously there's far less people on the seat.

And, you know, as we're watching the game on television, I know they was not even close to a set out. And the Arrowheads won a lot of teams in the NFL. But for whatever it was, 16, 17,000 people, I think they made their voices heard. and I'm sure the Chiefs fans appreciated that. And probably a good sign. I've not heard anything about any problems coming out of the game. But if it worked out well there, that hopefully, you know, maybe not, obviously for this week, but the Texans can get some fans in their building for the next time they play,

which will be home against Minnesota. Right. Obviously, you know, I don't know what the calculation is there in terms of opening the roof and then it being an outdoor venue. And if that makes them feel a little more inclined to allow more people in or whatnot. But, you know, my big takeaway was that, like, you know, like the game itself, attending the game, I could see that, you know, you could do that in a safe enough manner, depending on how people you let in, where you space them out, how disciplined you are about kind of making sure people keep their mask on and stuff. But I think it's just harder to really police people when it comes to tailgating and people who want to tailgating and be around other people.

I think, you know, they're only going to take all of it so seriously. Let me ask you this. What was the most troubling thing you thought you saw? Now, again, Kansas City, prolific offense. I thought their run game was able to keep them on the field by getting five, six yards to carry. It wasn't one of those seven-step dropped kind of days from a home, but they would just throw the ball deep down the field. So in your mind, what disappointed you most out of the Texans performance last Thursday? I would say probably the offensive line.

You know, I didn't expect, like, you know, I picked them on your show. I didn't pick the Texas to win. But I did think it was maybe going to be a little bit more of a shootout. I thought that was at least kind of the best case scenario for the Texans is they could score enough to keep the game entertaining. And they really didn't. You know, I mean, at the end, obviously, the final stats, I think they outgained the chiefs and yards for play and yards for carry yards for 10th, all that stuff. But it was kind of padded with 20 stats at the end. They just, as an offense as a whole, they just kind of looked out of sync.

And, you know, Brennan Cooks, Randall Cobb, I didn't, I kind of anticipated maybe a little bit of a slow start, especially cooks, with the injury he had just because of being new and lack of continuity. the lack of practice time and stuff. But the line, you know, that's one of the areas where this team really has kind of beat its chest about having continuity and finally returning all five starters, first time in the O'Brien era. And you wouldn't have known it if you watched the game. You know, I mean, I think Zach Colton, he had a lot of trouble. Titus Howard a little surprising to me at them issues. You know, I think you kind of hope for that team that if the line isn't good, that's really a problem because, you know, now more than ever you're asking to Sean Watson to do a lot for this team. there is no DeAndre Hopkins to kind of elevate bad situations to bail him out when everything goes poorly.

And so you need Watson to be able to stay upright and even have time to be able to let these guys separate downfield. So if they can't do that, then that kind of is a huge problem. Is there an alternative if Fulton and Howard struggle again this week moving guys around a little bit? What would be plan B if that team, if that side of the line especially has troubles like they did last week against the Chiefs? You know, I mean, in terms of Howard, I don't really know if there's much of an alternative. Like the backups are Brett Klavela and Rod Johnson. Rod Johnson, obviously, he was a swing tackle last year. They didn't have enough confidence in to let him be in there.

They also bring in Chris Clark, which I know not how to take these fans or fans of that. And Klavela, you know, he's like another backup swing tackle guy. So I think it's a little too early on Howard to be worrying. I still think he's pretty good player. You know, he's coming off surgery from last year and, you know, he doesn't have the offseason. And I think it might just be a matter of getting back in game shape and all those sorts of things, although I saw some people commenting on his false stepping or whatever. But I think he's going to be in that spot.

Fulton is more interesting to me because I do think they have an alternative. They could go to Senio Calametti there, right, Garter if they wanted to. They brought him back this season restructuring his contract. He obviously a bit of starter in 2018 for an even worse Texas line. So he's not like some stellar replacement, but he has at least an option. I don't think the gap between him and Fulton is so wide that that's not underconsider. racing with Aaron Reese from the athletic you can follow him on Twitter at Aaron J. Rees R-E-I-S-S I think hands down the most encouraging part of the Texans

offense especially after that first drive was David Johnson will we see a more concerted effort to give him a few more carries or is that right about the sweet comfort zone for him on a week-to-week basis? No, I think you probably will. I mean for one thing although they probably were running more in the third quarter than I would argue they should have or I think a lot of people would argue they would argue they should have given the nature of the game. I mean, with how much they were down,

you probably didn't get as many carries as he would in an ideal situation still just over the course of the whole game. And obviously, with Duke Johnson's injury and his status being in question for this week, I do think you can see David getting even more carries because it's not really like to have an alternative there, someone else to give those Duke Johnson carries to. Buddy Howell is a third running back on this roster.

He's basically a special team player. Colin Glasby as a fullback, obviously, not someone you're relying on for a lot of Russian production. And then he got some guys in the practice squad. So I think David Johnson probably will get a few more carries. And he himself said, you know, kind of a – he probably didn't get as many of you as you were as far as he would like in a normal game. Tim Kelly, again, this is very much a Bill O'Brien offense, no matter who's calling

plays. It had everything that earmarked previous years with Bill O'Brien running things. I felt like – and not the only one that thought this, that tempo just was – it was uneven and didn't show any sort of urging – you know – getting out there and trying to push the temple a little bit. Do you think that's going to be a concerted effort this week against the Ravens? Yeah, I think

you would think so. I mean, I definitely agree with you. You know, like they mentioned in the third quarter, they ran the ball on one drive. They were down 17 points. They ran the ball in five or eight plays, and I think in the whole third quarter they ran the ball seven of ten points. That would not seem to be what you want. And then in addition to not just run the ball,

they were, like you said, they were slow to get the line, slow to get the playoff. I just, I don't think that's what you're going to be looking for. Because I imagine that this game, just like the last one, you could easily see them fall behind by a lot early, and then they'd be playing catch up, need to be passing a lot. And so, you know, if they learn anything from that last game, it's that if they fall into a similar situation, they can't keep pounding the ball on the ground as much. We barely heard Whitney Mercil's his name.

Zach Cunningham and coverage was not spectacular. The tight ends had a lot of fun last week. We obviously when you're going against Kelsey. It feels like Baltimore is going to do that same sort of thing this week if they're watching Texans tape. why didn't we hear Whitney's name a lot? Why didn't we hear much from that linebacking corps? Yeah, well, I mean, you know, Zach Cunningham, he always is kind of struggling in coverage. He's never, he's not a super strong player in coverage.

The Texas were lapsed and efficiency on past events over the middle of the field last year, largely because McKinney and Cunningham could be exposed. In terms of Whitney, you know, I think in general it was a quiet day for the past rush just because Mahomes was getting off the ball incredibly fast. It's fastest time to throw of his career, 2.3, 5 seconds, I think it was. and also the shortest air yards per completion of his career. So, I mean, he was not challenging the ball, challenging them down field much because they were, you know,

they were going to focus on taking that away. And as long as they were playing with two high safeties, you know, they could either throw it short or end up to Clyde or just a lair who would carve them up. I do think just in general to run defense, you know, I don't think it will be great this year. I don't think the defense in general will be great. But I do think it probably will get better with time. You know, you talked to a lot of Texans players.

And players around the league, they say, like, tackling is really hard right now because they didn't do it at all during the preseason, And obviously, Texans, for one, at least, did not tackle the ground at all during camp because O'Brien was concerned about managing injuries. And there's obviously a benefit to that, but now they're paying for the downside of it. All right. So what does your gut feel about this week? The deep ball, I mean, anything beyond 10 yards, Lamar was amazing against Cleveland. And I don't know how you size up the Cleveland defense compared to the Texans defense.

But I think this team is still 9 and 7 worthy in terms of a record at the end of the year. but I don't think anybody would be surprised this team got off to an 0-and-2 start, especially with the competition. What has to change in order for the Texans to surprise some folks this week? Yeah, I mean, in terms of them to surprise them, the present folks, I think the offense, you know, I'm not,

I'm not at the opinion that you've got to worry about the defense. I mean, I think the defense is what it is. It's not going to be good. It's not going to be good against Baltimore teams. I think the biggest thing is, can the offense get up on better footing? Can Brandon Cook assert himself a little more? Can Randall have assert himself a little more? He didn't get a target until they were like five minutes less in the game,

and they were down by three scores. This is the guy you gave $18 million guaranteed to in a receiver market that otherwise a few free agents were getting that much sort of money. So I think it's more about the offense. Can they find their footing than anything else? Because I think they're going to have to score a lot of points. But, you know, my prediction is probably that this game is even worse than the last one. I think that it will be pretty ugly.

But I don't think that's necessarily a reason to panic. Like you said, you know, this team realistically was never going to probably win its first two games. You maybe hope for a little better showing that they had against the Chiefs. But 0-and-2 is probably always the way the season is going to unfold. What really is key is can they win one of those teams against Pittsburgh and Minnesota, the two games after that. In Minnesota, I think, was a surprise disappointment. So you say, okay, that's now a more winnable game.

Well, Green Bay went to their building and beat them pretty well. So that's maybe perhaps a more difficult game. That's why I don't know about you, Aaron. I don't put a whole lot into week ones. I think it's much better to do a two or three or four-week assessment on teams before you start figuring out how the rest of the schedule is going to go. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, especially when you're playing the defending Super Bowl chance who basically are bringing everything back in a year when continuity is more important than ever because of the lack of off-season practices and whatnot.

Yeah, I don't think we're really going to start learning a lot about this team probably until, you know, after week four, after they've played the Steelers and played the Vikings, and you get a little bit of fuller picture of how they play against teams who are a little bit closer to them in terms of competitiveness. We'll leave it at that, my friend. Have a great week. Thanks for the time, and we'll look forward to reading your stuff on Twitter at Aaron J. Rees. and, of course, at the athletic website. Thanks, man. Talk to you next week.

That's Aaron Reese from The Athletic.