The Ringer NFL Show - Bengals to Blame for Joe Burrow’s Injury Woes? It’s Complicated, With Ben Baby

Episode Date: September 16, 2025

Sheil is joined by Ben Baby from ESPN to dive deep into the Joe Burrow injury timeline and talk about what the Cincinnati Bengals can do to keep their ship afloat until the QB's return at the end of the season. (0:00) Intro/cold open (2:50) Joe Burrow’s Injury Timeline (5:11) Are the Bengals to Blame? (11:40) Joe Burrow’s Play Style (14:45) Is Joe Burrow injury prone? (18:45) What to Expect from Jake Browning (25:33) The Hurry-up: The Texans’ Disappointing Offense on ‘Monday Night Football’ The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.rg-help.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Host: Sheil KapadiaGuest: Ben BabyProducer: Chris SuttonSocial: Kiera Givens and Brian WatersProduction Supervision: Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. I'm your host, Shield Capadia. We unfortunately got our first big quarterback injury of this season in week two. Joe Burrow goes down with a toe injury, having surgery out for at least three months. What does this mean for the Bengals season and for Burroughs future in the state of the AFC? We're going to talk about it all with Ben Baby, who does a terrific job covering the Bengals for ESPN. Ben, how much more do you know about turf toe now?

than you did like 24 hours ago. Are you a legit expert now? I'd like to think so. I think our Stefani Abel at ESPN helps us out a good amount with any time understanding these injuries. Understanding why it's called turf toe. It's always strange. It's funny.

The NFLPA had a couple of guys in there. And, you know, there's some conversations over the turf situation. And, you know, the PA has shifted. Now, the Bengals did change their turf recently. So they got rid of the turf that everybody hated. It's still turf. But, you know, we were having a conversation. and, you know, I was wondering, does this happen if it's grass?

And, you know, I think the PA, obviously, has been shifting. I know we're getting real deep real early now into turf toe. Yeah, that's interesting. But I was just like, you know, I said on the side, I said, well, they don't call it grass tow. So, you know, we'll see how that changes. But yes, now I'm getting more familiar with the injury over the years. Okay, yeah, I didn't even know that. I didn't even think turf versus grass there.

So you're already informing me. So, yeah, we're going to talk about it all. Are the Bengals to blame with their roster building? Is Joe Burrow injury prone? Can they keep this? thing afloat with Jake Browning. We'll get to all those questions. We'll take a quick break. We'll come back and get to it. This is the Ringer NFL show presented by Fandul, and the NFL is officially backed. So if you're going to be in it, be in it with Fandul. They've got the goods, futures,

live betting, SGPs, your way bets, all of it. The app's clean. It's fast. And yeah, when you win, you get paid instantly, which is nice because Sunday patience doesn't exist. So get your bet in build something bold and make every game feel bigger. Download the Fandul app or head to fandul.com slash ringer NFL to get started. The ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit RG-Help.com to learn more about the resources and help lines available and listen to the end of the episode for additional details.

Must be 21 plus and present in select states. We're 18 plus and present in D.C., Kentucky or Wyoming. Gambling problem. Call 1-800 gambler or visit RG. Cash help.com. Call 1 888-7-8-9-77-7 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. Paid endorsement. All right, we're back on the ringer NFL show. Ben, let's start with the basics here. What have we learned over the last 24 hours in terms of Joe Burroughs' timeline, recovery process,

how the Bengals are dealing with the news before we get to the other stuff. Give us the basics of where this stands. Yeah, right now it seems like according to ESPN's Adam Schaefter, it's going to take about three months for this thing to heal at minimum. Burrow will need surgery. That has been confirmed by Bengals head coach Zach Taylor. He's still hesitant to see what the timeline is going to look like officially. The reason why several years ago in Zach's first year,

AJ Green, I think he had an ankle injury, if I'm not mistaken. And Zach thought he would come back and practice one day. And AJ did not. And AJ never played again that season. Ever since then, Zach Taylor has almost refused to give any timeline on injuries that's going to pin him down to an actual time because of that. He kind of referenced that in his presser today. So I find it funny that what happened all the way back in 2019 with Zach still kind of

holds true with his injury situation. I found him to talk about injuries better than most, but they are expecting him to be out, I would imagine for a while that leaves Jake Browning to come in. They're still trying to find the time of when the surgery is going to occur. I think that should be hammered out sometime this week. But that's kind of where things currently are with Burrow. and that toe injury. And now we'll see kind of how Jake Browning slots in

and what they're able to do moving forward. Coaches learn that lesson early. I feel like Ben, either they pivot and then they're like, we're not giving out any timeline or there's the Pete Carroll method, which you listen, any young coach is listening. I suggest this.

You give a timeline way down the road. Then the guy comes back and then Pete Carroll's like, he just has like Wolverine blood, this guy. You know, I can't believe he's out there. And then the player feels good. You know, the fans feel good. because the guy's back earlier. So you got to learn those lessons as a young coach.

It sounds like Zach Taylor, learn those lessons. Burrow now, Ben, has had season-ending knee injury in 2020, wrist injury in 2023, played through a calf injury in camp before the 2020-season. So three injury-plagued seasons out of six. I know there's other stuff you can probably fill us on in on as well. But I feel like the big sort of narrative or conversation in the 24 hours since we got this news is,

are the Bengals to blame for this? Is it roster building? Have they ignored the offensive line? Do they put Joe Burrow in harm's way? Do they not understand that they've got a franchise quarterback and you've got to protect him? And I'll be honest,

I was at one place with this argument this morning, and then I kept digging a little deeper and now I'm wavering a little bit. So I want to hear what you think first, and then I want to give you my take on whether there's legitimacy to those arguments. Yeah, one, I cannot wait to hear your take on the subject. But, you know, it's something that we talked about it.

And we put that squarely to Zach Taylor and Bengals' offensive coordinator, Dan Pitcher and talks about kind of the play style. And Zach said, listen, our play style, you know, it helped us go to a Super Bowl. We won, you know, we won an AFC championship, went back to another one, and won a couple division titles. You know, anyone wants to say, you know, this play style is putting, you know, players in harm's way. I will take that blame.

I'll put that on me, but we feel like this is the best way to win. I think philosophically top down, you know, once they got Burrow. And I think even before, when you look at really the history of the Bengals, they've always been a team that's identified quarterbacks, identified receivers. You know, when you look at it, they've actually had a lot of stability on that front for all the other faults they may have. One of the things they've been quite excellent at is finding stable quarterback play over the years, with a couple of exceptions.

But, you know, I think that they want to go out. They want to put teams under pressure with the passing attack. and Joe Burrow also wants to play this way as well. He loves to be in shotgun. He likes to be able to use a superpower of diagnosing pre-snap, being able to take advantage of the defensive matchup, wherever it may be. All of those things play together.

And I think that is all part of the conversation of going into this. And in terms of neglect, you know, I think the Bengals and Zach Taylor and basically anybody who's ever played offensive line will concede, when you drop back in past sets as often as you do, it is very hard to be very good at pass blocking. It's just going backwards all the time. You know, I'm a big fight fan. Boxing is my favorite sport.

And, you know, in the fight game, you talk about it, it's really hard to fight off the back foot. Generally, your best fighters are going forward. When you're pass walking, all you're doing is hand-to-hand combat off your back foot for basically an entire game if you're the Bengals. So it does put them in a tough spot. They understand that. But that's the way that they want to go out and play football.

In terms of the neglect, you know, the Bengals, they do not spend a lot of, money on the offensive line, but they have put resources to it, toward it, I should say. More so in recent years, especially after the Super Bowl, you go out and you get Orlando Brown, you drafted Marius Mims at Wright Tackle. They drafted Dylan Fairchild to be a starter. They invested in Ted Carris, who's been a good center for them. And then at Right Guard, that's been the big question mark this offseason. I never really found a very solid guy. Lucas Patrick was that until he got hurt and even that was a little bit questionable.

and now you have Dalton Reisner who stepped in. So I think it's, I mean, honestly, we could talk about this for such a long time. But I think there's so many different factors. But I don't think it's just pure neglect as to why that offensive line isn't blocking maybe how people think. I agree with that.

That's where I was, you know, this because I kept saying all the Bengals have failed, Joe Burrow. And I think there's a difference between your plan, not necessarily working out and neglect. You know, like there's this graphic floating around on NFL. live that's very interesting comparing Andrew Luck and Joe Burrow.

And Joe Burrow through six seasons has been sacked more than Andrew Luck who played six seasons and it's got other numbers there, how often they're contacted. And it's not a great look for Joe Burrow and for the Cincinnati Bengals. But I feel like those Colts teams with Andrew Luck, it was neglect. They didn't understand what they needed to do to protect their quarterback. And to your point, the Bengals have signed Orlando Brown Jr. Now, we can have a conversation with that. I thought that was a good signing at the time.

And so they spent big money to get Orlando Brown Jr. I think he was the highest price offensive tackle free agent in that class. They use a first round pick on Ameriess Mims. To your point, they've drafted other offensive linemen. And so, like, I think they've tried. And there's always tradeoffs in the NFL. Like, if you're paying Joe Burrow, Jamar Chase, T. Higgins, and your defense was a disaster last year,

like they had to make some decisions in last year's draft and even the past couple of drafts. Do we invest in the defense? Do we invest in the offensive line? So I don't think it's a matter of neglect. I think it's fair to say, hey, it hasn't worked out. It hasn't been the best offensive line in the NFL.

I would love to see Joe Burrow come back from this injury in 20, 26 and beyond. We have you back and we say, man, the Bengals have a top five offensive line. Look at it. They're dominating out there. But you got to have some band-aids. I don't want to say cut corners, but you have to say, all right, we can't spend as much here. And I think that's probably been the interior.

of the Bengals' offensive line. But I don't look at it and say they've neglected that. And the other thing here, Ben, is like, it'd be one thing if their offense just sucked. And it was like, man, they don't build the offensive line and their offensive. No, their offense works really, really, kind of at an elite level. Now, maybe not a game and a half this year, but you look back last year, top five offense. You look back 2022, top five offense when Joe Burrow was healthy.

So, like, even with the offensive line issues they've had, they've built this elite offense. I understand why they've made some of the decisions they made, as much as I would like to just come on here and crush them and be like, they're cheap, they don't understand this, I'm smarter than them. I actually don't think that's the case here. So that's where I think I've landed with this whole thing. Yeah, I think it's a nuanced conversation, to be clear, and I feel like sometimes that's a cop-out.

But in football, there's so many things intertwined with each other. It's so hard, you know, I teach a stats class at SMU, and one of the old books that you go back and look at it, the hidden game of football, you know, they did, oh, they basically vended the concept of EPA. They went through or just kind of flesh it out maybe further in the 80s. They were really ahead of their time, talked about CPOE and stuff like that. And they were talking about stats and they go, it's really hard to pin down stats for players and things of that nature that really quantify things because every unit's so intertwined.

So everything is essentially a team-oriented deal. So trying to parse out, you know, how everything works. It's really tough in football, I think, more so than any other sport, because every, every position group is so connected on any given play. But the one thing we potentially are overlooking here, because I think we've heard the Andrew Lugge Joe Burrow comparisons for a very long time. I think something that people do not understand as someone who's watched Burrow now for six years is that his play style also changes depending on the situation.

And he will be willing to take sacks and contacts in certain situations that he will not be at other points in the year. Take last year, for example, Burrow at the beginning of the year, when they were kind of in a neutral situation with their record was getting the ball out quick, wasn't really, he was kind of trying to make sure he made good decisions. And as the season progressed, as the Bengals, it became clear,

their offense was going to have to win them games. The defense was not going to get it done. We saw Joe Burrow holding onto the ball a little bit longer, willing to take some sacks and pressures and hits, knowing that he's got to get to trying to make the offense as explosive as it can possibly be. So I think a lot of times we just see the raw numbers, but when you look at it,

the way that he plays also shifts on the situation. He said on a podcast previously, like on a third down, a sack doesn't really mean anything to me. You know, we're giving the ball back anyway. So if I get hit, who cares,

I think the problem sometimes, and now we're starting to really have this conversation is that maybe that play style subjecting himself to more hits than he needs to take. And, you know, he's being in shotgun, being in this situation, playing the way,

you know, in this manner, is that maybe open you up to a little more risk. And I think we, Today, we probably had the most candid conversation with Zach Taylor and Dan pitcher about that concept. Yeah, 721 dropbacks last year, most in the NFL. If you look at some of the advanced stats, you know, you're mentioning, Seth, they're just first and second down last year.

They're the most past heavy team in the NFL. Again, it's how Burrow wants to play, I imagine, and it works really well. So what do you do? You're going to go away from that and be a worse team and be a worse offense because you're afraid of a guy getting injured? I mean, that's not really how football works. That's not really how the NFL works. So let's take a break.

I want to come back. I do want to talk to you a little bit about whether that injury prone label is fair. And then let's talk about where this Bengals team goes from here. This episode is brought to you by NFL Sunday ticket on YouTube TV. NFL Sundays are back and you won't want to miss the action. NFL Sunday ticket and YouTube TV lets you catch every game, every Sunday, all in one place. And now new users get NFL Sunday ticket for eight payments of 3450 per month. Head to YouTube.com slash ringer NFL and sign up now. New users pay $276 or

eight non-cancelable payments of 3450 per month, first charged at purchase. Availability varies with NFL Sunday ticket for out-of-market games and YouTube TV base plan for local and national games. Base plan required device and content restrictions apply. Terms restrictions and embargoes apply excludes digital only games, commercial use excluded. No refunds. All right, we're back on the ringer NFL show. So you mentioned it. You had a candid conversation with Zach Taylor and the OC today. Burrow now has had injuries in three of six NFL seasons. Is the injury prone? Are injuries fluky and random? Is this something that the Bengals have to think about going forward as they make roster building decisions? Where are you

with this? Because like everything else, this is a very difficult conversation. There's no magic formula that it says yes, a guy because he got injured last year, is going to get injured next year. Yeah, you know, going back to what we were just talking about, I think that, I don't know if it's injury prone seems like a, anytime you broach that with a player, it seems kind of they get offended to a degree. Yes. Sometimes, you know, Carl Lawson was the perfect example of this a few years ago. In 2020, you know, he had a bunch of injury problems.

And he says, you know, injury prone, what does that even mean? It's like some of that stuff is a little bit different. You know, it's not like, you know, and he said, listen, sometimes things happen. and unfortunately for Carl, he went out and toured with the Jets a year later and it was never really the same player. But sometimes, you know, I think there's more habits, there's preparation, there's way that guys train. Sometimes when you have a lot of soft tissue injuries,

that sometimes when you hear injury prone, that's usually what it's about. It's people, you know, who have a lot of soft tissue problems. That generally, you know, boils back to different things. Usually you can identify something in the preparation in maybe their diet. There's different factors that go into that. So, you know, I don't know if that's a luck thing.

But in terms of this, you know, you look at it again, I think Burrow in the way that he plays the game, I think you're by nature going to end up in some situations where he's going to try to push it to the limit for better or for worse. You know, he wants to be the guy that goes out and really beats you. You know, if he was going to be a fighter, he's going to be the one that's going to go toe to toe and he wants to land that knockout punch every time, you know, and UFC is his favorite sport by a mile.

You know, he loves talking about that as much as anything. And so, you know, he has the mentality of like a, I've told it, like a Dustin Porriet who's willing to go out and do what he's got to do, you know, go out on a shield if needed. And I think those players are often remembered, you know, for their courage. But that also means there's a lot that you have to come with. And Burroughs always been comfortable with that. He's never shied away from contact. You know, I think they've had to yell at him to slide, yelling him to go down, yelling him to get rid of the ball. And at some point, you realize you got to let Joe Burrow be Joe Burrow.

And that's part of the conversation here. And, you know, he's taking the team and the franchise to unprecedented heights. You know, I think for him to turn around this franchise and for Zach Taylor to make sure that he builds everything in the franchise to support their young quarterback as best as they can. I think that's probably, we talk about young quarterback development in the league. You know, the second borough got here. They said, whatever you need, we're giving it to you. You're going to get final say, you know, Zach said today, the last 10% of a game plan, he's looking right at Joe Burrow and says, tell me what you like, tell me what you don't like. this is what it's going to look like.

You know, he last year, he was, we were in Dallas. I'll never forget it. You know, after the game, he goes, you know, they walk out with T. Higgins. I said, oh, you know, probably a good chance that you're not going to have him back. He goes, oh, I think we got a shot. And he believed it. And then after this, I went to his locker and I said, Joe, you don't really believe that. Well, y'all can't afford him.

He goes, yeah. And he just shook his head, yes. And then I go, how are you going to do it? He goes, don't worry about it. Okay. And sure enough, they got it done. He's back. Yeah. So I think that, you know, he's had his hand in a lot if I think.

So I think to, I don't think it's injury prone. I think sometimes when you just, again, when you play this way, you have that style. I think sometimes you're just going to take on some wrists. That's a great point too. I mean, if Joe Burrow goes to the team maybe last year and says, I'm cool with Tia against walking, but get me two guards for, you know, $12 million per year, they might be saying, all right, let's go get him two guards for $12 million. Now, would that have been a better decision?

I think you're probably not getting the same value as you're getting with T. Higgins. And Joe Burrow knows how he can play and how he can overcome some offensive line issues. So, yeah, I think that's, it's such a hard thing to coach out of quarterbacks. I find it's like one thing that when there are guys who are just like, we're not going to let a play die, we're not going to prioritize protecting ourselves. Those conversations happen year after year. But it's very rare, not impossible, but very rare that there's a huge change. from what a guy it's just kind of in you or not or you learned it earlier or not that you're

going to go that way so um going forward here ben jake browning they turn to jake browning here hey four and three with browning in 2023 what's the feel around the bengals with their backup quarterback and i guess the dream scenario here would be browning keeps them afloat borough comes back mid-december they're in the playoff mix he's healthy chase is healthy higgins is healthy maybe the young offensive linemen are playing better, maybe the young defensive players are playing better, and all of a sudden you say, hey, we sneak in, who knows what can happen?

We've seen it before. So is that kind of how the Bengals fans should be looking at the rest of this season here? Yeah, you know, I think the optimism, and if that Joe Burrow can't come back in three months, and Zach Taylor said, you know, he's going to attack his rehab, you know, as as ferociously as he's always done. And he has been as intentional. Like,

at some point I had to cop to him last year. I said, Joe, I'll be honest, I saw you throw in training camp, I didn't think you'd end up throwing it this well this season. And, you know, I was like, I don't want you here from anybody else. I want you hear from me first, you know. And because I think the work, I don't think he gets enough credit for how he looked in OTAs and training camp last year to what he looked like at the end of the season. I don't think people fully grasped the difficulty and the work that he put in.

That's something he's taken a lot of pride in. If you want to get Joe, and I think the highest praise that anybody can give Joe Burrow is that he works really hard and has put in the time to be good. at what he does. I think he takes so much pride in that. So I think in terms of the rehab process, you're going to see that, you know, continually come through, you know, but when you look at where they're at moving forward,

you know, we talk about the receivers, if you're Jake Brownie, you've got a love, hey, I've got Jumar Chase to throw to, I've got T. Higgins to throw to. And we saw that come to fruition against Jacksonville. You know, we saw that in 23 when Jake needed a touchdown. And he said T. Higgins is down there. T. Higgins goes out and makes a play. You know, they're still sets. They're so unique. You know, when Jamar, you know, he's so,

good in open space. You get him the ball and he's going to generally run away from folks. He's got so much power and speed. That rare combination has really evolved in his route running. And then T. Higgins, who's been such an underrated receiver, Jamar, made sure to clarify when they both sign 1A and 1B

and that's how they view him. T's got such a good catch radius, strong hands, you know, is probably a better route runner than people think. You know, those combined, you can definitely have a very solid offense. And the other thing that doesn't get talked about enough is that the play style is going to change a little bit too with Jake Browning. You're going to be able to maybe get under center a little bit more.

That may be something he likes. You're going to be able to work the play action off that a little bit more that you could have some boost in the run game, which hasn't gotten going these first couple of games. And so I think there are ways for this offense to continue to get better. And it's interesting, you know, I said it on SportsCenter earlier. You know, Joe Burrow and Zach Taylor, Zach Taylor came in on the meeting today with the offense and showed them all the bad plays that they had against Jacksonville. And it was a way for them to show, we can get so much better than what we put on tape.

And when Zach talked today about the optimism being sky high, and when you talk to players, like, I don't think that's hyperbole. Everybody, they're obviously upset that Joe's not out there, but there is a genuinely, genuine and firm belief that Jake Browning is good enough to get them into the postseason. I don't think that they, the feeling in that locker room for a team that just lost their starting quarterback, it wasn't as desponded as you would think

because they know what Jake's capable of and I think the guys genuinely do believe in it. Yeah, sometimes you hear that and you're like, give me a break, you have to say this, I get it, you got three months ahead of you here. But there is a little proof of concept here. Again, 2023, I don't want to overblow it like they were, you know, the greatest show on turf or anything.

But they finished 11th and offensive DVOA that year. Jake Browning ranked 17th out of 34 quarterbacks and dropback success rate that year. like for a backup quarterback to get competent, mediocre play. And like you said, you could change some things with the offense. You can go under center play action. Now Zach Taylor can be like, oh, you know, these are the things I've been wanting to do. You know, you know how offensive play callers are sometimes.

Like, okay, I can scheme this up. You know, I don't have my quarterback. So obviously the most likely scenario is they have a big drop off. And we'll see what this looks like. They're a mediocre team. But there is the chance of the scenario I laid out earlier where they got a two-game cushion here. Can they keep it afloat?

Can we get Ben Baby reporting in early December? You know, hey, Burrow, the word around the Bengals is that. He's really attacked his rehab. They haven't seen a guy recover from this surgery this quickly before. I think those things are in play. Again, not the most likely scenario, but those things are possible. Now, Bengals fans, you might want to turn off the pod before I say this. They do have the fifth hardest remaining schedule in the NFL, according to the betting market.

So it's not going to be easy. Defensively, you want to see those young players get better and it looked better than last year. But not totally out of it. You know, with the way the AFC is right now, if you get Joe Burrow back in December and you have a chance to sneak into the playoffs, you still have a chance to make some noise. So there you go. That's the optimistic case for the Cincinnati Bengals. Ben Baby, thank you so much for joining us.

You can check out all of his work. ESPN.com. Like you mentioned SportsCenter. You know, you're just sit in the airport. or the bar. You might just see his base pop up there on the TV. A lot of fun having been on. I will be right back with the hurry up.

The Ringer NFL show is brought to by Fandul. Football fans, every NFL Thursday is your chance to hit the jackpot on Fandul. Because with Fandual's Thursday touchdown jackpot, you can win a share of $2 million in bonus bets each week. To get in on this Thursday's action, all you have to do is placing any time touchdown score or bet before the game between the Dolphins

and bills kicks off. And if your player scores the first or last TD of the game, you'll win your bet plus a share of bonus bets. So this Thursday, any play can be the play of the game with Fandul. That's Fandul.com slash Ringer NFL for your chance to win a share of $2 million in bonus bets. Play your game with Fandul, an official sports betting partner of the NFL. Must be 21 plus and present in select states or 18 plus and present in D.C.,

Kentucky or Wyoming. Opt-in must-apply profit boost token on select market. prize pool to be split equally among all eligible participants who made the correct first or last TD pick, bonus issued as non-unithdrawable bonus bets which expire 21 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fandle.com. Gambling problem, call 1-800 gambler or visit RG-dash-Help.com. Call 1-888-88-7-777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. All right, the hurry up is our closing segment where I give you a take on news in the NFL. Two games Monday night. Bucks and Chargers, very impressive

wins. I want to give them more time later in the week because I feel like there's a lot to get to there. They have both been very impressive the first two weeks of the season. So I don't, I didn't want to squeeze it in at the end of this show. So instead, we're going to talk about the Houston Texans because that was a concerning performance for the Texans offensively. And this has been a horrible start to the 20-25 season for them. So I thought the Texans could be a sleeper team in the AFC. I thought there was a chance that new offensive coordinator, Nick Cayley, would make a difference and C.J. Stroud would bounce back.

It has not looked that way. This looks like an offense that has picked up where it left off last year. And that's a bad thing. They had 12 total first downs against the Bucks. Their run game is atrocious. Nick Chub had the one nice touchdown run. That was all they had all night. I mean, they had that red zone sequence where they threw it twice from the one yard line

because they had no confidence in their run game. They failed to score. Just a mind-boggling sequence for that Houston Texans offense in the red zone. So it looks like their plan of, hey, let's replace some bad offensive linemen with some different bad offensive linemen. It doesn't look like that's going to work out. And C.J. Stroud once again, looks jittery and uncomfortable. So it's two games, but this was one where they got a huge boost on special themes, and they still couldn't come away with a win.

I like their defense a lot. But if you're a great defense, you can't be given up that 80-yard drive to Baker Mayfield so easily at the end of the game. AFC South is a bad division. I don't think the Colts are going to run away with it or anything like that. But I am highly, highly concerned about the Houston Texans offense two games into the season. seeing no signs that they figured things out with the changes they made. They're going to have to prove it to me. We'll see if they can.

Again, two weeks in, but that's where I'm at with this Texans team. Just a disappointing start. And I think they look frustrated when you watch them play. So we'll see what happens with Houston in the weeks ahead. All right. Thanks to Ben Baby. Thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing Kiera Givens on social and additional production supervision by Connor and Evinn Evans and Arjuna Ram Gopal.

I'm Sheila Capadio. We'll talk to you next time on the Ringer NFL show. Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in D.C., Kentucky or Wyoming. Gambling problem, call 1-800 gambler or visit RG dash help.com. Call 1-888-7-9-77 or visit ccpg.g.gattinghap.org slash chat in Connecticut or visit MDgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling helpline, MA.org or call 800. 32750 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-8778-8-8-Hope-N-Y or text Hope NY in New York.