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Speaker 1: What's happened? Everybody?
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Speaker 2: Welcome into a Wednesday edition of Texans All Access from the Hundai Texans Radio Studio. John Harris, your host, football and out sideline reporter, joined by the Voice of the Texans, Mark vandermir Mark.
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Speaker 1: Good evening, How are you doing.
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Speaker 3: Good evening, Johnny.
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Speaker 4: It's always fun to be at NRG Stadium any time of year, especially with the Rodeo starting to move into the building about to get their show on the road.
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Speaker 3: What is the Cookoff in?
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Speaker 5: What?
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Speaker 4: Two weeks from tomorrow? So that's gonna be pretty cool to have the Cookoff going on. I've been invited this year to a couple of places at the Cookoff, and you know, it's nothing personal against the people inviting me. I'm just not sure if I'm up for that, but I think I might do it this year. It's been a while since I've been to the Cookoff, and it's such a great Houston event.
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Speaker 3: So maybe maybe I'm due.
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Speaker 2: Maybe I'm due to go back a second tomorrow, Yeah, which should be the twenty seventh, which means we're flying back from Indy.
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Speaker 4: We're flying back the night of the Cookoff start. Yes, because it's the okay Friday Saturday.
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Speaker 2: Okay, all right, so you're gonna be We're gonna be back for it. Well, you know I don't wanna be doing that weekend. I'll be locked in on a combine. There's no question about that. Be locked incked on in the lab. A little bit later in the show, Drew Doherty's gonna join me on the show. We've got plenty to discuss. We are gonna have some BAFO interviews tomorrow, but I don't want to give anything away because I don't I don't want to tell you one. But if we get it, these are gonna be rock stars, big rock star. It's gonna be big, big, big one big YEP at least one. Now, Mark Vandermiir does this every year. He does versions every year, which is cool because everybody does mock draft versions. But Mark doesn't care about thirty one other teams. Nope, cares about one team. He does a mock draft for that team and the six picks the Houston Texans have made. Mark vandermir has done a vandermock version one dot oh. It is up at Houston Texans dot com, which you can read for yourself after you hear our little discussion here because I have not seen this. I purposely avoid the vandermock so I can be completely surprised and in tune to what Mark has to say about the draft picks.
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Speaker 1: He says, I ripped them apart.
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Speaker 2: I don't often do that unless you draft Shador Sanders, and then I will rip that apart. But you're not drafting Schador Sanders at number twenty five. Good luck to whoever drafts him. That said vandermock one dot oh.
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Speaker 1: I love this.
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Speaker 2: I love this, and this obviously changes. I mean last year, I think you maybe did Vandermock one dot oh, and then there are a bunch of free agent signings and then you change everything.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: Of course then Nick traded out of the first round, so that's screwed it up too, So that to help matters. So thanks Nick, now Nick CASSII, that is not Nick Kayley.
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Speaker 1: Now Vandermock one.
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Speaker 2: Dot zero up at Houston Texas dot com pick number twenty five. Now the Texans, for those that don't know or haven't been falling along and they're just kind of getting up to speed.
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Speaker 1: With the Texans' draft picks.
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Speaker 2: They have six of them as it stands, right now, they are drafting in every round but the sixth round. They're drafting at twenty five in the first fifty eight, just in the second eighty ninth overall, which is in third one twenty seventh, which is in the fourth. They have Buffalo's pick, which is twenty eighth in the fifth round, one sixty seven, and then they have a seventh rounder which is.
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Speaker 1: Two forty three.
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Speaker 2: Now, Mark, I ask you this every year before I get to the picks. Do the Texans make more or less than six picks in this draft?
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Speaker 1: More?
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Speaker 3: Well, you know it's a great question.
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Speaker 4: You know what, I'm gonna hold the line at six, but they're not gonna be where they are right now. There's no way. It's a virtual lock. I would say it's a lock, never mind virtual. Like, how much would you bet that Nick's gonna make at least one move? I would bet the house that he's gonna make at least one move in the draft house. There's only been one Texans draft in history where there was no move made on draft weekend, and that was Brian Gaines's last draft. So you're gonna look at a draft here where Nick he's definitely gonna move around. He's got the itchy trigger finger. It's not even that it's itchy. He has ideas. He wants to do it the best way possible, and he figures out a way to make the board his right as much as humanly possible. Anyway, Yeah, there's no way it stands pat as far as where they're at, but I bet it ends up being six, Johnny.
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Speaker 2: I think one of the things that we have to consider, and we kind of found out this last year that Nick was trying to make moves like he was trying to get into a higher in the second round or maybe back in the first last year from what we had heard, but teams weren't as willing to make the Texas a trade partner. And some of that is Nick's reputation, like you're gonna get fleeced. You just know it, Like, don't worry, you're gonna get fleeced. So there's teams that don't want to do business, and I can understand that you don't want to be embarrassed by Dick Canserri and the Texans.
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Speaker 1: So it sits at six. So let's do it.
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Speaker 2: First round, pick number twenty five overall. Okay, Houston Texans give me the position.
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Speaker 4: All right, So what I do, by the way, and I recommend people read it because I'm not writing a lot of details on these guys.
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Speaker 3: Necessarily, I give a quick take. But it's the other stuff I write like.
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Speaker 4: I begin the piece saying Nick and his staff have asked me to do this, and then I say, okay, I'm lying, and then I say that Nick probably spin up his alfalfa sprouts smoothie when he read that first sentence, but he probably doesn't drink those anyway. So anyway, I go on and on about smoothies and things like that. All right, So here's the first pick. Twenty five overall they go. Because this is the pre free agency draft. As you pointed out, we talked about it last night Foley and Mario. I'm on a first name basis with these guys. They're free agents to be So I'm going to go defensive tackle and pick from Michigan Kenneth Grant yep to be a big dude, drawing double teams, crushing the pocket.
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Speaker 3: Enabling Will and Daniel to get after it.
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Speaker 4: Kenneth Grant is my first pick for the Houston Texans, and I probably have company. I really didn't check out mock drafts. What I did check out was to see projected rounds of some of these players, so I wasn't getting ridiculous, like, hey, Travis Hunter in round five, great solid. You can't do that kind of thing in a mock. You have to be, you know, in the realm of possibility. Here, Kenneth Grant twenty fifth. That's in the realm of possibility, is it not, Johnny, Oh.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's absolutely right.
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Speaker 2: I think the more that I've thought about this, the more I feel like he's not going to get there. Oh, because he's three hundred and thirty ish, I think. I think Michigan's roster had him at two forty, but three forty. But sometimes those things don't get updated like they're supposed to. So I think from that perspective, he might not get there. He right now sits at fifteen in the Harris one hundred. I don't know that he might move down a little bit, might not.
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Speaker 1: I don't know.
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Speaker 2: I think he's gonna go to Combine. He's gonna show off those dancing bear skills. I think he's very agile. At three hundred and thirty pounds, he can move, He can run. There's a great, great highlight from twenty twenty three. They went to Penn State and one of the Penn State running backs and they've got two good ones, Kate tron Allen and Nicholas Singleton. One of those running backs, if I remember correctly burst down the sideline and Grant caught him from behind and it's like whoa, Like it was just it was really impressive. Now it's one of those where he kind of had avoid the safety, kind of jumped back, stopped, then he had to restart, but still be three hundred and thirty pounds and to run and chase somebody down the way that Charles Grant can Kennith Grant. Sorry, there's a Charles Grant in the shraft as well. From William and Mary who. I could also see the Texans taking in any one of these other picks. Offensive tackle, long arm dude, that's sort of different story. Kenneth Grant would be a I mean, if he's there at twenty five, I will I'll go crazy because I think that's gonna be a perfect pick.
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Speaker 1: I said it the other day.
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Speaker 2: We were talking about the defensive line, and I said, I feel like there's still a dude needed one more dude to add to that mix, and I'd like to have a dude, like a bigger dude. And I think Kenneth Grant would fit and check all those boxes. So I like how you started this. A nice job, Kenneth Grant and number twenty five overall all right, second round?
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Speaker 1: If the eight overall, twenty sixth in the round.
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Speaker 4: Give me the position, it is gonna be a receiver, Johnny. And I was gonna go receiver at twenty five because remember where we're at right now again pre free agency. We don't know what's gonna happen with Diggs yet. You don't know the recovery of Dell yet. So I thought maybe at twenty five I could take Matthew Golden. Would he be there at twenty five in the first round from Texas?
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Speaker 3: Eh? Maybe not.
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Speaker 2: He's in that range. He's definitely in that range. I think the one thing that's gonna be tough for the receivers is I don't know that teams have first round.
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Speaker 1: Needs for a wide receiver.
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Speaker 2: Okay, I think there are a lot of teams that are like, man, we would like to have this guy.
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Speaker 1: So you know, we'll see how it goes.
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Speaker 2: But I think there's gonna be Travis Hunter, t mac per, McMillan, and then there's that next group, but Luther Burden, Golden Abuca, They're gonna kind of be in that range. But I think five would be great if he got them, but I don't know if he's gonna get there.
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Speaker 3: All right, So now I'm in round two, fairly late.
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Speaker 4: In round two, I want a receiver and I'm gonna take Xavier Restrito from the University of Miami because he's a hurricane dammit.
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Speaker 1: Now.
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Speaker 4: Also, but think about this, He's one of these guys. I've watched him because you know, I watched the Canes. He's one of these guys who's always open, you.
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Speaker 3: Know he is.
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Speaker 4: And some guys say they're always open. This guy's always open. He's got that. And I'm gonna mention two players and they're very different from each other, but they have a similar knack for getting to the spot. Travis Kelce and Julian Edelman, they both have that. How is he open on third and eight? Always up the middle? Restrepo is that kind of guy. The measurables are gonna be whatever they are, but he is mister great route runner, open dude, you can count on him security blanket.
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Speaker 3: Again.
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Speaker 4: I don't know about Diggs and Dell right now, so I'm gonna take Restrepco right here, fairly late in round two.
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Speaker 2: So in my Harris hits that you can get at Houston, Texas dot Com. From the Senior Bowl, I was watching Rastreppo. I was very interested to see him up close. And it's funny you mentioned Edelman because I remember Edelman. Edelmand had this kind of walk that he looked like he just like he owned the place, like he was just so confident, like it didn't matter who was on the other side, like he was gonna win. Ristrepolo has kind of that same walk, that same kind of you know, I am this, I am the man, and he's not.
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Speaker 1: He's not you know, braggadocio. He's not gonna tell you how great he is. He just makes plays and he gets open.
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Speaker 2: Like you said, I think one of the best plays I saw in twenty twenty four, Miami was playing Virginia Tech and they were coming back. Was a fourth and about two and cam Ward got out of the pocket.
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Speaker 1: Restreppo was actually open, but he.
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Speaker 2: Slipped down and so he literally is fall he's fallen down on he's sitting on the ground and Ward tries to you know, it's gonna throw it to him, but he has to kind of adjust because he's seen Restreble fall Rastrebo from his backside, reaches up and snatches the past and brings it down and gets the first down. I thought, man, so that's the other thing when we talk about wide receivers, and I know this doesn't always it doesn't always come up catch the damn ball, like getting open and all that.
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Speaker 1: It's all great, but you better catching what's thrown to you.
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Speaker 2: And you could tell when guys have natural hands, like okay, he's got natural hands. He makes he makes catches look pretty easy. He at the Senior Bowl just turned some guys around when he you know, there's a couple of times he's slipped, but he's that kind of guy you can put in the slot and he's gonna be magnificent, and there's so much you can do with him, and just a little short, quick stuff that he can then turn two yards into twenty because he's strong after the catch as well. I had a feeling you when you said wide receiver.
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Speaker 1: I had a feeling.
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Speaker 2: That's where you might go. I like it Xavier Orstreppo University of Miami. So thus far, thumbs up on two consecutive picks. All right, third round. This is where you make your money, right here, Hick number eighty nine. What you're doing, Give me the position, Give the position to school and I'll know who it is.
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Speaker 4: It gets a little dicey here, safety all right. Now, Remember I've got Petrie and Ward coming back from injuries. Eric Murray's a free agent to be, so they might resigning, they might not.
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Speaker 3: M J. Stewart as well.
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Speaker 4: I don't like drafting injured guys or guys coming back from injury usually, but I'm gonna take the chance here on Kevin Winston from Penn State because he can play, and if nothing else, I'll have a little safety recovery party in the training room and they can be now. I think that he'll be up to par by the time we get to training camp. This is doctor VanderMeer, who has not examining the ACL plus it was partially torn, Johnny. You know with acls you can be a little bit pregnant, so we'll see. I don't know what they did to him, I don't know how it shakes out, and I could change this pic right before the draft if I feel like he's not going to be physically ready.
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Speaker 3: But I feel like he is here in February thoughts.
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Speaker 2: So my summer nifty hairs fifty, I had him at number fifty.
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Speaker 1: Ooh, I I was very impressed.
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Speaker 2: He can run, He's got great size six two but two five.
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Speaker 1: He can hit very He's smart.
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Speaker 2: Dude. You went to Damatha, which, for those that don't know, DeMatha was a longtime basketball school, but it's just a great athletic school in Maryland. So he didn't play this year, and you just, man, do you back off either way? When I've kind of reset my Harris one hundred, he's right now in the eighty five to ninety range because in large because I just don't know what the injury, how bad the injury is.
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Speaker 3: But that's right where I'm drafting, right right exactly.
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Speaker 2: So I think you hit it from a from a value perspective, and look the Texans.
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Speaker 1: We've seen teams do this before.
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Speaker 2: I think the one that it's a more glaring example.
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Speaker 1: But he had no he had issues.
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Speaker 2: That was Jeffrey Simmons Jeffrey Simmons coming on Misissippi State. I had number four to Harrison one hundred one January of the draft season, he tears his ACL but sitting there at nineteen, the Titans go, you know what, wait for him. The Titans waited eight weeks, eight games, I think it was eight or nine games, and then he came back. And it so happened that season, which I think it was twenty nineteen. I believe we played them late in the year, so he played both games against us, so it's like we didn't even like we didn't even win from that injury.
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Speaker 1: So Winston, I think, is going to be ready to go at the beginning of training camp.
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Speaker 2: But even if you had to get him, like you said, rehab here in Houston and you've drafted him. If you've gotten a you know, potential day one, day two guy and you got him, you know, late on day two, you gotta feel pretty good about that. So I think if it's a need, I think he's the right kind of guy. I think if you put a guy like Kevin Winston oppositely Kaylen Book, they're different guys completely. I think Winston is a little bit more play down by the box, make plays in the run game, be physical where you can let Kaylen, you know, use his strength, which is playing in the middle of the field. In due time, those two playing together would be a really fantastic duo, just how they would compliment one another. I think Demiko would really like Kevin Winston Junior. Again, like you said, it's the injury. What's the prognosis of coming back from that injury.
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Speaker 1: We'll have to find out and we'll get a good look at the combine.
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Speaker 2: I would imagine where he is in his progress and how that changes what his value might be because of that.
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Speaker 4: Think about this, and I know you don't want to go to this well too often, but Derek Stingley Junior himself was not exactly the picture of health his last two college seasons, right, and then you drafted him and now he's the best in the game. So I'm not saying this automatic automatically happens with Winston, but it's worth noting anyway.
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Speaker 3: You're ready for RAPT four here.
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Speaker 2: Okay, wait, we've gotten around four, right, we have three picks and you have not drafted in offensive lineman.
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Speaker 3: I know, and it's time. It's time.
00:17:30
Speaker 1: It's time to go time.
00:17:32
Speaker 3: But I feel like I got a good player.
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Speaker 4: I'm going to take a guard round four from LSU Garrett Dellinger. I'm going to take him, and you know me, I know how to evaluate offensive lineman.
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Speaker 3: No, I don't.
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Speaker 4: But my non negotiable for offensive lineman is can you knock the other dudes out of the way in front of you? And can you protect your quarterback from the dudes coming after him.
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Speaker 3: I feel like he can do this.
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Speaker 4: I feel like he can grow into the process that Cole Popovich is going to unveil here.
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Speaker 3: And he'll be a good player for this team.
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Speaker 2: I think one of the things with Dellinger, I would also think about whether I want to cross train him at center.
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Speaker 1: I'm trying to remember it.
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Speaker 3: Played other positions.
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Speaker 2: I think he played center at the Senior Bowl that I remember. There were three yellow LSU hats that I kept seeing throughout the Senior Bowl, Fraser, Jones and Dellinger, and they kind of they would move because Jones would play tackling and played guard. Fraser'd be a guard most of the time. I think Dellinger played a little bit of center. I wouldn't be surprised if that's where it ends up eventually, but pretty good size. And you played LSU. Obviously, We've seen a number of guys come through this program and come through this organization and play at LSU on the offensive line. Even the Austin Deculus. I know we have what getting him in the seventh round. He gave us some good things, like he came into the playoffs and I thought that'd some good things as the sixth offensive lineman. So I think Delager is a good pick at one twenty seven. Here's the thing I was thinking about when you went the first three rounds and you didn't take an offensive lineman. People ask me in mobile, They've asked me kind on the street wherever I've been about, you know, kind of the offensive line. I feel like if the Texans are gonna spend money and find a free agent, I think that's where they do it would be on the offensive line, potentially on the interior, and then use the draft picks to fill in that wide receiver safety and then looking at younger interior offensive lineman, you know, maybe a little bit later in a draft, just like you did in round four.
00:19:42
Speaker 1: I just that's kind of my that's kind of my thought.
00:19:45
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's what it's gonna end up being, but I just have a feeling that because it takes a while for those guys to get themselves ready to play. I mean, you know, Juics just had to struggle with injuries and you know, some struggles in the offensive line. The first couple of years we saw Xavier to a if you will go through those struggles, Kenya Green has gone through those struggles. You know, do you want to get a ready made I don't know already made is the right word, but you want to get a veteran that's been kind of in the Wars already that you can just PLoP right in, maybe decide to leave Titus there and left guard and see if you can do that, and then you know, find another guard on the other side. I don't know, but when you waited, is that kind of your thought? Is that waiting until the fourth round kind of tells you that might be what they do now. They don't have a lot of free agent money, they don't have a lot of salary cap space. You can make some, obviously, but I think if they're gonna use some money, I think that's where it might be.
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Speaker 4: I also thought this. The old expression is does it sell newspapers? This is the Internet, of course, where I'm writing good point, So I'm thinking I want the sexy positions here, Johnny. But in all seriousness, I think, if they want to draft offensive line, and Nick's gonna find a way to get another pick in the first one hundred, if you will, I agree, and find a way to do it that way and maybe trade something from next year and recover later. He doesn't have a six this like you poured it out. And I also thought, sometimes, look, it's round four. It's not like it's round seven or an undrapped of your ee agent. You find guys and somebody drops and you go ahead and take them, and voila. Look what you have, as you say, spending free agent money on the old line. You already have so much invested there. But and I know you know that, but you gotta do what you gotta do, you know, And we don't know how Cayley feels about it, how Cole Papa Bitch really feels about it, how Nick really Demiko everybody.
00:21:30
Speaker 3: We don't know how they really feel until we see what they do this offseason.
00:21:35
Speaker 4: No doubt, I don't think my Vandermarck is gonna sway their opinion, but you never know.
00:21:40
Speaker 2: It might it might get to the fifth round, all right, fifth round from Buffalo.
00:21:44
Speaker 4: Okay, from Buffalo. They got the fifth round pick, and I'm going running back here, Johnny. I've got Daria gounbually as a free agent. So it's February again. I could change this pick in the two point zero, but this is one point zero and I am going with the all time leading rusher the history of the Kansas Jayhawks, Devin Neil, at running back.
00:22:04
Speaker 3: I'm going to go with him right here.
00:22:05
Speaker 4: And I joked that, yeah, if he were the all time leading anything on the basketball team, that would be something, but on the football team it's not as much. However, we all know that Kansas has been way better lately and Neil is a big part of it.
00:22:18
Speaker 3: Neil is the all time leading rusher.
00:22:19
Speaker 4: He's been rushing for a thousand plus mega yards for Kansas, and I think he can be a good third down back as far as his potential goes.
00:22:28
Speaker 3: And we'll see where it goes from there.
00:22:30
Speaker 1: I love it, Oh love it.
00:22:34
Speaker 2: That's a great pick. That's a fantastic pick to get at one sixty seven. Uh. He It's funny because you know, I've watched him a million times. When I saw him at the Senior Bowl, I was like, wait, is that Devin Neil.
00:22:45
Speaker 1: Well, he looks a.
00:22:46
Speaker 2: Lot bigger in person than he does on on TV. But caught the ball well out of the backfield. I think he can definitely give you that. He's he's powerful without being a breaker, if that makes sense. Like he's powerful, like he's strong enough with explosiveness to get through holes run. You know, I don't think he's the fastest guy in the world, but you don't need to running back to be all that fast. But he is productive between the tackles. He is tough as hell. And Kansas went as Devon Neil went the last few years he was there. Now Jalen Daniels, they needed him as a quarterback and when he played they were much much better.
00:23:24
Speaker 1: But Devin Neil was the offense at Kansas. I love that pick.
00:23:28
Speaker 2: And by the way, Gail Sayers went to Kansas. So for Devin Neil to be the all time that you rusher at Kansas, that tells you something. Okay, last pick two forty three in the seventh not mister irrelevant. Pretty close, but not mister irrelevant. Your thoughts on pick two forty three?
00:23:46
Speaker 3: Who you got, well, Johnny?
00:23:48
Speaker 4: In my piece, I originally wrote Josh Cameron, receiver from Baylor because he is eligible, but he decided to go back to school. He is second team All America. He's a wide receiver. He led the country and punt return average.
00:24:03
Speaker 2: He's a stud. He's an absolute stud. I mean what I called the the what you call it game with him? He's a he's a monster. But he's going He's going back to Baylor.
00:24:14
Speaker 3: Where's he going in this draft? Johnny?
00:24:15
Speaker 2: Tell me, oh, he would he'd probably be third fourth round at a minimum. At a minimum, because he's getting better as a wide receiver. He's a hell of returner. Okay, but he's getting better as a wide receiver. Well, in that case, let's pivot here. Silas Bolden, return man, University of Texas. Okay, Silas Bolden, you could go with as a wide receiver and as a returner.
00:24:40
Speaker 1: And he was also CJ. Stroud's teammate in high school.
00:24:44
Speaker 4: Oh, that's beautiful. I like Silas Bolden. This will sell newspaper. We don't have newspapers. This will get me clicks. I got one more question for you before we get out of here. The guys on serious x MNFL Radio said, Hendon Hooker in this draft would go late first round. Where does Hendon Hooker stack up? Because the line should probably consider consider taking a nice pick for Hendon Hooker over you know, some teams might not want the quarterbacks that are available.
00:25:14
Speaker 1: He would be QB two for me.
00:25:15
Speaker 3: In this class.
00:25:17
Speaker 1: Cam Ward would be one, Hooker two. That's the way. That's the way I would go about it.
00:25:21
Speaker 2: Now, I've I just I just don't think sure Sanders is for me on a number of different levels, so he would be QB three for me.
00:25:30
Speaker 1: I would take Hooker. I was.
00:25:31
Speaker 2: I was a big fan of Hooker. Hooker would be number two in this draft. There's no There's no question about it. To me, I think he would go. He would have an opportunity. You look at you know, you look at how this this draft is for teams that need quarterbacks. He might go a whole lot earlier than late first round because I think teams just think a team tell me who needs a quarterback. Let's just start the top. Yes or no, Tennessee, Yes, Cleveland yes, Giants, yes, Patriots, no Jaguars, no Raiders, yes, Jets, yes, Carolina No New Orleans. Maybe very possible. Maybe then you got Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas, Miami, They're all good. Indianapolis, No Atlanta, no Arizona, no Cincinnati, Seattle.
00:26:19
Speaker 1: You don't know what the future lies.
00:26:20
Speaker 2: But we just went through what five teams Tennessee, Cleveland, Giants, Raiders, Jets. That's five teams in the top seven and New Orleans that's six in the.
00:26:29
Speaker 1: Top nine that could use quarterback.
00:26:32
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely, Hennon Hooker would be going to one of those teams for sure.
00:26:36
Speaker 1: Yep.
00:26:37
Speaker 4: And if I'm Detroit, I really think about it, because look, he's entering year three. I still got golf for at least another two three years. I mean, what am I going to do here? So I might as well get a great pick and fortify another position.
00:26:47
Speaker 1: Yep.
00:26:48
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Mark your vandermock is well done. Absolutely love it coming up through. Doherty joins me for in the lab right here on Texans all accept what's up and everybody welcome back this one Snesday isation of Texans All access from Thenday Texans a radio studio. I'm your host John Harris, football analyst, sideline reporter for your Houston Texans. Looking forward to tomorrow very much. Nick Kyley gonna meet the media, Demiko Ryan's gonna talk a little bit as well. So I can't wait for that to happen on Thursday. I'm sure what plenty of that right here on Sports rated six ten and on Texans All Access. Now it is time to go in the lab. Drew and I nerded out, dorked out. We talked about the magic number of four. What does that mean? Well, take a listen in the lab right here with Drew, Dougherty and myself.
00:27:38
Speaker 1: Here we are.
00:27:39
Speaker 5: That's right, it's me Drew Doherty, it's John Harris, and it's you checking us out. This is in the Lab, presented by Xfinity. The week after the Super Bowl, the day before, offensive coordinator Nick Cayley is introduced to the public through a press conference and Energy Stadium. It's gonna be him, It's gonna be Demico Ryans. John, I'm excited about that, Excited to hear from the new guy. And I was very surprised by what I saw in the Super Bowl. I was one of those and we said it on the show last week, I was like, Eagles are going up against Jordan and Pippen Rodman and Phil Jackson, and the Eagles thrashed them. However, I do think the Chiefs had a bad game at the very worst time they did. But one of the things that sort of confirmed what I've been doing in my nerdery as we are here in the off season, mock draft simulators. Lots of times, man, there's a clump of dudes when I do a mock draft simulator, and we'll do one of these next week, maybe together. We'll do about three of them throughout this whole process. But there's a clump of them at twenty five where if the trades that are are proposed to me don't look like, you know, I'm getting what I want. It always seems like there's some variation of a choice between Walter Nolan some times a Mecha Buka, sometimes the defensive tackle from Oregon, and every so often there's.
00:29:08
Speaker 1: A wild Derek Harmon, Yeah.
00:29:11
Speaker 5: Derek Harmon, And then every so often the defensive tackle from Michigan. Mason Graham drops all the way down. I don't see that happening, but he drops all the way down. The Texans It's like you run to the podium and hand that one in.
00:29:25
Speaker 1: But it comes down to.
00:29:27
Speaker 5: Essentially a good defensive tackle because there's a few others at that spot or a Mecca Abuka. Now, seeing what we saw on Sunday night in the Super Bowl just kind of confirms like, yes, do the Texans need to get better at pass protection? Sure, But if there's not a Tyler Booker ready there, are you better served by taking one of those defensive tackles that are available. And I kind of think yes, And I think you pair him up with the not pair them, but you add them to the mix of the guys you have out on the edge who are very good, also very promising down the line. I think he you have you can get very close to what you saw from the Eagles defense if you you hit with some of those guys.
00:30:05
Speaker 2: I think you can thank the Eagles for helping with the argument, because I had just I had to talk with Seth. I was this is just after I'd gotten back from the Senior Bowl, and I can't remember who was somebody had somebody had put out there kennth Grant to the Texans, the other Michigan defensive tackle.
00:30:28
Speaker 5: Somebody that I wind up taking when I'm very back a little bit.
00:30:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, very I think twenty five I I kind of go the other way, Drew. I think in due time, I think you won't be able to get him at twenty five.
00:30:40
Speaker 1: But the point being, I know there are a lot of people like, you got, you got, you got. You gotta do off of the line, You gotta do off of the line.
00:30:46
Speaker 2: Yet now look, there are other There are the ways that you can go about getting players and bringing them in. And I've said, and I'm gone on record saying, I think if the Texans are going to spend money, I think think it might be at one of those interior offensive line positions. I think that's where they spend the money to get somebody that's maybe ready made to PLoP right in and let's go.
00:31:09
Speaker 1: I think with what they have a wide.
00:31:11
Speaker 2: Receiver with Nico Collins in particular, you know what they have at other positions, even even if it's a tackle, I think they could. Now some of this depends on what happens with Foley and what happens with Mario Edwards.
00:31:24
Speaker 1: If you can bring both.
00:31:25
Speaker 2: Them back, then I still I still think you have to add a stud a dude.
00:31:31
Speaker 1: Uh to the defensive line room A young A young dude.
00:31:35
Speaker 2: I mean that's a you know, Mario has been a league a little while, Fully's been around for a little while. Even you know, Kurt Heinez is going to your four. I mean, guys have been around for a little bit. So I think they need a little infusion of some size, some magility, some strength as defensive lineman. And then you just point to, well, look what the Eagles did. Look how they did it. And the one thing I like about what the Eagles did, and I don't think this brought up a lot. Deagles don't just have defensive tackles. You look at Jordan Davis and he's like three point fifty. You look at Jalen Carter, he's like three point fifteen. Then you look at Milton Williams who comes in the game, he's two eighty five. Like maybe maybe by the end of the season he's probably like So it's like they hit you with different flavors and different types. And I think that's the key that to keep an offensive line off balance, it's different kind and I think with Foley and Mario and Settle, they're not all the same guy and I thought that was that made for their success and helped make for their success.
00:32:42
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty four. But I think you.
00:32:44
Speaker 2: Add a stud that's you know, three a five three Tan can move even a guy like Kenth Grant.
00:32:51
Speaker 1: You know me, I like, I like my defensive tackles BF here than most.
00:32:56
Speaker 2: So if Kenth Grant comes to the party, he's three hundred and thirty three thirty five, I think the Michigan roster has.
00:33:02
Speaker 1: Him in through forty. But that dude can move. I mean, he can get up and go.
00:33:08
Speaker 2: And you think about you still gotta win the division, right, Well, the team you gotta beat Indianapolis, what do they want to do? They want to pound out to Taylor run Anthony Richardson. Well, if your guys inside are great, if you're gonna win the AFC, you gotta beat the Chiefs. Where do you have to be great? Up the middle? Because that's where that's where Patrick Mahomes like he likes to escape through that. So I think defensive tackle makes a lot of sense. And this is a deep defensive tackle draft. In fact, I was just going through my draft database today kind of revising and getting guys in and out guys that were you know, moved on to twenty twenty six, get him out of there, Guys that maybe declared I wasn't expecting to put him in there, and true you just like I go down the list, I'm like, could you see this guy playing for the Texans in twenty twenty five? Mason Graham, Kenth Grant, Tydee Williams, Derek Harmon who he mentioned, Joshua Farmer Florida State, Alfred Collins, Texas, t J. Sanders, South Carolina. You on Walker six six three forty eight, Burning brought in Texas, Jordan Fields like those give me any of those guys, any of those guys.
00:34:10
Speaker 1: They fall all throughout the draft.
00:34:12
Speaker 5: Yeah, when you're doing these drafts, which absolutely, but yeah, it's uh absolutely, it's fun. That's that's exciting because it's a position that, like you said, it's not an extreme need, it's not like a glaring hole. But if you are able to get somebody like that, you're strengthening what's you know, the defensive front is a strength that is really it pushes you one step closer to getting where you want to go ultimately. Okay, so we just brought something up there on the flip side offensive line. You know, pass protection was not what it needed to be last year, just wasn't. Everyone knows that. Everyone said that from the very top of the building. We're saying players said it. We're not breaking any news here. But with all that in mind, with the draft approaching, true or false, if you did not draft an offensive lineman in April, you'd still be just fine, or you could be just fine because of the change offensively with Kayley and the personnel you already have in place, and some personnel you could add through free agency. I guess what I'm saying is, yeah, you'd like to draft a great offensive lineman or two, but it's not necessarily a must, is it.
00:35:32
Speaker 1: It's not.
00:35:33
Speaker 2: I think it's the easiest thing for fans to see, is you know, personnel changes.
00:35:41
Speaker 1: It's easy.
00:35:42
Speaker 2: They're not gonna you know, you know, even us, we're not gonna be able to all the scheme things that they do, but we know that they're gonna do different things to be able to protect. Even in the game against Kansas City, even a couple of games prior, you can see the Texans, I could I could see things that were different that the Texans were doing in their past protection that made it a little bit better. Now, Look, CJ got mauled in the fourth quarter, but that was because we were down in that game and the Chiefs are now pinning their ears back and they started getting hot and we'd get desperate and you don't know how it goes. But for the first three quarters that game, one of the things that they were doing pretty well was picking up the stunts.
00:36:22
Speaker 1: They're picking the blitz.
00:36:23
Speaker 2: It's not every time, but doing a better job of it than they did in the game of December prior to that game, the game he gets the Chargers, I thought the pass protection from the second quarter on was much much better. They were doing things a little differently. So personnel is the easiest thing to see, Well, that guy's different, that coach is different. Well, now there's a new coach, there's an offensive coordinator who's going to be different. What he brings in Nick Cayley to pass protection and how they go about it. I don't think any of us are going to really truly understand. The proof is going to be in the pudding. But new coaches and new schemes, new ideas always make good players better. Yeah, I do think that I said earlier. Free agency I think is you know, if they're gonna spend some money, I think that's where it might be. But I still think that a young offensive lineman. Look, they've they've drafted, let's go through the last two years. Ago, it was Juice and Jarrett right then last year it was Blake, and then later it was Darius Henderson. They've drafted some offensive linemen, and they've drafted him a little bit later in the draft. I mean, Blake was the second rounder, but Blake's gonna turn it to a starter. I think he's gonna end up being the starter right tackle. I mean, we'll see how they how they put it all together. But Blake I thought did a pretty decent job, except for one, you know, you know, sack he gave up to Chris Shones.
00:37:46
Speaker 1: Carl loftis one or the other. But either way, I think Blake's the right fit.
00:37:49
Speaker 2: So they've put some they've kind of done what we've talked about, and that is draft a little bit later. Some guys that might have some upside, they have some elite trade, like they have long arm, or they're big, they can move, they're smart or whatever. I think that they still need to draft at least somebody.
00:38:09
Speaker 1: Now they don't have.
00:38:09
Speaker 2: As much draft capital as we've had in the past, and so that is something to keep an eye on. How do they increase that draft capital moving up, moving down, moving down, picking up other picks, all that kind of stuff. But I think if they stick at six picks, I think it'll be one offensive lineman. But I do think with the change of Nick Cayley Cole Popovich moving to the offensive line coaching position and the change that goes with having them be the shot callers. Added to I think some free agent dollars for somebody coming in and then.
00:38:45
Speaker 1: Maybe one maybe a Day three pick, might be a Day three pick. I'd be okay with that.
00:38:50
Speaker 2: But round three and beyond draft pick, I think you can start to look at it and go okay, I can kind of see how this is going to come together in the offensive line.
00:38:58
Speaker 5: So that's a great answer to what my question was, which was essentially true or false the Texans must draft an offensive lineman or true false the Texans will be okay pre possibly if they don't draft one. So we talked about it last week. I did the mock draft roundup, and most experts, the majority of the experts the court, or at least a quarter of twenty four experts, had the Texans taken Alabama's Tyler Booker, the guard, really impressive guy, and somebody you said, probably is not going to be at twenty five. So, as a flip to what my previous question was, if the Texans were to take a guy like that, and I put that, I tweeted that out that you know, he's the pick at twenty five by some of these experts, and I got a handful of responses and tweets saying.
00:39:43
Speaker 1: Don't do that. They've done that, They've taken guys.
00:39:48
Speaker 5: Okay, just because you took a guy at a position it didn't work out a few years back, doesn't mean.
00:39:56
Speaker 1: You don't do it again.
00:39:57
Speaker 5: Right, So, if Sam Bowie was your choice in nineteen eighty four, five it was eighty four eighty five. Anyway, four eighty four, he didn't work out for you immediately. He did wind up becoming an All Star couple times, but he wasn't Jordan Yarkim. Does that mean you don't draft Shaquille O'Neil a few years later or exactly?
00:40:21
Speaker 1: So on and so forth.
00:40:22
Speaker 2: So here's one Drew. Here's here's one Drew. So things didn't work out with Deshaun Watson. His agent is David Mullaghettos. Does that mean you're not gonna draft C. J.
00:40:29
Speaker 1: Stroud? He just been I mean yeah, So.
00:40:33
Speaker 2: Look when it some of those things you know that I think people get. You know, don't draft in Ohio state quarterback. You know, you can't draft the Jeff Tedford quarterback. Oh that guy is just gonna be this, He's just gonna be this. Yeah, look, take a text every Yeah, every situation you have to treat individually and independently. And I think when you look at Booker, it no, no. First of all, with some of the guys that were drafted in the offensive line, it wasn't the same group you have now. It wasn't the same coaching staff you have now. It wasn't the same philosophy you have now. So those things might not be that important. I'll tell you one thing that's hugely important, and that's being swarmy. And when I was at the Senior Bowl, I don't know if I told you this, I don't know if we talked about this true.
00:41:18
Speaker 1: Was it the Senior Bowl?
00:41:18
Speaker 2: I talked to a staffer from Alabama, somebody who knows the Alabama program really well. And I don't know if we went through this, but he spoke glowingly like he didn't say the words swarm.
00:41:30
Speaker 1: He didn't have to.
00:41:31
Speaker 2: It's like all the things that just get added, you know, to the mix. You go, Okay, well that that fits. And look, not every player at Alabama is that way. But if you're gonna get to Alabama for the most part, you probably have those tendencies. And it was interesting talking to him about Will Anderson, Henry Totoe and the guys are at Alabama, and it was like, yep, same same sort of thought process, same sort of way he goes through things.
00:41:55
Speaker 1: And I think Tyler Booker, and that's the thing.
00:41:58
Speaker 2: And I say this lot, Oh you draft an offensive guard.
00:42:02
Speaker 1: Offensive guard.
00:42:03
Speaker 2: That's not the way I look at it. I look at it as you drafted Tyler Booker. That's different. That's not we just didn't draft an offensive guard. Because I think that gets lost on people. A lot of people last year were like, oh, we gotta draft the tight end. I gott draft the Titian. We gotta have a tight end. They were like, all over me about a tight end, and I was just like, I didn't like a lot of the tight ends where people wanted to draft a tight end. I'm like, okay, you want a tight end here, who you want? Tell me who you want, then I'll talk to you. Because if we get to the fourth round and kate'st Over still there, that's what I want. And thank god Nick Casario knew that too, and Nicko Demiko go out and get Kate Stover, who I think is gonna end up taking year two to a different level. I'm really excited about Casny. Do I think CAD's kid's kid can be healthy? Now he kind of knows the game. I think that's that does.
00:42:51
Speaker 1: A swarmy dude.
00:42:52
Speaker 2: So to me, Tyler Booker isn't just an offensive guard being picked at number twenty five like he is an absolute stud. So did it not work with other guys? Did it not work with other first round offensive guards?
00:43:09
Speaker 1: Maybe not?
00:43:10
Speaker 2: But you have to look at each case individually and why those things and why those situations didn't work out, and then you can utilize, Okay, this didn't work out because of A, B and C. Okay, we're gonna try not to make those mistakes. But we might draft an offensive guard again and we might find those things we might miss again. I mean, hell, the Browns have been drafted quarterbacks for forever and they still don't get it right. So from that standpoint, I, you know, the Tyler Booker one is the one that I kind.
00:43:39
Speaker 1: Of I don't know the right way of saying this, but I get.
00:43:41
Speaker 2: Kind of kind of how bothered about it because of what you just you said, Drew and the way you went about it, because that's the way I hear it in my head.
00:43:48
Speaker 1: Oh, they're drafted to guard. My god, it's look offensive guard's not sexy.
00:43:53
Speaker 2: But you know what if an offense guard that you draft keeps number seven upright all year long, watch how sexy this offense is gonna.
00:44:00
Speaker 1: I don't get you happy. So let's end with this.
00:44:03
Speaker 5: Since we do dorky things on this this podcast, I'm gonna leave with the number four. I texted you and Mark about this last week. I was doing some research. Four four sacks was kind of like the magic number with the Texans last year. When Stroud got sacked four times or more in a game, the Texans lost one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, times wow, eight times including the playoffs, so seven of the regular season losses.
00:44:37
Speaker 1: So more than four four or more times, four or more times, four more times.
00:44:42
Speaker 5: They won two games where he got sacked four times. They hold the Colts in the first week of the season. Ye remember that they beat the Dolphins later on the seasons, right. They lost one game where he did not get sacked four times. They only lost one time. That was to the Chiefs in the regular season. He get sacked twice in that game. He had hit though eleven times. Yeah, he hit eleven times in that game. He had hit eleven times at the Jets, which is the really memorable one because he got sacked eight times, hit eleven times against the Jets. But he got hit as many times against the Jets as he did against the Chiefs in the regular season game, and he got hit the most. The most all season long was in the finale. Eight sacks, fourteen quarterback hits, but four that was the number. If you stayed under that number, Texans typically won miraculously. They did not have a game all season long where they kept a clean sheet. Now Stroud did not get sacked in the season finale at the Titans, but he only played that one series.
00:45:44
Speaker 2: Oh Man, tough numbers to hear, no doubt, but good one from Drew. Okay, we go back newser on the NFL. What if the Giants made a deal for Matt Stafford. We'll discuss that next right here in Texas All Access. All right, we got a quick one to finish here, Texans All Access on a Wednesday, big date tomorrow. Nick Cayley gonna speak to Mika. Ryan's gonna speak over at stadium. Looking forward to that. Now, what I tease going into this segment, I've just kind of followed the rumor sphere through different social media and one of the ones I keep seeing the New York Giants making a move from Matt Stafford, and.
00:46:21
Speaker 1: It kind of stops to me my tracks.
00:46:22
Speaker 2: First of all, we played the Rams this year, so the Rams without Matt Stafford, Like, all right, cool, let's do it. But I tried to think of Matt Stafford, the Giants with elik neighbors, and if the Giants state could stay at three and get Matt Stafford. I don't know if they could do that, but if they could man elite neighbors, Travis Hunter and Matt Stafford in New York.
00:46:43
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, now that would be a nice, nice.
00:46:46
Speaker 2: Starting Defensively, they're tremendous up front, tremendous. That might be something worth looking at as long as the Giants could find a younger option in the next.
00:46:56
Speaker 1: Couple of years.
00:46:57
Speaker 2: But we'll see what they can do down the road.
00:47:00
Speaker 1: Really appreciate you guys being with me this evening.
00:47:04
Speaker 2: As I mentioned earlier, Nick Cayley press conference is gonna be tomorrow. That's gonna be fun to listen to. Mark and I will be back to break it all down. I think we got the general on with us tomorrow night as well because it's Thursday, so make sure you tune in for that. But big thanks to Drew Tomork to all of you for listening to my guys back at Sorts ratio six ' ten.
00:47:22
Speaker 1: Appreciate you guys. We'll see tomorrow and as always, go Texans.
Speaker 1: What's happened? Everybody?
00:00:01
Speaker 2: Welcome into a Wednesday edition of Texans All Access from the Hundai Texans Radio Studio. John Harris, your host, football and out sideline reporter, joined by the Voice of the Texans, Mark vandermir Mark.
00:00:14
Speaker 1: Good evening, How are you doing.
00:00:16
Speaker 3: Good evening, Johnny.
00:00:17
Speaker 4: It's always fun to be at NRG Stadium any time of year, especially with the Rodeo starting to move into the building about to get their show on the road.
00:00:26
Speaker 3: What is the Cookoff in?
00:00:27
Speaker 5: What?
00:00:28
Speaker 4: Two weeks from tomorrow? So that's gonna be pretty cool to have the Cookoff going on. I've been invited this year to a couple of places at the Cookoff, and you know, it's nothing personal against the people inviting me. I'm just not sure if I'm up for that, but I think I might do it this year. It's been a while since I've been to the Cookoff, and it's such a great Houston event.
00:00:47
Speaker 3: So maybe maybe I'm due.
00:00:48
Speaker 2: Maybe I'm due to go back a second tomorrow, Yeah, which should be the twenty seventh, which means we're flying back from Indy.
00:00:56
Speaker 4: We're flying back the night of the Cookoff start. Yes, because it's the okay Friday Saturday.
00:01:01
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, so you're gonna be We're gonna be back for it. Well, you know I don't wanna be doing that weekend. I'll be locked in on a combine. There's no question about that. Be locked incked on in the lab. A little bit later in the show, Drew Doherty's gonna join me on the show. We've got plenty to discuss. We are gonna have some BAFO interviews tomorrow, but I don't want to give anything away because I don't I don't want to tell you one. But if we get it, these are gonna be rock stars, big rock star. It's gonna be big, big, big one big YEP at least one. Now, Mark Vandermiir does this every year. He does versions every year, which is cool because everybody does mock draft versions. But Mark doesn't care about thirty one other teams. Nope, cares about one team. He does a mock draft for that team and the six picks the Houston Texans have made. Mark vandermir has done a vandermock version one dot oh. It is up at Houston Texans dot com, which you can read for yourself after you hear our little discussion here because I have not seen this. I purposely avoid the vandermock so I can be completely surprised and in tune to what Mark has to say about the draft picks.
00:02:30
Speaker 1: He says, I ripped them apart.
00:02:31
Speaker 2: I don't often do that unless you draft Shador Sanders, and then I will rip that apart. But you're not drafting Schador Sanders at number twenty five. Good luck to whoever drafts him. That said vandermock one dot oh.
00:02:43
Speaker 1: I love this.
00:02:45
Speaker 2: I love this, and this obviously changes. I mean last year, I think you maybe did Vandermock one dot oh, and then there are a bunch of free agent signings and then you change everything.
00:02:54
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:02:55
Speaker 2: Of course then Nick traded out of the first round, so that's screwed it up too, So that to help matters. So thanks Nick, now Nick CASSII, that is not Nick Kayley.
00:03:04
Speaker 1: Now Vandermock one.
00:03:06
Speaker 2: Dot zero up at Houston Texas dot com pick number twenty five. Now the Texans, for those that don't know or haven't been falling along and they're just kind of getting up to speed.
00:03:17
Speaker 1: With the Texans' draft picks.
00:03:20
Speaker 2: They have six of them as it stands, right now, they are drafting in every round but the sixth round. They're drafting at twenty five in the first fifty eight, just in the second eighty ninth overall, which is in third one twenty seventh, which is in the fourth. They have Buffalo's pick, which is twenty eighth in the fifth round, one sixty seven, and then they have a seventh rounder which is.
00:03:47
Speaker 1: Two forty three.
00:03:49
Speaker 2: Now, Mark, I ask you this every year before I get to the picks. Do the Texans make more or less than six picks in this draft?
00:04:02
Speaker 1: More?
00:04:03
Speaker 3: Well, you know it's a great question.
00:04:05
Speaker 4: You know what, I'm gonna hold the line at six, but they're not gonna be where they are right now. There's no way. It's a virtual lock. I would say it's a lock, never mind virtual. Like, how much would you bet that Nick's gonna make at least one move? I would bet the house that he's gonna make at least one move in the draft house. There's only been one Texans draft in history where there was no move made on draft weekend, and that was Brian Gaines's last draft. So you're gonna look at a draft here where Nick he's definitely gonna move around. He's got the itchy trigger finger. It's not even that it's itchy. He has ideas. He wants to do it the best way possible, and he figures out a way to make the board his right as much as humanly possible. Anyway, Yeah, there's no way it stands pat as far as where they're at, but I bet it ends up being six, Johnny.
00:04:57
Speaker 2: I think one of the things that we have to consider, and we kind of found out this last year that Nick was trying to make moves like he was trying to get into a higher in the second round or maybe back in the first last year from what we had heard, but teams weren't as willing to make the Texas a trade partner. And some of that is Nick's reputation, like you're gonna get fleeced. You just know it, Like, don't worry, you're gonna get fleeced. So there's teams that don't want to do business, and I can understand that you don't want to be embarrassed by Dick Canserri and the Texans.
00:05:33
Speaker 1: So it sits at six. So let's do it.
00:05:36
Speaker 2: First round, pick number twenty five overall. Okay, Houston Texans give me the position.
00:05:42
Speaker 4: All right, So what I do, by the way, and I recommend people read it because I'm not writing a lot of details on these guys.
00:05:49
Speaker 3: Necessarily, I give a quick take. But it's the other stuff I write like.
00:05:53
Speaker 4: I begin the piece saying Nick and his staff have asked me to do this, and then I say, okay, I'm lying, and then I say that Nick probably spin up his alfalfa sprouts smoothie when he read that first sentence, but he probably doesn't drink those anyway. So anyway, I go on and on about smoothies and things like that. All right, So here's the first pick. Twenty five overall they go. Because this is the pre free agency draft. As you pointed out, we talked about it last night Foley and Mario. I'm on a first name basis with these guys. They're free agents to be So I'm going to go defensive tackle and pick from Michigan Kenneth Grant yep to be a big dude, drawing double teams, crushing the pocket.
00:06:35
Speaker 3: Enabling Will and Daniel to get after it.
00:06:38
Speaker 4: Kenneth Grant is my first pick for the Houston Texans, and I probably have company. I really didn't check out mock drafts. What I did check out was to see projected rounds of some of these players, so I wasn't getting ridiculous, like, hey, Travis Hunter in round five, great solid. You can't do that kind of thing in a mock. You have to be, you know, in the realm of possibility. Here, Kenneth Grant twenty fifth. That's in the realm of possibility, is it not, Johnny, Oh.
00:07:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's absolutely right.
00:07:05
Speaker 2: I think the more that I've thought about this, the more I feel like he's not going to get there. Oh, because he's three hundred and thirty ish, I think. I think Michigan's roster had him at two forty, but three forty. But sometimes those things don't get updated like they're supposed to. So I think from that perspective, he might not get there. He right now sits at fifteen in the Harris one hundred. I don't know that he might move down a little bit, might not.
00:07:37
Speaker 1: I don't know.
00:07:38
Speaker 2: I think he's gonna go to Combine. He's gonna show off those dancing bear skills. I think he's very agile. At three hundred and thirty pounds, he can move, He can run. There's a great, great highlight from twenty twenty three. They went to Penn State and one of the Penn State running backs and they've got two good ones, Kate tron Allen and Nicholas Singleton. One of those running backs, if I remember correctly burst down the sideline and Grant caught him from behind and it's like whoa, Like it was just it was really impressive. Now it's one of those where he kind of had avoid the safety, kind of jumped back, stopped, then he had to restart, but still be three hundred and thirty pounds and to run and chase somebody down the way that Charles Grant can Kennith Grant. Sorry, there's a Charles Grant in the shraft as well. From William and Mary who. I could also see the Texans taking in any one of these other picks. Offensive tackle, long arm dude, that's sort of different story. Kenneth Grant would be a I mean, if he's there at twenty five, I will I'll go crazy because I think that's gonna be a perfect pick.
00:08:39
Speaker 1: I said it the other day.
00:08:40
Speaker 2: We were talking about the defensive line, and I said, I feel like there's still a dude needed one more dude to add to that mix, and I'd like to have a dude, like a bigger dude. And I think Kenneth Grant would fit and check all those boxes. So I like how you started this. A nice job, Kenneth Grant and number twenty five overall all right, second round?
00:09:01
Speaker 1: If the eight overall, twenty sixth in the round.
00:09:06
Speaker 4: Give me the position, it is gonna be a receiver, Johnny. And I was gonna go receiver at twenty five because remember where we're at right now again pre free agency. We don't know what's gonna happen with Diggs yet. You don't know the recovery of Dell yet. So I thought maybe at twenty five I could take Matthew Golden. Would he be there at twenty five in the first round from Texas?
00:09:27
Speaker 3: Eh? Maybe not.
00:09:30
Speaker 2: He's in that range. He's definitely in that range. I think the one thing that's gonna be tough for the receivers is I don't know that teams have first round.
00:09:42
Speaker 1: Needs for a wide receiver.
00:09:43
Speaker 2: Okay, I think there are a lot of teams that are like, man, we would like to have this guy.
00:09:47
Speaker 1: So you know, we'll see how it goes.
00:09:50
Speaker 2: But I think there's gonna be Travis Hunter, t mac per, McMillan, and then there's that next group, but Luther Burden, Golden Abuca, They're gonna kind of be in that range. But I think five would be great if he got them, but I don't know if he's gonna get there.
00:10:02
Speaker 3: All right, So now I'm in round two, fairly late.
00:10:05
Speaker 4: In round two, I want a receiver and I'm gonna take Xavier Restrito from the University of Miami because he's a hurricane dammit.
00:10:16
Speaker 1: Now.
00:10:16
Speaker 4: Also, but think about this, He's one of these guys. I've watched him because you know, I watched the Canes. He's one of these guys who's always open, you.
00:10:23
Speaker 3: Know he is.
00:10:24
Speaker 4: And some guys say they're always open. This guy's always open. He's got that. And I'm gonna mention two players and they're very different from each other, but they have a similar knack for getting to the spot. Travis Kelce and Julian Edelman, they both have that. How is he open on third and eight? Always up the middle? Restrepo is that kind of guy. The measurables are gonna be whatever they are, but he is mister great route runner, open dude, you can count on him security blanket.
00:10:56
Speaker 3: Again.
00:10:56
Speaker 4: I don't know about Diggs and Dell right now, so I'm gonna take Restrepco right here, fairly late in round two.
00:11:02
Speaker 2: So in my Harris hits that you can get at Houston, Texas dot Com. From the Senior Bowl, I was watching Rastreppo. I was very interested to see him up close. And it's funny you mentioned Edelman because I remember Edelman. Edelmand had this kind of walk that he looked like he just like he owned the place, like he was just so confident, like it didn't matter who was on the other side, like he was gonna win. Ristrepolo has kind of that same walk, that same kind of you know, I am this, I am the man, and he's not.
00:11:36
Speaker 1: He's not you know, braggadocio. He's not gonna tell you how great he is. He just makes plays and he gets open.
00:11:43
Speaker 2: Like you said, I think one of the best plays I saw in twenty twenty four, Miami was playing Virginia Tech and they were coming back. Was a fourth and about two and cam Ward got out of the pocket.
00:11:54
Speaker 1: Restreppo was actually open, but he.
00:11:56
Speaker 2: Slipped down and so he literally is fall he's fallen down on he's sitting on the ground and Ward tries to you know, it's gonna throw it to him, but he has to kind of adjust because he's seen Restreble fall Rastrebo from his backside, reaches up and snatches the past and brings it down and gets the first down. I thought, man, so that's the other thing when we talk about wide receivers, and I know this doesn't always it doesn't always come up catch the damn ball, like getting open and all that.
00:12:25
Speaker 1: It's all great, but you better catching what's thrown to you.
00:12:28
Speaker 2: And you could tell when guys have natural hands, like okay, he's got natural hands. He makes he makes catches look pretty easy. He at the Senior Bowl just turned some guys around when he you know, there's a couple of times he's slipped, but he's that kind of guy you can put in the slot and he's gonna be magnificent, and there's so much you can do with him, and just a little short, quick stuff that he can then turn two yards into twenty because he's strong after the catch as well. I had a feeling you when you said wide receiver.
00:12:58
Speaker 1: I had a feeling.
00:12:59
Speaker 2: That's where you might go. I like it Xavier Orstreppo University of Miami. So thus far, thumbs up on two consecutive picks. All right, third round. This is where you make your money, right here, Hick number eighty nine. What you're doing, Give me the position, Give the position to school and I'll know who it is.
00:13:19
Speaker 4: It gets a little dicey here, safety all right. Now, Remember I've got Petrie and Ward coming back from injuries. Eric Murray's a free agent to be, so they might resigning, they might not.
00:13:29
Speaker 3: M J. Stewart as well.
00:13:31
Speaker 4: I don't like drafting injured guys or guys coming back from injury usually, but I'm gonna take the chance here on Kevin Winston from Penn State because he can play, and if nothing else, I'll have a little safety recovery party in the training room and they can be now. I think that he'll be up to par by the time we get to training camp. This is doctor VanderMeer, who has not examining the ACL plus it was partially torn, Johnny. You know with acls you can be a little bit pregnant, so we'll see. I don't know what they did to him, I don't know how it shakes out, and I could change this pic right before the draft if I feel like he's not going to be physically ready.
00:14:14
Speaker 3: But I feel like he is here in February thoughts.
00:14:17
Speaker 2: So my summer nifty hairs fifty, I had him at number fifty.
00:14:22
Speaker 1: Ooh, I I was very impressed.
00:14:28
Speaker 2: He can run, He's got great size six two but two five.
00:14:33
Speaker 1: He can hit very He's smart.
00:14:36
Speaker 2: Dude. You went to Damatha, which, for those that don't know, DeMatha was a longtime basketball school, but it's just a great athletic school in Maryland. So he didn't play this year, and you just, man, do you back off either way? When I've kind of reset my Harris one hundred, he's right now in the eighty five to ninety range because in large because I just don't know what the injury, how bad the injury is.
00:15:04
Speaker 3: But that's right where I'm drafting, right right exactly.
00:15:07
Speaker 2: So I think you hit it from a from a value perspective, and look the Texans.
00:15:17
Speaker 1: We've seen teams do this before.
00:15:18
Speaker 2: I think the one that it's a more glaring example.
00:15:23
Speaker 1: But he had no he had issues.
00:15:25
Speaker 2: That was Jeffrey Simmons Jeffrey Simmons coming on Misissippi State. I had number four to Harrison one hundred one January of the draft season, he tears his ACL but sitting there at nineteen, the Titans go, you know what, wait for him. The Titans waited eight weeks, eight games, I think it was eight or nine games, and then he came back. And it so happened that season, which I think it was twenty nineteen. I believe we played them late in the year, so he played both games against us, so it's like we didn't even like we didn't even win from that injury.
00:15:55
Speaker 1: So Winston, I think, is going to be ready to go at the beginning of training camp.
00:16:00
Speaker 2: But even if you had to get him, like you said, rehab here in Houston and you've drafted him. If you've gotten a you know, potential day one, day two guy and you got him, you know, late on day two, you gotta feel pretty good about that. So I think if it's a need, I think he's the right kind of guy. I think if you put a guy like Kevin Winston oppositely Kaylen Book, they're different guys completely. I think Winston is a little bit more play down by the box, make plays in the run game, be physical where you can let Kaylen, you know, use his strength, which is playing in the middle of the field. In due time, those two playing together would be a really fantastic duo, just how they would compliment one another. I think Demiko would really like Kevin Winston Junior. Again, like you said, it's the injury. What's the prognosis of coming back from that injury.
00:16:51
Speaker 1: We'll have to find out and we'll get a good look at the combine.
00:16:53
Speaker 2: I would imagine where he is in his progress and how that changes what his value might be because of that.
00:16:58
Speaker 4: Think about this, and I know you don't want to go to this well too often, but Derek Stingley Junior himself was not exactly the picture of health his last two college seasons, right, and then you drafted him and now he's the best in the game. So I'm not saying this automatic automatically happens with Winston, but it's worth noting anyway.
00:17:16
Speaker 3: You're ready for RAPT four here.
00:17:19
Speaker 2: Okay, wait, we've gotten around four, right, we have three picks and you have not drafted in offensive lineman.
00:17:27
Speaker 3: I know, and it's time. It's time.
00:17:30
Speaker 1: It's time to go time.
00:17:32
Speaker 3: But I feel like I got a good player.
00:17:34
Speaker 4: I'm going to take a guard round four from LSU Garrett Dellinger. I'm going to take him, and you know me, I know how to evaluate offensive lineman.
00:17:46
Speaker 3: No, I don't.
00:17:47
Speaker 4: But my non negotiable for offensive lineman is can you knock the other dudes out of the way in front of you? And can you protect your quarterback from the dudes coming after him.
00:17:58
Speaker 3: I feel like he can do this.
00:18:00
Speaker 4: I feel like he can grow into the process that Cole Popovich is going to unveil here.
00:18:08
Speaker 3: And he'll be a good player for this team.
00:18:11
Speaker 2: I think one of the things with Dellinger, I would also think about whether I want to cross train him at center.
00:18:16
Speaker 1: I'm trying to remember it.
00:18:17
Speaker 3: Played other positions.
00:18:19
Speaker 2: I think he played center at the Senior Bowl that I remember. There were three yellow LSU hats that I kept seeing throughout the Senior Bowl, Fraser, Jones and Dellinger, and they kind of they would move because Jones would play tackling and played guard. Fraser'd be a guard most of the time. I think Dellinger played a little bit of center. I wouldn't be surprised if that's where it ends up eventually, but pretty good size. And you played LSU. Obviously, We've seen a number of guys come through this program and come through this organization and play at LSU on the offensive line. Even the Austin Deculus. I know we have what getting him in the seventh round. He gave us some good things, like he came into the playoffs and I thought that'd some good things as the sixth offensive lineman. So I think Delager is a good pick at one twenty seven. Here's the thing I was thinking about when you went the first three rounds and you didn't take an offensive lineman. People ask me in mobile, They've asked me kind on the street wherever I've been about, you know, kind of the offensive line. I feel like if the Texans are gonna spend money and find a free agent, I think that's where they do it would be on the offensive line, potentially on the interior, and then use the draft picks to fill in that wide receiver safety and then looking at younger interior offensive lineman, you know, maybe a little bit later in a draft, just like you did in round four.
00:19:42
Speaker 1: I just that's kind of my that's kind of my thought.
00:19:45
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's what it's gonna end up being, but I just have a feeling that because it takes a while for those guys to get themselves ready to play. I mean, you know, Juics just had to struggle with injuries and you know, some struggles in the offensive line. The first couple of years we saw Xavier to a if you will go through those struggles, Kenya Green has gone through those struggles. You know, do you want to get a ready made I don't know already made is the right word, but you want to get a veteran that's been kind of in the Wars already that you can just PLoP right in, maybe decide to leave Titus there and left guard and see if you can do that, and then you know, find another guard on the other side. I don't know, but when you waited, is that kind of your thought? Is that waiting until the fourth round kind of tells you that might be what they do now. They don't have a lot of free agent money, they don't have a lot of salary cap space. You can make some, obviously, but I think if they're gonna use some money, I think that's where it might be.
00:20:34
Speaker 4: I also thought this. The old expression is does it sell newspapers? This is the Internet, of course, where I'm writing good point, So I'm thinking I want the sexy positions here, Johnny. But in all seriousness, I think, if they want to draft offensive line, and Nick's gonna find a way to get another pick in the first one hundred, if you will, I agree, and find a way to do it that way and maybe trade something from next year and recover later. He doesn't have a six this like you poured it out. And I also thought, sometimes, look, it's round four. It's not like it's round seven or an undrapped of your ee agent. You find guys and somebody drops and you go ahead and take them, and voila. Look what you have, as you say, spending free agent money on the old line. You already have so much invested there. But and I know you know that, but you gotta do what you gotta do, you know, And we don't know how Cayley feels about it, how Cole Papa Bitch really feels about it, how Nick really Demiko everybody.
00:21:30
Speaker 3: We don't know how they really feel until we see what they do this offseason.
00:21:35
Speaker 4: No doubt, I don't think my Vandermarck is gonna sway their opinion, but you never know.
00:21:40
Speaker 2: It might it might get to the fifth round, all right, fifth round from Buffalo.
00:21:44
Speaker 4: Okay, from Buffalo. They got the fifth round pick, and I'm going running back here, Johnny. I've got Daria gounbually as a free agent. So it's February again. I could change this pick in the two point zero, but this is one point zero and I am going with the all time leading rusher the history of the Kansas Jayhawks, Devin Neil, at running back.
00:22:04
Speaker 3: I'm going to go with him right here.
00:22:05
Speaker 4: And I joked that, yeah, if he were the all time leading anything on the basketball team, that would be something, but on the football team it's not as much. However, we all know that Kansas has been way better lately and Neil is a big part of it.
00:22:18
Speaker 3: Neil is the all time leading rusher.
00:22:19
Speaker 4: He's been rushing for a thousand plus mega yards for Kansas, and I think he can be a good third down back as far as his potential goes.
00:22:28
Speaker 3: And we'll see where it goes from there.
00:22:30
Speaker 1: I love it, Oh love it.
00:22:34
Speaker 2: That's a great pick. That's a fantastic pick to get at one sixty seven. Uh. He It's funny because you know, I've watched him a million times. When I saw him at the Senior Bowl, I was like, wait, is that Devin Neil.
00:22:45
Speaker 1: Well, he looks a.
00:22:46
Speaker 2: Lot bigger in person than he does on on TV. But caught the ball well out of the backfield. I think he can definitely give you that. He's he's powerful without being a breaker, if that makes sense. Like he's powerful, like he's strong enough with explosiveness to get through holes run. You know, I don't think he's the fastest guy in the world, but you don't need to running back to be all that fast. But he is productive between the tackles. He is tough as hell. And Kansas went as Devon Neil went the last few years he was there. Now Jalen Daniels, they needed him as a quarterback and when he played they were much much better.
00:23:24
Speaker 1: But Devin Neil was the offense at Kansas. I love that pick.
00:23:28
Speaker 2: And by the way, Gail Sayers went to Kansas. So for Devin Neil to be the all time that you rusher at Kansas, that tells you something. Okay, last pick two forty three in the seventh not mister irrelevant. Pretty close, but not mister irrelevant. Your thoughts on pick two forty three?
00:23:46
Speaker 3: Who you got, well, Johnny?
00:23:48
Speaker 4: In my piece, I originally wrote Josh Cameron, receiver from Baylor because he is eligible, but he decided to go back to school. He is second team All America. He's a wide receiver. He led the country and punt return average.
00:24:03
Speaker 2: He's a stud. He's an absolute stud. I mean what I called the the what you call it game with him? He's a he's a monster. But he's going He's going back to Baylor.
00:24:14
Speaker 3: Where's he going in this draft? Johnny?
00:24:15
Speaker 2: Tell me, oh, he would he'd probably be third fourth round at a minimum. At a minimum, because he's getting better as a wide receiver. He's a hell of returner. Okay, but he's getting better as a wide receiver. Well, in that case, let's pivot here. Silas Bolden, return man, University of Texas. Okay, Silas Bolden, you could go with as a wide receiver and as a returner.
00:24:40
Speaker 1: And he was also CJ. Stroud's teammate in high school.
00:24:44
Speaker 4: Oh, that's beautiful. I like Silas Bolden. This will sell newspaper. We don't have newspapers. This will get me clicks. I got one more question for you before we get out of here. The guys on serious x MNFL Radio said, Hendon Hooker in this draft would go late first round. Where does Hendon Hooker stack up? Because the line should probably consider consider taking a nice pick for Hendon Hooker over you know, some teams might not want the quarterbacks that are available.
00:25:14
Speaker 1: He would be QB two for me.
00:25:15
Speaker 3: In this class.
00:25:17
Speaker 1: Cam Ward would be one, Hooker two. That's the way. That's the way I would go about it.
00:25:21
Speaker 2: Now, I've I just I just don't think sure Sanders is for me on a number of different levels, so he would be QB three for me.
00:25:30
Speaker 1: I would take Hooker. I was.
00:25:31
Speaker 2: I was a big fan of Hooker. Hooker would be number two in this draft. There's no There's no question about it. To me, I think he would go. He would have an opportunity. You look at you know, you look at how this this draft is for teams that need quarterbacks. He might go a whole lot earlier than late first round because I think teams just think a team tell me who needs a quarterback. Let's just start the top. Yes or no, Tennessee, Yes, Cleveland yes, Giants, yes, Patriots, no Jaguars, no Raiders, yes, Jets, yes, Carolina No New Orleans. Maybe very possible. Maybe then you got Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas, Miami, They're all good. Indianapolis, No Atlanta, no Arizona, no Cincinnati, Seattle.
00:26:19
Speaker 1: You don't know what the future lies.
00:26:20
Speaker 2: But we just went through what five teams Tennessee, Cleveland, Giants, Raiders, Jets. That's five teams in the top seven and New Orleans that's six in the.
00:26:29
Speaker 1: Top nine that could use quarterback.
00:26:32
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely, Hennon Hooker would be going to one of those teams for sure.
00:26:36
Speaker 1: Yep.
00:26:37
Speaker 4: And if I'm Detroit, I really think about it, because look, he's entering year three. I still got golf for at least another two three years. I mean, what am I going to do here? So I might as well get a great pick and fortify another position.
00:26:47
Speaker 1: Yep.
00:26:48
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Mark your vandermock is well done. Absolutely love it coming up through. Doherty joins me for in the lab right here on Texans all accept what's up and everybody welcome back this one Snesday isation of Texans All access from Thenday Texans a radio studio. I'm your host John Harris, football analyst, sideline reporter for your Houston Texans. Looking forward to tomorrow very much. Nick Kyley gonna meet the media, Demiko Ryan's gonna talk a little bit as well. So I can't wait for that to happen on Thursday. I'm sure what plenty of that right here on Sports rated six ten and on Texans All Access. Now it is time to go in the lab. Drew and I nerded out, dorked out. We talked about the magic number of four. What does that mean? Well, take a listen in the lab right here with Drew, Dougherty and myself.
00:27:38
Speaker 1: Here we are.
00:27:39
Speaker 5: That's right, it's me Drew Doherty, it's John Harris, and it's you checking us out. This is in the Lab, presented by Xfinity. The week after the Super Bowl, the day before, offensive coordinator Nick Cayley is introduced to the public through a press conference and Energy Stadium. It's gonna be him, It's gonna be Demico Ryans. John, I'm excited about that, Excited to hear from the new guy. And I was very surprised by what I saw in the Super Bowl. I was one of those and we said it on the show last week, I was like, Eagles are going up against Jordan and Pippen Rodman and Phil Jackson, and the Eagles thrashed them. However, I do think the Chiefs had a bad game at the very worst time they did. But one of the things that sort of confirmed what I've been doing in my nerdery as we are here in the off season, mock draft simulators. Lots of times, man, there's a clump of dudes when I do a mock draft simulator, and we'll do one of these next week, maybe together. We'll do about three of them throughout this whole process. But there's a clump of them at twenty five where if the trades that are are proposed to me don't look like, you know, I'm getting what I want. It always seems like there's some variation of a choice between Walter Nolan some times a Mecha Buka, sometimes the defensive tackle from Oregon, and every so often there's.
00:29:08
Speaker 1: A wild Derek Harmon, Yeah.
00:29:11
Speaker 5: Derek Harmon, And then every so often the defensive tackle from Michigan. Mason Graham drops all the way down. I don't see that happening, but he drops all the way down. The Texans It's like you run to the podium and hand that one in.
00:29:25
Speaker 1: But it comes down to.
00:29:27
Speaker 5: Essentially a good defensive tackle because there's a few others at that spot or a Mecca Abuka. Now, seeing what we saw on Sunday night in the Super Bowl just kind of confirms like, yes, do the Texans need to get better at pass protection? Sure, But if there's not a Tyler Booker ready there, are you better served by taking one of those defensive tackles that are available. And I kind of think yes, And I think you pair him up with the not pair them, but you add them to the mix of the guys you have out on the edge who are very good, also very promising down the line. I think he you have you can get very close to what you saw from the Eagles defense if you you hit with some of those guys.
00:30:05
Speaker 2: I think you can thank the Eagles for helping with the argument, because I had just I had to talk with Seth. I was this is just after I'd gotten back from the Senior Bowl, and I can't remember who was somebody had somebody had put out there kennth Grant to the Texans, the other Michigan defensive tackle.
00:30:28
Speaker 5: Somebody that I wind up taking when I'm very back a little bit.
00:30:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, very I think twenty five I I kind of go the other way, Drew. I think in due time, I think you won't be able to get him at twenty five.
00:30:40
Speaker 1: But the point being, I know there are a lot of people like, you got, you got, you got. You gotta do off of the line, You gotta do off of the line.
00:30:46
Speaker 2: Yet now look, there are other There are the ways that you can go about getting players and bringing them in. And I've said, and I'm gone on record saying, I think if the Texans are going to spend money, I think think it might be at one of those interior offensive line positions. I think that's where they spend the money to get somebody that's maybe ready made to PLoP right in and let's go.
00:31:09
Speaker 1: I think with what they have a wide.
00:31:11
Speaker 2: Receiver with Nico Collins in particular, you know what they have at other positions, even even if it's a tackle, I think they could. Now some of this depends on what happens with Foley and what happens with Mario Edwards.
00:31:24
Speaker 1: If you can bring both.
00:31:25
Speaker 2: Them back, then I still I still think you have to add a stud a dude.
00:31:31
Speaker 1: Uh to the defensive line room A young A young dude.
00:31:35
Speaker 2: I mean that's a you know, Mario has been a league a little while, Fully's been around for a little while. Even you know, Kurt Heinez is going to your four. I mean, guys have been around for a little bit. So I think they need a little infusion of some size, some magility, some strength as defensive lineman. And then you just point to, well, look what the Eagles did. Look how they did it. And the one thing I like about what the Eagles did, and I don't think this brought up a lot. Deagles don't just have defensive tackles. You look at Jordan Davis and he's like three point fifty. You look at Jalen Carter, he's like three point fifteen. Then you look at Milton Williams who comes in the game, he's two eighty five. Like maybe maybe by the end of the season he's probably like So it's like they hit you with different flavors and different types. And I think that's the key that to keep an offensive line off balance, it's different kind and I think with Foley and Mario and Settle, they're not all the same guy and I thought that was that made for their success and helped make for their success.
00:32:42
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty four. But I think you.
00:32:44
Speaker 2: Add a stud that's you know, three a five three Tan can move even a guy like Kenth Grant.
00:32:51
Speaker 1: You know me, I like, I like my defensive tackles BF here than most.
00:32:56
Speaker 2: So if Kenth Grant comes to the party, he's three hundred and thirty three thirty five, I think the Michigan roster has.
00:33:02
Speaker 1: Him in through forty. But that dude can move. I mean, he can get up and go.
00:33:08
Speaker 2: And you think about you still gotta win the division, right, Well, the team you gotta beat Indianapolis, what do they want to do? They want to pound out to Taylor run Anthony Richardson. Well, if your guys inside are great, if you're gonna win the AFC, you gotta beat the Chiefs. Where do you have to be great? Up the middle? Because that's where that's where Patrick Mahomes like he likes to escape through that. So I think defensive tackle makes a lot of sense. And this is a deep defensive tackle draft. In fact, I was just going through my draft database today kind of revising and getting guys in and out guys that were you know, moved on to twenty twenty six, get him out of there, Guys that maybe declared I wasn't expecting to put him in there, and true you just like I go down the list, I'm like, could you see this guy playing for the Texans in twenty twenty five? Mason Graham, Kenth Grant, Tydee Williams, Derek Harmon who he mentioned, Joshua Farmer Florida State, Alfred Collins, Texas, t J. Sanders, South Carolina. You on Walker six six three forty eight, Burning brought in Texas, Jordan Fields like those give me any of those guys, any of those guys.
00:34:10
Speaker 1: They fall all throughout the draft.
00:34:12
Speaker 5: Yeah, when you're doing these drafts, which absolutely, but yeah, it's uh absolutely, it's fun. That's that's exciting because it's a position that, like you said, it's not an extreme need, it's not like a glaring hole. But if you are able to get somebody like that, you're strengthening what's you know, the defensive front is a strength that is really it pushes you one step closer to getting where you want to go ultimately. Okay, so we just brought something up there on the flip side offensive line. You know, pass protection was not what it needed to be last year, just wasn't. Everyone knows that. Everyone said that from the very top of the building. We're saying players said it. We're not breaking any news here. But with all that in mind, with the draft approaching, true or false, if you did not draft an offensive lineman in April, you'd still be just fine, or you could be just fine because of the change offensively with Kayley and the personnel you already have in place, and some personnel you could add through free agency. I guess what I'm saying is, yeah, you'd like to draft a great offensive lineman or two, but it's not necessarily a must, is it.
00:35:32
Speaker 1: It's not.
00:35:33
Speaker 2: I think it's the easiest thing for fans to see, is you know, personnel changes.
00:35:41
Speaker 1: It's easy.
00:35:42
Speaker 2: They're not gonna you know, you know, even us, we're not gonna be able to all the scheme things that they do, but we know that they're gonna do different things to be able to protect. Even in the game against Kansas City, even a couple of games prior, you can see the Texans, I could I could see things that were different that the Texans were doing in their past protection that made it a little bit better. Now, Look, CJ got mauled in the fourth quarter, but that was because we were down in that game and the Chiefs are now pinning their ears back and they started getting hot and we'd get desperate and you don't know how it goes. But for the first three quarters that game, one of the things that they were doing pretty well was picking up the stunts.
00:36:22
Speaker 1: They're picking the blitz.
00:36:23
Speaker 2: It's not every time, but doing a better job of it than they did in the game of December prior to that game, the game he gets the Chargers, I thought the pass protection from the second quarter on was much much better. They were doing things a little differently. So personnel is the easiest thing to see, Well, that guy's different, that coach is different. Well, now there's a new coach, there's an offensive coordinator who's going to be different. What he brings in Nick Cayley to pass protection and how they go about it. I don't think any of us are going to really truly understand. The proof is going to be in the pudding. But new coaches and new schemes, new ideas always make good players better. Yeah, I do think that I said earlier. Free agency I think is you know, if they're gonna spend some money, I think that's where it might be. But I still think that a young offensive lineman. Look, they've they've drafted, let's go through the last two years. Ago, it was Juice and Jarrett right then last year it was Blake, and then later it was Darius Henderson. They've drafted some offensive linemen, and they've drafted him a little bit later in the draft. I mean, Blake was the second rounder, but Blake's gonna turn it to a starter. I think he's gonna end up being the starter right tackle. I mean, we'll see how they how they put it all together. But Blake I thought did a pretty decent job, except for one, you know, you know, sack he gave up to Chris Shones.
00:37:46
Speaker 1: Carl loftis one or the other. But either way, I think Blake's the right fit.
00:37:49
Speaker 2: So they've put some they've kind of done what we've talked about, and that is draft a little bit later. Some guys that might have some upside, they have some elite trade, like they have long arm, or they're big, they can move, they're smart or whatever. I think that they still need to draft at least somebody.
00:38:09
Speaker 1: Now they don't have.
00:38:09
Speaker 2: As much draft capital as we've had in the past, and so that is something to keep an eye on. How do they increase that draft capital moving up, moving down, moving down, picking up other picks, all that kind of stuff. But I think if they stick at six picks, I think it'll be one offensive lineman. But I do think with the change of Nick Cayley Cole Popovich moving to the offensive line coaching position and the change that goes with having them be the shot callers. Added to I think some free agent dollars for somebody coming in and then.
00:38:45
Speaker 1: Maybe one maybe a Day three pick, might be a Day three pick. I'd be okay with that.
00:38:50
Speaker 2: But round three and beyond draft pick, I think you can start to look at it and go okay, I can kind of see how this is going to come together in the offensive line.
00:38:58
Speaker 5: So that's a great answer to what my question was, which was essentially true or false the Texans must draft an offensive lineman or true false the Texans will be okay pre possibly if they don't draft one. So we talked about it last week. I did the mock draft roundup, and most experts, the majority of the experts the court, or at least a quarter of twenty four experts, had the Texans taken Alabama's Tyler Booker, the guard, really impressive guy, and somebody you said, probably is not going to be at twenty five. So, as a flip to what my previous question was, if the Texans were to take a guy like that, and I put that, I tweeted that out that you know, he's the pick at twenty five by some of these experts, and I got a handful of responses and tweets saying.
00:39:43
Speaker 1: Don't do that. They've done that, They've taken guys.
00:39:48
Speaker 5: Okay, just because you took a guy at a position it didn't work out a few years back, doesn't mean.
00:39:56
Speaker 1: You don't do it again.
00:39:57
Speaker 5: Right, So, if Sam Bowie was your choice in nineteen eighty four, five it was eighty four eighty five. Anyway, four eighty four, he didn't work out for you immediately. He did wind up becoming an All Star couple times, but he wasn't Jordan Yarkim. Does that mean you don't draft Shaquille O'Neil a few years later or exactly?
00:40:21
Speaker 1: So on and so forth.
00:40:22
Speaker 2: So here's one Drew. Here's here's one Drew. So things didn't work out with Deshaun Watson. His agent is David Mullaghettos. Does that mean you're not gonna draft C. J.
00:40:29
Speaker 1: Stroud? He just been I mean yeah, So.
00:40:33
Speaker 2: Look when it some of those things you know that I think people get. You know, don't draft in Ohio state quarterback. You know, you can't draft the Jeff Tedford quarterback. Oh that guy is just gonna be this, He's just gonna be this. Yeah, look, take a text every Yeah, every situation you have to treat individually and independently. And I think when you look at Booker, it no, no. First of all, with some of the guys that were drafted in the offensive line, it wasn't the same group you have now. It wasn't the same coaching staff you have now. It wasn't the same philosophy you have now. So those things might not be that important. I'll tell you one thing that's hugely important, and that's being swarmy. And when I was at the Senior Bowl, I don't know if I told you this, I don't know if we talked about this true.
00:41:18
Speaker 1: Was it the Senior Bowl?
00:41:18
Speaker 2: I talked to a staffer from Alabama, somebody who knows the Alabama program really well. And I don't know if we went through this, but he spoke glowingly like he didn't say the words swarm.
00:41:30
Speaker 1: He didn't have to.
00:41:31
Speaker 2: It's like all the things that just get added, you know, to the mix. You go, Okay, well that that fits. And look, not every player at Alabama is that way. But if you're gonna get to Alabama for the most part, you probably have those tendencies. And it was interesting talking to him about Will Anderson, Henry Totoe and the guys are at Alabama, and it was like, yep, same same sort of thought process, same sort of way he goes through things.
00:41:55
Speaker 1: And I think Tyler Booker, and that's the thing.
00:41:58
Speaker 2: And I say this lot, Oh you draft an offensive guard.
00:42:02
Speaker 1: Offensive guard.
00:42:03
Speaker 2: That's not the way I look at it. I look at it as you drafted Tyler Booker. That's different. That's not we just didn't draft an offensive guard. Because I think that gets lost on people. A lot of people last year were like, oh, we gotta draft the tight end. I gott draft the Titian. We gotta have a tight end. They were like, all over me about a tight end, and I was just like, I didn't like a lot of the tight ends where people wanted to draft a tight end. I'm like, okay, you want a tight end here, who you want? Tell me who you want, then I'll talk to you. Because if we get to the fourth round and kate'st Over still there, that's what I want. And thank god Nick Casario knew that too, and Nicko Demiko go out and get Kate Stover, who I think is gonna end up taking year two to a different level. I'm really excited about Casny. Do I think CAD's kid's kid can be healthy? Now he kind of knows the game. I think that's that does.
00:42:51
Speaker 1: A swarmy dude.
00:42:52
Speaker 2: So to me, Tyler Booker isn't just an offensive guard being picked at number twenty five like he is an absolute stud. So did it not work with other guys? Did it not work with other first round offensive guards?
00:43:09
Speaker 1: Maybe not?
00:43:10
Speaker 2: But you have to look at each case individually and why those things and why those situations didn't work out, and then you can utilize, Okay, this didn't work out because of A, B and C. Okay, we're gonna try not to make those mistakes. But we might draft an offensive guard again and we might find those things we might miss again. I mean, hell, the Browns have been drafted quarterbacks for forever and they still don't get it right. So from that standpoint, I, you know, the Tyler Booker one is the one that I kind.
00:43:39
Speaker 1: Of I don't know the right way of saying this, but I get.
00:43:41
Speaker 2: Kind of kind of how bothered about it because of what you just you said, Drew and the way you went about it, because that's the way I hear it in my head.
00:43:48
Speaker 1: Oh, they're drafted to guard. My god, it's look offensive guard's not sexy.
00:43:53
Speaker 2: But you know what if an offense guard that you draft keeps number seven upright all year long, watch how sexy this offense is gonna.
00:44:00
Speaker 1: I don't get you happy. So let's end with this.
00:44:03
Speaker 5: Since we do dorky things on this this podcast, I'm gonna leave with the number four. I texted you and Mark about this last week. I was doing some research. Four four sacks was kind of like the magic number with the Texans last year. When Stroud got sacked four times or more in a game, the Texans lost one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, times wow, eight times including the playoffs, so seven of the regular season losses.
00:44:37
Speaker 1: So more than four four or more times, four or more times, four more times.
00:44:42
Speaker 5: They won two games where he got sacked four times. They hold the Colts in the first week of the season. Ye remember that they beat the Dolphins later on the seasons, right. They lost one game where he did not get sacked four times. They only lost one time. That was to the Chiefs in the regular season. He get sacked twice in that game. He had hit though eleven times. Yeah, he hit eleven times in that game. He had hit eleven times at the Jets, which is the really memorable one because he got sacked eight times, hit eleven times against the Jets. But he got hit as many times against the Jets as he did against the Chiefs in the regular season game, and he got hit the most. The most all season long was in the finale. Eight sacks, fourteen quarterback hits, but four that was the number. If you stayed under that number, Texans typically won miraculously. They did not have a game all season long where they kept a clean sheet. Now Stroud did not get sacked in the season finale at the Titans, but he only played that one series.
00:45:44
Speaker 2: Oh Man, tough numbers to hear, no doubt, but good one from Drew. Okay, we go back newser on the NFL. What if the Giants made a deal for Matt Stafford. We'll discuss that next right here in Texas All Access. All right, we got a quick one to finish here, Texans All Access on a Wednesday, big date tomorrow. Nick Cayley gonna speak to Mika. Ryan's gonna speak over at stadium. Looking forward to that. Now, what I tease going into this segment, I've just kind of followed the rumor sphere through different social media and one of the ones I keep seeing the New York Giants making a move from Matt Stafford, and.
00:46:21
Speaker 1: It kind of stops to me my tracks.
00:46:22
Speaker 2: First of all, we played the Rams this year, so the Rams without Matt Stafford, Like, all right, cool, let's do it. But I tried to think of Matt Stafford, the Giants with elik neighbors, and if the Giants state could stay at three and get Matt Stafford. I don't know if they could do that, but if they could man elite neighbors, Travis Hunter and Matt Stafford in New York.
00:46:43
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, now that would be a nice, nice.
00:46:46
Speaker 2: Starting Defensively, they're tremendous up front, tremendous. That might be something worth looking at as long as the Giants could find a younger option in the next.
00:46:56
Speaker 1: Couple of years.
00:46:57
Speaker 2: But we'll see what they can do down the road.
00:47:00
Speaker 1: Really appreciate you guys being with me this evening.
00:47:04
Speaker 2: As I mentioned earlier, Nick Cayley press conference is gonna be tomorrow. That's gonna be fun to listen to. Mark and I will be back to break it all down. I think we got the general on with us tomorrow night as well because it's Thursday, so make sure you tune in for that. But big thanks to Drew Tomork to all of you for listening to my guys back at Sorts ratio six ' ten.
00:47:22
Speaker 1: Appreciate you guys. We'll see tomorrow and as always, go Texans.
