2026 Houston Texans Preview: Roster, Odds, & Win Total

Welcome to the acclaimed podcast The Deep Died featuring your esteemed hosts Andy Monitor and Drew Dinsick, powered by Bet Spurs. Welcome to The Deep Died Houston Texans rounds out the AC South Andy and then we just have the miserable NFC South left to go. So we are coming down the home stretch here and what a day to do the Houston Texans as they had injuries to the offense and the defense today. Offensive one looks like it's one we're going to want to monitor. But you know in the same sentiment that we started the Jags where I was asking what gives with all of the lack of buzz for the Jags. What gives with all of the overwhelming buzz for this Texas team. I'm going to say there are many many people whose opinions I respect and also Aaron Schatz who put incredibly favorable opinions out into the world this summer about the Texans potentially winning the AFC. And I heard them. I was like cool. Let's dig into this. Let's figure out why. Let's see if I can if I'm I getting on board with this take is this is this a viable take and I am left relatively cool with a lot of aspects of this team mostly on the offensive side of the ball mostly with the passing game. And that is what ultimately matters the most. So I think I got to put my money where my mouth is and take a stand against the Texans somehow some way. I'm just not sure how you got any thoughts. I have them behind the Jaguars. Right now my you know everything's still here's the thing about power rating skies. They're a living breathing being and mine for every podcast we've done have changed for every single team that we've you've listened to. I'll update that throughout the year. That'll be a fun little project. We'll send out some news letters what my numbers are every week but this was a tough one. This is really tough because there's some really special players on this team and there's really bad offensive lineman again. And then we just got another one hurt today. We're timing. We did the chart. We did the Chargers podcast the day that they lost their center and then we're doing this today where we possibly lost a tackle. We don't know if somebody in the chat who's watching this live has more info than us. I'd love to hear it because right now we don't have a full prognosis. It's just hey you was carted off and you couldn't put weight on this leg and it's your best offensive lineman. And yeah it's looking like a foot injury at this point but I adjusted my number and just put him out for week one on the fly. I just said you know what feels like an 80/20 that it's a bad enough injury that he misses sometime in your Houston offensive lineman going lower though. It is now the 32. That's right. It is my worst number. It's the lowest number for them and the lowest offensive lineman number because it is a tough hang of you know who's stepping in at this point at left tackle is it going to be Blake Fisher? It is. Is that not inspiring? It's not inspiring. Either is Arante Erserie. He was already you're starting left tackle. That was just happening. No I mean yeah that's locked in but it's not it's not all inspiring. It's a brown pass. Trent Brown passed the first round. Trent Brown on this roster. Did he pass this physical? I haven't really been tracking Trent Brown. Hold Z 33. Holder net. He is a Texas boy and he has some aggressive tattoos. Anyway the general kind of vibrant the Texans to me feels like there is a kind of a classic. I'm guilty of this some myself but there's a kind of a classic overstate overstating over there's an overconfidence that this defense is going to be top three, potentially top one. There's a pattern recognition that with Seahawks did it last year with Journeyman quarterback. If Stroud can play as well as he played as a rookie. Why can't the Texans be this year's Seahawks? There's a a weird overstatement of how much David Montgomery could possibly matter to the rushing attack which was pretty horrible last year. There's a complete ignoring of what looked like a pre minus EV offensive scheming and play calling from Nick Kayleigh at times last year. We brought it up in the Jags podcast second half of the season. The Jags offense was flat out awesome and a ton of that was just Trevor Lawrence was playing really really really competent quarterback play. The Texans also put together a solid winning home stretch. They went from three and five after they're lost to the Broncos last year one out including a win over the Jags. Do you remember that game? By the way, I do. We were on opposite sides of that one. I had the Jags at David Montgomery home with a wrecking touchdown. But yeah, they win down the home stretch they'd be better. They'd be put out of the Steelers in the wild card round and then beat the shit out of themselves in the divisional round. It's almost like the one playoff win, the winning streak, the good-ish number CJ Straub put up over the back half of the season are just enough for people to kind of ignore. The fact this offense is still pretty broken and I'm not sure I get why. That gets excused but the awesome improvement for the Jags doesn't get acknowledged. So that's where we stand. Yeah, I have these two flipped and the market is very much in disagreement but I need a reason to believe in this offense outside of just a decently stacked up White receiver room and somebody is asking about some subquits and sonders, undrafted free agents, White receivers. I don't know if they make the team and we have a few days before we do that but there's a pretty healthy backlog of White receivers for those guys to catch on here. Maybe they had up on somebody else's practice squad. One guy is at Illinois State, but I receive very believe. That kind of speaks to the who we have here and they just traded vacation booty but Nico Collins, Jalen Knowle, Tankdale and Hutchinson are still in this roster. Is that the highlight of the offense for you is the White receivers and then you hope that CJ Stratton is good. Yeah, I do want to talk about the Kishan booty trade real quick. It felt like they got a pretty good deal. I liked some of the stuff we saw from him up into England and they didn't give up a ton for a team that needed to go grab one more receiver and even if it's a third or fourth guy. No, the texting is one that's trade convincingly I think. Yeah, it feels like they got a pretty good deal there. I don't understand why the Patriots would do that in conference. If you really wanted to give it a booty because you thought it was going to be a problem, send them to the NFC to do dipshits. Plenty of teams in the NFC could have used to help a White receiver. Send them to San Francisco. Send them to go on. The sentiment that I got that you know, you can't build, you know why? You know, I know you can't build an offense out of a White receiver room Andy because the Texans have had an elite Nico Collins now for several years and they haven't built an offense out of that room. They drafted well the injury to Jaden Hagen socks. The trade for Kishon booty was a gift. I don't know how long it's going to take them to adjust to be a part of the offense. It doesn't sound like Tank Dells is going to be much of a factor. Hutchinson and Noel are fine young players to get opportunities but yeah it's still, I guess it still kind of comes down to what's the highest quality of performance you can expect CJ Stroud to sustain over the balance of the year and is that high enough that with a high floor defense you can win 10, 11, 12 games. I guess and maybe it may be as simple as this. I don't care that defense wins championships is an axiom for a reason. I don't care that, you know, what the Texans, the depth of the Texans defense makes them effectively resilient to a couple of key players getting hurt on defense and they'll still be just as talented. What I care about is that the Texans are not getting the one seed with this schedule, but this limited offense and yeah, and that Texans are not going on the road and beating anyone who has a better than average offensive line or a quarterback who's not in his forties. Yeah, because they did win a, they did win a playoff game last year and as you mentioned, it was because they played the champions of the AFC North, still weird to think about that that swung on that crazy game, the missed kick by the loop kick at the end there. But yeah, the Steelers convincingly beat the Steelers. That was not a much of a game then lost to New England where CJ Stroud was bad, especially, I mean, that game was over quickly it felt like, was that the one where he was just like the first half? He was an absolute abject disaster and the game was kind of over. I think the final score I'm showing here is 28/16, I bet if I look at that box score, some of those Texans points were in the second half. But yeah, it's tough to beat good teams. It's tough to beat teams that are able to counter your past rush and your secondary by having a good offensive coordinator, a good offense. Yeah, it does feel like it's tough to beat a good team when your quarterback throws four picks. Yeah, the four, I think he had seven turnovers in the two playoff games, obviously beating, still beat Pittsburgh. But yeah, between that, the Hagen's ACL, the Horton Achilles, and now an offensive lineman possibly injured at this point, it's easier to cool on this team at this point despite one of the best fun defenses, maybe the best defenses. Well, let me ask you about that. Are the Texans defense trendbreakers in terms of year over year predictability of defense of quality? I think it depends on the secondary. You see a lot of that where secondary pieces can drop off just quickly. Like you and Sasuke Ardern, it's like the tenth best guy now, just some of these games are just, hey, you're the best corner, you're a shut down guy, you're an island right now. And then the next year, it's like, hey, you're the 15th best corner. Next year, pay your, your, your CB two, I think that's what drives it more than some of the past rush pieces, past rush pieces move around a lot too. But if, you know, if Stingley, Lacer, Bullock, Blankenship, Petri, I mean, it's a freely, really good secondary. If we get high end performance out of them, it's just going to keep the past rush, having time to get to the quarterback and everybody else's good backups. Like you mentioned, there's some decent depth on this team. It's hard to have a really good defense or offense with, with high end players and still have some depth. That's a problem you see in good teams like, hey, there's some, there's some all pros here, but the backups, that's a problem because you can't pay, you can't pay everybody. If there was one kind of consensus top five defense, if we go into the few, so I'm going to throw out their Rams, Texans, Seahawks, Broncos and the Eagles. Eagles are there for me. Those top, this is pretty consensus top five, I think, over almost everybody I've seen handicapped NFL and kind of put out anything public. If I told you at the end of the season, only one of those teams finished top five. Post your first choice. Rams, because the miles get it. I mean, yeah, they might have earned Donald on the team, Jesus, Rams, maybe, and maybe this is Seahawks, because just such a well coach team. Because the scheme makes the player availability agnostic. Maybe they have a little bit of a whiff of that. Whereas the Broncos, I mentioned a little thin. If some guys get hurt, kind of the same thing for the Eagles at this point even. I think the Broncos, we might have swung a little hard and overrated them a hair. Eagles, I think, might be a little lopsided. I think they might be amazing past defense and you can beat them on the ground. And then, yeah, I would put the Seahawks as my choice just because of the scheme being the factor. And I would put the Rams second because of the talent. And I would have the Texans as maybe my third choice in that conversation. And I kind of think that in that world, they finished just outside the top five, they're in the top 10. And it's mostly just an inconsistency problem, right? Like there are going to be certain games where if you can generate a lead on the Texans through explosives, and you can take a little bit of the violent past rush out of the equation, then you can play a little keepway against them, right? Like I'm not exactly sure that if you could, you know, like there's like, I think there is like a recipe for beating the Texans with points. And that might affect how things ultimately shake out for them in terms of standing. That makes me laugh when we talk about beating some of the points. That is the most likely path to beating teams. Well, the Texans are pretty many people with points. I know. I know. I get what you're saying. Yeah. Any other thoughts on last season? Well, they only gave up 30 points once to know what's the KT against the Colts. So maybe I'm 28, maybe I'm overstated, I'm still. That's right. Well, seven of those, six of those, I guess, directly. Yeah, one of the big came from a big six. All right, man. Let's go to offseason. I don't have anything else on Texans. I kind of just feel like I'm half-hearted kind of taking a stand because of the, I don't, I just don't agree that they are the pick a ramp, you know, don't, you know, I don't agree that they're the consensus breaking choice for the FC. No, I definitely don't. And then, you know, just the entry bug stuff too, the EJ speed. This was earlier in the summer, but he's out for the season with a torn quad. He was going to be part of the linebacking crew. Yeah, what was the other entry? Well, I mean, the Dillon Horton Achilles too, obviously, that's first season. And then we will find out more about Braden Smith today. But Marta, Mappu and Casey are also on the reserve, Mappu cleared. Okay. Casey Osay. Yeah. Osay as an IR, Mappu, Mappu, no, Mappu cleared waivers. That's what I have. That's great. And reverted to Houston's intro to serve. He is known. He's, he is done for the years, well, all right. And they, you know, they signed to fill in a depth at defensive end because of some of these. Jadavian clonnie, Jadavian clonnie is on the, that's clonnie's got a shoulder also Dylan. When Dylan Horton was placed in IR, Derek Parrish, I don't know if he makes roster. Seventh round pick the Jaguars. One a great cup in the CFL and then was a UFL DC defender this spring. So that's fine. Okay. Finding, finding depth. We had a David Montgomery. This is a trade you gave up, juice, shrugged, and some picks back and forth. David Montgomery is your lead back, the mix and wondering if a mix and all ever play is over, show mix and we'll never play. David Montgomery is your new lead back and he, the early down identity, probably of what's going to happen here on offense. Wyatt Teller, 3-10 Pro Bowler after seven years up in the mistake on the lake, he is your left guard on the live chart right about now. He's a veteran anchor for an offensive line that needed some of that. Braden Smith was a nice free agent attrition, right tackle. He took him from a division rival. This is a good spot, right? And as we mentioned, seven or eight times already, he was carted off in the joint practice with Caroline Stey, no diagnosis yet, sounding like a leg injury. He lost the end of last year with the neck injury and the concussion. Tough luck for him. They did add some more depth pieces at the offensive line with Evan Brown another Interior guy for backing up basically everybody in the offensive line in the middle from Arizona They added Logan Hall and Dominic Robinson couple for agent depth pieces at defense event read blanking ships on the squad We mentioned to me starting Use your safety Affiliate kind of maybe the best addition to the defense. I suppose for the squad these are nice nice piece to already strong secondary they added foster morrow To the tight end room with Dalton Schultz to back him up. He'll be playing a lot with the 12 personnel and Obviously with the Higgins missing you need more help at receiver now. They traded for a puncher Kai Kroger from New Orleans Replacing Tommy Townsend who left for Tennessee and then as we mentioned they traded for MAPU He's out they traded for where they picked up to David and Cloudy and free agency for Not a lot of money a rotational edge piece. He'll play though. The Zay Jones Was picked up recently. I think that was part of the The Higgins thing where they just needed some extra bodies in the room. I'm just not super sure if Hammer Sterling Shepherd will be part of the part of the mix Is there a little buried in the depth chart and then Kishon Booty trade as we mentioned just the other day That's your Higgins replacement. He's He's your starter a little redundant with Nico Unhappy, you know when they added AJ Brown and you know, they're building that wide receiver room Up around him. I think he was a little unhappy and wanted to get out of there. So maybe a good good spot for this And then it losses Titus Howard was traded to Cleveland. He was your offensive tackle He was your best offensive lineman last year by my numbers Why the hell would you trade that? Here for money, I guess, but the line got cheaper not better So I guess and the same thing we mentioned juice Scruggs He was a second router that never really locked it down in the interior. I think he was center actually and He gave it to rookie the rookie in Rotlidge Jalen Reed was traded to doing when this part of the the booty move the safety Joe mix and was released because his bodies dust Jimmy Ward the safety was released and It wasn't like a cat move. I think they just Get rid of him use fairly cheap Nick chub Another also to run back for tired Christian Kirk his contract spired and he ended up in San Francisco and then On the cusp of retirement It is it is funny to me that If you're an old running back and you're ready to hang it up, you know, you should go do put go go collect one last check from the Atexins and try to run behind that line and that'll really teach you these So Dave Montgomery your next buddy. What's the plot and for punishment running in that line I would mention the center from Georgia Tech Keelan Rutledge is Somebody they traded up a couple spots to go grab do you remember another preseason of Weird this guy's a sicko violent awesome player buzz around a rookie like this that was not Like a highly touted rookie cuz like I kind of don't get it. Why like what who gives a bleep about His attitude I think yeah, it all come to the one he fought with will Anderson He had a he had a camp scrap and I've heard it's about it before and I've heard it echoed even louder since then Like this guy is some sort of special violin out of prospect. He's just gonna be just absolutely set the tone He's a leader already like Is that cope? People who are trying to like help people but feel somewhat favorably about this dog shit unit like Jake Andrews played last year he was He was someone who started and played some games I believe so the fact that he won the one the job. I guess it's good, but again, he's a first round pick He he should be at least you know part of the plan for a team that's offensive line with this bad So I don't you will see he is your starting center They had a second-round pick and Caden McDonald from Ohio State This was I'm not even gonna explain all the trades it took to get to this one This was part of the Laramie tonsil thing and then they sent other picks to Vegas and jumped up a round of other spots either way He is somebody that Ryan's loved a lot. He's another one that's getting a lot of camp buzz. It's like Ryan's is mentioned him a couple time in press conferences He's gonna be immediately in that interior defensive line rotation With some of the veterans they lost in middle and then from there It's depth at that point third tight end maybe fourth with Bar Marlin Klein from Michigan. Although Michigan tight ends get a big ten tight end good for you more depth at the interior line Fabici no wahu Oklahoma Interior defensive line depth behind teller Wade Woodaz a Clemson linebacker That's another spot that's as we mentioned speed the EJ speed injury The door more of an necessity to have some depth there safety depth Camari Ramsey USC and the fifth round Lewis Bond a wed receiver from BC two Camarises six Yeah, couple Camarises and then Aden Fisher another linebacker from Indiana some depth at that spot and They had a couple what was it Jack Stonehouse was that a UDFA Punter, but I think obviously the job is going to Kai Kroger So kind of a man bad offensive or bad off season because your offensive line is still the stinkiest in all the land And agree I mean you made a move to we should give him credit for the Give him credit for the move to go get a left-ackle, but didn't work out possibly missing speaking of foot injuries and red asses as rookies the offensive lineman, you know who fits the vundiogram of both those categories? Notorious busts Trevor Penning Trevor was he was the last guy. I remember that was getting this kind of coverage It's just a fine everybody's is a full-run red ass as a rookie doesn't know. It reminds me it reminds me of this guy You know some people some people just want to fight to fight because they're too dumb and It reminds me of I went to a bar in Sioux Falls, South Dakota You ever been to a bar that's like it's built into a mall not a strip mall, but a full-on mall And it's you know, it's on the edge of the mall so you don't have to go into the mall to get to it But it was it's a happening bar and somebody got a little out of control and Bar vibes. Yeah, it has that five and there was somebody big dude He got in a little bit of a scrap of somebody shoves and dudes the bouncer stepped in quick And he decided that wasn't gonna happen and he said I'm gonna fight these bouncer's as well Two bouncer's at the same time and he's winning because he's a tough dude Suddenly, it's three and then a bartender comes out and he's got like five dude and the guy is on his hands and means kicking like a mule like he's For kicking and trying to throw elbows that just I was watching him thinking like I don't know what maybe the penning reminds me that I don't know I don't know this was but it just reminds me it's like What do you think the outcome is here? Do you think eventually you're just gonna be like? All right He's watched too much reach here if you think if you fight hard enough, they're just gonna give up me like all right You can stay all right fine by you drink fine you fought us all you you can you can stay here at the bar Like you just sell it you gotta give up at a certain point. Yeah, I don't know why I thought it cops are on their way Penning penning you know it's had the vibe of a guy you You need a little bit of you need a little bit of unchecked aggression to play football. There's stories. Oh, yeah, of course The guy before Aaron Donald that held the record for Sacks from an interior lineman, which is not a real record But you know when you talk about the sack records, it's always been edge guys And there's a player for the Minnesota Vikings named Keith Malard Okay, it was kind of the guide cut short a little by some entries But there were stories about him from like training camp where He ripped the sink off a wall in a bar Like because you just some of these people are just absolute mental patients You gotta be done. I mean you go. Hey, what do you do for job? I have car crash level impacts on my head 40 times every weekend. Oh, that sucks. Yeah, I make $6.8 million doing it. Oh, okay But that's good Um, anyway, I digress back to back to this team and uh, I don't any any thoughts in the offseason before we talk a little circa Um, I guess notable that uh worked. kicking the contract reset into the future on CJ Stroud. - Agreed, disagree. - So you kinda glitched on me there. I didn't hear what you said, what did you say? - Yeah, the only other notable thing offseason wise, they kicked the contract reset into the future on CJ Stroud. - Agreed with that or disagree? - Don't know, I have no strong opinion. Doesn't affect my power ratings. I hadn't really thought about it too, I'm sorry. - It's a little bit of, he's been put into the pressure cooker though by this, could you agree with that, obviously? - Maybe there's that, it does turn everything into a contract here. - At least CJ Stroud has always performed sterling under pressure. - Yeah, if I think about his last playoff game. - All of his playoff games. - What do you have one good one against the chargers? Was he good in that game or was that more of the chargers doing the shit their pants thing? - CJ had a good, CJ had a good playoff game against the Browns, if I remember right, he was pretty sharp in that one. - Remember the Browns made the playoffs? - Yeah, with Joe Flacco, amazing. Come back player of the year, Joe Flacco, took the coach of the year, Kevin Stafansky to the playoffs. - They're clearly still with the Browns, correct? - Obviously. - All right. - Sirka, we'll be there tomorrow. Come get a drink with us at the overhang bar. If not, we'll see you at the Legacy Club. If not, we'll see you at Stadium Swim. If not, we'll see you at the Blackjack tournament. If not, we'll see you at the Legacy Club a second time. And if not, then I hope you find another time to go out to the desert and sign up for the contest because it's the once in a lifetime opportunity to try to win $25 million. - We're just gonna call it 25. It is trending well ahead of last year, which is amazing because I couldn't believe how many people signed up last year because it is a bit of a commitment. You got $1,000 plus proxy fee, and you got to fly yourself up to the desert. Over 10,000 people have already signed up way more than that. - It's a well-run contest. There's nothing shady or sketchy about it at all. It doesn't get filled. The entire overlay doesn't get filled up in the last five minutes with a bunch of anonymous accounts that are tough to pinpoint where did all this liquidity come from. There's no, you know, there's no rake. It's extremely transparent, and I love them for it. And we'll continue to play as long as I have dollars to rub together to find a team to participate with if not have my own entry. So go sign up. - Yeah, I already have six entries in the survivor, which I own, one second to get in love. - Speaking of-- - We'll have more. We'll have more of this week and-- - Speaking of CJ Stroud, and the question about inking him long-term, he's going into this season with Nick Kayley rated as a 5.3 for me. What about you? - It's 4.8. - Okay. - I really did have Kayley kind of dragging this down. He's a Patriot's coach or Patriot's tree. The 50 year option 20 was picked up. So you do kind of do the-- I don't know, you know, usually it's a positive thing, but it feels like in the situation he was at, like you said, it just does push things back a year for getting that next deal done. So I don't know how they're feeling about this, but-- - Are we being unfair on the low side? - A little bit. He's had very good games. And it's been weird because we had a really strong positive signal in the first year of, God, who was the, who was the, those see that got cut loose the other year? The PFF guy? Slok? - Yeah, Bobby Slok. We had positive signal year one with him and then very negative signal the year after. We moved on, we're at Nick Kayley. Don't know if we got a full picture on that, but for my money and some of the performances we saw, it's hard to grade because of how bad the offensive line has been and you got to say, how much of that was a problem for, or how much of that was causing some of the issues that I was seeing, but I don't grade Kayley very highly. And I have strought above average, but not to the point of where we have Trevor at this point. So I'm, yeah, I could go up to like a five here, but I'm a little lower than you as well. - Okay, so we're noting that the EPA per play from week, well, second half of the season, Stroud and Lawrence were pretty damn close. So maybe bump him up, I feel bad, maybe I should bump him up. - Yeah, I'm really not sure if I can kind of fully articulate what it is about Stroud that leaves me cool, leaves me in like the 5.3 range. I think it's the lack of upside. I think it's that he does the basics perfectly well, but he has a lot of negative plays and I think his inability to really develop anything special out of structure is what kind of makes him a bet against. And the fact that he's consistently forced to do that with the offensive line and his system he's afforded. - Yeah, I hate to think I'm double counting a little because of the offensive line problems just gonna make everything else look worse. But at the same time as you mentioned it, what, are you one rookie that you're correct? - He did. - It just felt like we were waiting for that the second step, like the move forward. And yes, this had a few different doses and such a life, but yeah, I'll stay still a little low on this to start the season. - Okay, skill position group for me, love Nico Collins like Kishan Booty, hate the rest, 4.5. - I went up to a five here with the Booty trade. I was a little closer to yours. Tank Del's back in full team drills, hopes to maybe get some snaps here in this Carolina matchup in the preseason, he hasn't played the game since 2024. Possibly low rusty, but yeah, Nico Collins is a big chunk of this. David Montgomery, I have an improvement on what we had last year, but he's still not a top back in my eyes. And also he's a running back, which isn't gonna move this up as much. What your tight-end room is, as we mentioned, Dalton Schultz, foster Marot, coming in fresh, and then the rookie Marlon Klein. So not the strongest group, but very above average at wider receiver one. - Yep, I do like Booty. - Absolutely. All right, offensive line for me gets a 3.5. It's down towards the bottom. I'd have not adjusted this for the Braden Smith country, like you have, but I think honestly, it's probably just gonna make it about a three if I did adjust anything. Let's see it from Rutledge. Let's see it from Urcery. I was a little surprised that some of the public grades on Urcery were pretty positive, but Brandon Thorne just put him in the basement. So gonna have to sort that out with my own eyes this year, watching a little bit more closely. Not convinced why a teller has anything left in the tank. Not convinced that Browns would let him walk out the door if he did. Ed Ingram, same story. He was uninspiring last year. Don't see a step forward. The Browns did pay an offensive lineman this year. It was tightest-houred. Former Texan. So yeah, I'm a little lower on Wyatt. Teller was a very good interior lineman. Still serviceable. He might be the best player in this offensive. He is. If Brandon Smith is out, he's the highest rated, I guess. Urcery, I don't have a good grade on Rutledge. Never play the snap, Ingram's low. And then whoever's gonna step in, if it's Brown, or if it's Trent Brown or Blake Fisher, I'm not 100% sure what the exact plan is gonna be for left tackle. But I did just kind of back of the envelope to two to two point three here. Okay, my total rating for the Texans is a 46th percentile, which is 20th best in the NFL. Yeah, I'm 42. This is a lopsided team. It's a very good defense. And the offense leaves a lot to be desired. We need to, we need, we need some best case scenario is Rutledge turns out to be a very good rookie. And Urcery takes a step forward. Wyatt Teller is something in the tank. And then you just have to worry about the right side. I guess. All right, defense number one for me. 6.1 for the runstop, 7.6 for the pass rush, truly the strength of the team. 6.9 for the coverage, I think the most irreplaceable player on the Texans is probably Derek Stingley, Jr. If anything happens to that guy, definitely going to turn up to what Defcon 3, probably from Defcon 5? Yeah, I essentially, granted, they are not the number one defense for me, but it's basically a three-way tie with L.A. The Broncos and this team, and there's going to be moves between here and they start of the season where they might be the first team. It's very, very close at this point. My runstop is a 7.1, third in the league, there was some turnover on the interior, but between the guys that are back, Sheldon Rankins and Azizel Shahir and Toho, Toho. I have some good grades and the defensive backs for some of the runstop stuff. JSP missing some time or missing stings for the linebacker core, but as we said, we have some depth that's going to be Jamal Hill stepping in there on the strong sidebacker. That stress is the 7.2, Will Anderson to Neil Hunter, going to have to say a lot of that pass that you brought in Clowney for situational stuff, you have Dominic Robinson, you have that guy who was the other one I was going to mention here. The deal in Horton thing stings, but I don't know that the depth was so thin that we're going to worry a lot about this. Kid McDonald's inside as well. I do want to flag one adjustment from last year on the runstop. So I'm lower than you on runstop and the reason is I actually think they're going to feel the loss of Foley Foucazzi who is now in Las Vegas. I'm pretty Audrey too. Audrey too, yeah, yeah, Audrey too, sure. These were good players against the run and now you're backfilling with Sheldon Rankins who's fine and a guy I really know nothing about and Tommy Togai, Togai, Togai. Togai, did he get any snaps last year? I'm not seeing any. Oh no, he had 444 snaps. He is on the list and actually he is, he's fine. I take it back. He's a fine player. He's probably better than Rankins. I was going to say, I have a good grade on him. I think he kind of bounced around to start his career and was he a Falcon? I don't know, just for he was like camp at the Falcons and he elevated himself here in Houston land. Past rush 7.2 coverage, 7.8 second highest in the league, Stingling last year are Electric, Patriot, Michael, Galen, Bollock and Reblankenship added to this team. He was like a fourth safety. Yeah, he was probably a fourth year. I don't think any strong adjustment there. This is as I mentioned, my number three defense, but basically it is 1-1-A1-C. This could be the best defense, should be a top five, probably a top three at this point if they stay outing play well. All right, 69 percentile defense for me number one. Let's look at the chart where we can probably debate coaching a little bit. That was the Jags, my bad. Texans coaching, we both came in around four. And coaching is maybe the one thing that I'm kind of in, like if I was going to like get into a true debate with a diehard Texans believer, one of my points of argument would be coaching because it does feel like Dimeco Ryan's is a little bit of a value neutral coach. Like I don't, I gave you just swapped him with an average D coordinator with this much talent on defense, it's still going to be very, very good. And I think somebody in game decisions he makes are pretty bad. And I think there are a couple of clear examples where he's coached his way into losses. Yeah, in game decision making, fourth down aggressiveness, some of that stuff didn't grade out, you know, to the average here. So I've met a 4.1 year to four. Our special teams numbers match. Look at that. It's kind of fair, man. See how they were basically given him the give their, their rest in his leg in this preseason. Yeah, forget where I saw that. Anyway, final grades, you are a 49th percentile. I'm a 51st percentile. That makes you a minus point zero nine. I'm a plus 1.4. Now the market has the Texans is a plus 2.2. So we're both your way low and I'm low. So maybe, maybe I just needed to flip this on his head. Andy, why are you selling the Texans? I mean, a lot of it is just I'm worried about the offense behind an absolute dog should offensive line again. And if it gets to, if that's what's keeping CJ Stroud from attaining a higher level of play. That stinks because you drafted a guy high. He was, you know, really good in college. We've seen him play really well. He won rookie of the year. You've built around him. You brought in some good receivers. If your offensive line continues to cause him enough problems where he is just good and that great. That stinks and part of it is just you can't have everything. It's, you put a lot of money and draft capital into the defense. It's great. I don't know that you've solved offensive coordinators well. So I think that's what might hold him back as the offense again. We're on the same page. One one Houston at once upon a time was dogs against Buffalo week one they have flipped a favor, which means they're going to be favored in their first seven weeks of the season, assuming there's no more injuries. I have electric NFL news that I want to pump. This is great. Do it. The Pro Bowl is canceled indefinitely. Absolutely correct decision. I thought it had already been canceled. They still hold it. Just it's the worst all start game. There is because no one cares. No one wants to go. No one wants to play. No one wants to play hard. I'm not joking. I really did think it was already canceled because they did it in the skill comp and stuff. It is not canceled, but now it is. Good job, good, Dale. Yeah, so week one the Texans are favored against the Buffalo bills. The market has them favored every week through the first seven weeks of the season, which is a distinction among the other two contenders in the AFC South, which is the cold start with a really tough first three. The Jags have a really tough five out of first six. The Texans can go out to a lead here if they can take care of business as small favorites against Buffalo. Sincey, Indy, Dallas, first four weeks of the season. Here's what I have to say, Andy. Four knows possible, but so is oh and four. Those are very good offenses, Buffalo's offensive line can absolutely keep you at bay. I know, I guess. Actually, I'm already tired of hearing it. I'm already tired of hearing people make the comp the the the Josh Allen struggles in Houston. As a point of fact, because I'm ready to see Josh Allen hang 30 30 points on these guys. But Indy offensive line Dallas good enough offensive line since he's offensive lines little spooky, but they have the weapons to really test your secondary like these are these are good balanced offenses with some good offensive minds. Not great. Good. I'm kind of I'm kind of ready for another slow start here from these guys. Do you think I'm overstating this? There's I certainly do not agree that they should be favorite week one. They are the favorite to win the division. They're win totals like nine and a half there. There should be the case, but it is there's not a game on this schedule that's like. Oh, that's a that's a loss feels like even good for it's like, Oh, that's such a bad situational spot against up here. And it just feels like they don't have a good shot at this. Like, yeah, if the offense is stuck in mud at time, so you're going to lose games here. Oh, everyone loses games. Everybody with one team. That's in 72. Well, it's actually Broncos didn't really lose their last game last year. Bro and Bonaix got hurt. So yeah, everybody does everybody almost everybody loses games. But yeah, it's, it's, it's not a terrible schedule situationally. As we mentioned in the Jacksonville pod, they have the Jacksonville Jaguars in London and Jacksonville will be on their second week in Europe already acclimated to the time change. That stinks. But I don't think you get anybody off their buy. You're not a big dog. And really, your toughest games are just a couple of, couple of outdoor road games. That is, that is the tough stretch. I think those road games in December and January, they're all outdoors, all cold weather for a, for an indoor Texas team. That's not great. At Pittsburgh, at Washington, those aren't teams that are favored to win their division, but it's still outdoors. And then at Philly at Green Bay with some teams that are favored or close enough to it. A lot of traveling weight in the year. Yeah, a lot of traveling, a lot of prime time games on the road against good teams. Three prime time games on the road in December, January, there. Well, I, I also want to kind of point out the first seven weeks of this, because again, like we're mostly talking market and true when we look at the schedule. I Buffalo decent enough past rush to make that a tough one since Nadi Dexter Lawrence. So I think is a problem for your interior offensive line. Indy has a decent, defore's buckner. Good enough past rush. Quinn and Williams comes through week four. Jeffrey Simmons comes through week five. You got a decent edge past rushing group and with Jacksonville and arrested and acclimated to the time change week six. And then awesome past rush for the Giants coming through week seven. So like the idea that CJ Stroud is going to be living in hell through the first seven weeks of the schedule, I think is pretty real. Yeah, that's the, that's the thing. Like you needed to just put a little bit more effort in the offensive line over the last two, three years. And I think this would be a different looking team. Even if the defense took a step back because of it. And you were just a top 10 defense because you have the quarterback. Like when you have the quarterback, you have to, you have to take advantage of it. I got to go back on Ricky deal. I got to tell you, man, but out of the buy chargers, perfectly good past rush Cleveland, good past rush. Indy again, Baltimore, good past rush now with with some of their players back Pittsburgh, good past rush. Washington fine. Washington is the weakest past rush on your schedule. Otherwise, all of the other guys you're facing, Michael Parsons comes through in prime time. Philly Jalen Carter is going to be up your up your ass to the interior like this is, this is set up actually for you, you drew a bad schedule, you, yeah, you drew a bad schedule of pressure, potentially, which we already kind of know Kaylee didn't have the answers against the medium schedule last year. I'd like to go look back at like how many pressures he absorbed in that New England game now. This is making me want to find some way to put my money where my office that the Texans are going to underwhelm and people are going to be disappointed. Well, honestly, it can just be Texans know division. Probably like, probably getting like 53% there. No is 91 cents for the AFC right now. Where's divisions. They don't put it under futures. That's a dumb. The organization at some of these markets really is pretty pathetic. Yeah, I'm really into the search bars because I can name it. Texans. Texans know for the AFC South is 54 cents. Oh, I said 53. I kind of want to go even crazier though. Like I want to score. No one playoffs. As we mentioned, we mentioned this in the Jaguar's pod where there's nine teams for seven spots. Yeah, there's a glut of playoff feeling teams in the in the AFC. No for playoffs is interesting. Sorry, Cal. I used to. What's the make the playoffs? What was that price? Did you see it? No, I'd have to look it up. I would assume they're I mean, they're like even money to win the division. I would assume make the playoffs is like minus 300. The all win total here for the Texans is under eight and a half is plus 200. That feels better. Well, I kind of still want a bigger number than that though. Did you see any exotics like fewest points scored? No, I haven't looked. I haven't looked at deep into some of these priests. I don't do a lot of, you know, Texans. Texans make the playoffs know is plus 170. Kind of like the under eight and a half better. Yeah, oh, at 200. Yeah, absolutely. No question. No question. I fully agree with that. Most wins, fewest wins. That's not fun. That's no fun. No, they're not going to have food. I don't know, they're not. There's too many, there's too many just atrocious teams like somebody out of like Arizona, Las Vegas, Miami. One of those teams is going to surprise us a little bit. All three aren't. Somebody's having three wins. I do want to kind of point this out about the Texans schedule, Andy, is that despite the fact that they are a lot of blue in terms of their favorite in the preseason. Look ahead in a lot of games. There's not a lot of dark blue. No, there's just the ad there. Home versus Tennessee. Home versus Tennessee late. That's the Indy at home. Cleveland at home. Sorry, Cleveland on the road and then the Giants at home. So you only have four games where you're really like a meaningful favorite. A lot of coin flips. What? Who's your backup quarterback? Davis Mills. Is it still I had to go? Absolutely, it's Davis Mills. How did you know I remember that? He came up earlier in this pod. He scrambled in and touched down to beat the Jags last year to make my life miserable. I was just I couldn't I couldn't put together like a bang of a week and that one was just like what the fuck? I just needed a good score a week and stuff like that kept happening. I will never forget the last season as far as our head to heads because we went head to head other times, but two of them were that game and then the Rams Seahawks game. Yeah, there was recovered to recover from the two point. The ultimate Oh and two turning into two and oh, that's what you get into when you bet on the NFL guys. Yeah, or the Arizona Tennessee game. All right, well, I'm going to find a season special. Damn it. There's a high-scoring team and not a lowest-scoring team. God damn it. All right, well. And then and Robert has a point here too. With all these coin flips, you just kind of got to be okay on offense. Like if the offense is above average, you're going to win enough of these coin flips to win 11-12 games and then the division is going to come down to how good a section built. Did Indie go on a run? Did you win those games against those two teams? Do you have the tie-breakers in that spot? Because this defense, it feels like it'd be very difficult for it to drop off too hard. The offense just has to be, go find me 22 points, baby. And honestly, the margin between Texans, Colson, Jags is so narrow that they all be, those games all being one in one, I think is pretty, pretty happens pretty often. Yes. So it is kind of the X, the other games on your schedule that really drive this outcome. And the Jags schedule is tougher, frankly. I don't know that I'm going to find my way into a big bag against the Texans. I'm just going to have to remember that everybody called them the future of Super Bowl representatives of the AFC and we can point fun at them when they're the ninth finishing team in the AFC, which is in the scope. They could be the 10th. We're not even counting Colts. Sealing floor for this team, sealing, I don't think they're sealing is the Super Bowl. I don't think it's going to the Super Bowl. I really don't. I don't think you're good enough to get a one seed with this offense. And I don't think you're winning playoff games on this. the road. I'm sorry. A good past rush on the road against this offensive line is going to look a lot like what we saw in last year's playoffs, I think, which was terrible CJA straddle performances. The defense was good enough to overcome it in the first game. It wasn't good enough to overcome it in the second game. I got to find a way to bet against this team because you're well off. You're well off the market here. Honestly, that might just, I'm high on the jags. I'm low on the Texans. I might just be, maybe I do have a season. Maybe I need to be jagging off. I don't know that my biggest knock on the jags right now is those, those jerseys came out, man. They're so rough. There are several people made the joke. They look, because the leggings, I called them leggings, the pants. They look like they look like women's leggings, because straight out of the cat's musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Oh my God. It's a jellicle cats. I died a little bit of it. Never been. It's been a while since I've been to the theater. I don't know how to make a point of that. But yeah, the leggings are hilariously terrible. A lot of those jerseys weren't very good. The lions getting the panthers jerseys was a surprise. That was weird. Yeah. That one didn't really make sense. The bears getting the lion eye jerseys. That's happened before. Was it a lion eye or Syracuse kind of with the one? They look like both of them. Yeah. The Vikings leaned into, hey, let's not change much, because we like look already. Like, let's just put a, they just put some like stylized Viking Norse looking, you know, a coup, yeah, a coup trommon. A coup trommon. Yeah. Yeah. They just said flare. Let's take it easy. Let's put some Norse flare on it. And there's some look too bad. Green bays were always going to look bad, because that's what they have to work with. Most of, yeah, most of them were pretty bad. I didn't see any good ones. Not my, not my job, though. And it's not for me. Not my monkey, not my circus. So all right. We'll see you guys pre-recorded NFC South takes. We'll see how they hold up over a week. One of those already pre-tracked. Pretty stale. We didn't think Alex was going to come back that soon. I mean, that'd be great for the Falcons. Great for the league. I don't think anyone wants to see too out there.