00:00Look, a game that if you didn't have a dog in the fight,
00:02if you were just watching this game, highly entertaining game.
00:05There were eight lead changes in this game.
00:07This was back and forth, and I think that's the thing to me
00:10that's most encouraging.
00:12My overall mood, I mean, I probably should have said this in the open,
00:15how do we feel about this team right now after this first game?
00:19My overall mood is I'm optimistic about this team.
00:22If you're going to lose a game and try to still feel like,
00:26okay, I'm still feeling positive about the season.
00:30If they had lost like they did to the Rams in the opener last year, 14-9,
00:34where they didn't score a touchdown in that game,
00:36I would have said, okay, well, they haven't fixed anything offensively,
00:38and this is just they're going to have to go win games 14-9.
00:41They're going to have to win games 20-17, things like that.
00:45Everything we saw in the preseason with the offense held up,
00:48other than the ball security a couple of times, held up.
00:51They ran the ball pretty well, well enough.
00:53If CJ looked like a very good quarterback out there,
00:58I don't think the defense is going to be giving up 36 points every week.
01:01There's too many good players on this defense for this defense
01:04to all of a sudden go from being a top-three defense
01:06to one that's a middle-of-the-pack defense.
01:08I guess my concerning thing would be the fashion in which they let them up
01:11versus one of the best quarterbacks in the league,
01:15because the standard is a lot higher for this Texans defense,
01:18and what are they going to do in the playoffs?
01:20It's like, if you completely flip the tables from,
01:23oh, okay, no matter what CJ's, not that you were saying this,
01:26but a lot of people might feel like, oh, no matter what CJ does
01:29in the regular season, I've got to see it in the playoffs.
01:31Now, for at least one week, I'm kind of thinking,
01:34all right, look, you got, Drake may have ended up completing
01:38a couple of nice deep balls against you in the playoffs too.
01:43There's, this Texans defense had a stated concern
01:47about the big plays that they've allowed.
01:49That was the focus of their offseason,
01:51was allowing fewer big plays, as they are also talking about
01:55how they want to be an all-time great defense.
01:57If your standard is that you want to be an all-time great defense,
01:59this has got to be a week of, like, hold on there, fellas.
02:02You know what?
02:03Let's beat the Bengals.
02:04Let's just, let's beat the Bengals,
02:06and let's not give Joe Burrow unfettered access to our end zone.
02:11Absolutely.
02:11No, they've got to win this weekend,
02:13and the defense needs to look good in doing it.
02:15No question about it, and Cincinnati won.
02:17They beat Tampa Bay 33-27 yesterday,
02:19so they went out and put up a, you know, a 30 spot yesterday.
02:22That's a good offense, and Joe Burrow's a really good quarterback.
02:25This was C.J. Stroud.
02:27I thought this was a cut at the very end of his press conference yesterday
02:30that I think kind of shows, I think, maybe some of the maturity with C.J.,
02:35and, you know, after, especially after last year's loss in the playoffs
02:39where it looked like he was trying to do way too much.
02:41Here was C.J. talking about, got to take what they give you.
02:44I think I've done that my whole career, you know,
02:46but some people don't think that, but I think I've been pretty smart
02:50at calculating my decisions on, you know, risk-reward,
02:52but I thought today, you know, I did that pretty good.
02:56Of course, you always want something back,
02:57but I think, you know, I'm continuing to get better
02:59and learning that, you know, everybody around me is superheroes,
03:02and all I've got to do is just be the, you know, the guy to, you know,
03:05get them the ball and let them go be Superman,
03:07but I've got to just keep it boring is good.
03:10That's what I like to tell myself,
03:11and when it's time to make a play, I think I have the talent to do it.
03:14It's weird because he just, like, he's almost,
03:16he's talking about how, he's talked before about how he's improved in that regard,
03:20and yet at the same time will, like, rail against the critics who say that.
03:24I think it's the extreme,
03:26I think it's the extreme critics that probably make it through his firewall, maybe,
03:33because, yeah, if you're going to look at last year's playoffs
03:35and think that that's how C.J. Stroud has operated
03:37as a quarterback the last couple years, that's just simply not the case.
03:40Yeah, he's probably addressing, like, Kendrick Perkins.
03:42That's what I think, yeah.
03:43I know, I know, like, that's the problem with when you put up a wall
03:46and you try not to see anything on social media,
03:49sometimes the stuff that does make it through is the most extreme stuff.
03:53Sure.
03:53And it was like a legion of Kendrick Perkins out there
03:56saying that if C.J. was on fire, he wouldn't pour water on him.
04:00Yep.
04:01So, I think that, yeah, he has generally really since about at some point in his rookie year
04:06when he really started taking care of the football, he's done a good job of it.
04:10It was just last year in the playoffs, it was a mess.
04:13But he's gotten better at it, like all young quarterbacks do.
04:15You start to make the better decisions about when to throw the ball away,
04:18not taking sacks.
04:19He did a much better job of that last year.
04:22And I think that, yeah, yesterday was a really promising performance.
04:25Not for C.J. only, but for the way the offense operated.
04:31I know, look, I think Kaylee did some good things in that game.
04:35And I know that, yeah, like, I feel like people want every play on the goal line
04:39to be a trick play, and if it's not, it's not enough ingenuity.
04:43Like, they did it both ways.
04:44The David Montgomery touchdown pass, that was set up by that Nico Collins jet sweep
04:51earlier in the game.
04:52Earlier in the game, yeah.
04:53Yeah.
04:53They were doing some cool stuff with RPO play action.
04:57Like, when I say RPO play action, I mean, it's window dressing.
05:00I don't think some of those are genuine RPOs.
05:02But it's enough of a misdirection.
05:07Yeah, it's optics.
05:08Yeah, yeah.
05:09Like, they were doing some fun little wrinkly things in there.
05:13And I do think that there, you know, there might be some genuine zone reads this year
05:19in select situations.
05:21So, that part of it, I thought, was really good.
05:23The fact that C.J. distributed the ball to 11 different receivers, I thought, was good.
05:27I didn't realize that until you told me that up in the press box.
05:30I'm like, God, I didn't even know they had 11 guys to throw to.
05:32I know, I was trying to look to different guys.
05:33I think we got down to Blake Fisher was going to have to catch one when he was in there
05:37on jumbo at some point.
05:38Oh, my God, they got 11 guys that could catch passes out there.
05:39If it was a Little League team, they would have done everything.
05:42They would have gotten everybody their touches.
05:44Absolutely.
05:45Yeah, no, Fisher would have got a shovel pass or something just to get his hands on the ball.
05:48But by, like, they did.
05:49They operated it like a Little League team.
05:50Were you surprised that we heard 57 is eligible as many times as we did yesterday?
05:55A little bit, yeah.
05:56That they went with a jumbo package?
05:57I think they do.
05:58They want, D'Amico wants them to be a more physical offense.
06:02And part of that is playing with multiple tight ends at times.
06:04They already have four tight ends on the roster.
06:06Right, right.
06:06They have five on the roster, four on the active roster.
06:08And part of it's going to be that they're going to be there in jumbo.
06:11And last year, it was frustrating because when they would go to jumbo, it felt like it was
06:15their last resort and that was the only way they could function like a competent offense.
06:19This year, it felt more like they're looking at it as a weapon.
06:22Yeah, yeah, yeah.
06:22So, yeah, I was surprised that they were using it as much, but I wasn't displeased with it.
06:27Yeah, that's a good way to put it.
06:28That's a good way to put it.
06:29So, as far as news from over the weekend, Adam Schefter and Ian Rapoport were reporting
06:35that they officially reported.
06:38I think we felt like this was the direction this was going the whole time.
06:41But C.J. Stroud and the Texans tabled their contract extension talks.
06:45Nick Casario talked about it a couple of times on this show at his press conference a week
06:50or two ago.
06:52And C.J. has kind of deferred to his team of David Molligeta and whoever else is working
06:58on that for him as they handle that kind of thing.
07:00According to Schefter and Rapoport, Stroud and the Texans made a run at completing a contract
07:04extension before Sunday.
07:06But both sides agreed that they prefer to wait until after the season.
07:10C.J. clearly betting on himself because all the reports are the Texans made a competitive
07:15offer to him.
07:16You know, something that was in that Baker Mayfield neighborhood.
07:18Right.
07:19But C.J. thinks he can earn more than that.
07:20We'd have to guess.
07:21We'd have to guess since most of the quarterbacks that have gotten deals in the last few years
07:24has been somewhere between $53 and $56 million.
07:27Yeah.
07:27And the market's probably going to go up.
07:29So he's betting on himself.
07:30Yep.
07:30And I think that's probably...
07:32I like that.
07:33Do the Texans end up, you know, having a tougher cap situation because of it somewhere
07:37down the road?
07:38Probably.
07:39They definitely will.
07:39But it's because they're going to feel really good about C.J. Stroud and what he does this
07:43year.
07:43And they'll give him whatever the going rate is.
07:45Okay.
07:45Speaking of C.J. getting paid.
07:47Yeah.
07:47When C.J. Gardner Johnson was leaving, there was a video of him saying, y'all want to pay
07:51C.J. now?
07:52Y'all want to pay C.J. now?
07:53Or something like that.
07:54And I wish he would be a little bit more concise with his language because I don't know
07:58if he's talking about himself or C.J. Gardner Johnson.
07:59Everybody who I saw post that video seemed to think he was talking about C.J. Stroud.
08:03Right.
08:04I mean, Jonathan Alexander wrote a whole article about it.
08:06About the C.J. Gardner Johnson thing?
08:08About C.J. Gardner Johnson coming up the tunnel and screaming that about C.J. Stroud.
08:12Yeah, because Buffalo hasn't really paid C.J. Gardner Johnson.
08:16Right.
08:16I think it was about C.J. Stroud.
08:17I saw a lot of Bills fans.
08:18And it was y'all.
08:19Yeah, yeah.
08:19I think he was probably yelling at Houston people.
08:21I saw a lot of C.J.
08:22I saw a lot of Bills fans saying, like, hold up there, C.J., G.J.
08:25Oh, oh.
08:26You didn't necessarily drink yourself in glory today.
08:29No.
08:29Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
08:30No, I think he was talking about Stroud.
08:32Okay, so real quick, the Monday C.J. Stroud contract-o-meter, where does it sit right now?
08:38Scale of 1 to 10, based on how he's performed so far this season, which is one game in, 1
08:46to 10, with 10 being he's definitely getting a contract, 1 being they're definitely moving
08:51on from C.J. Stroud, where does, after week one, the C.J. Stroud contract-o-meter sit?
08:56Am I allowed to factor in whether AI kills us all by then or not?
09:00Yeah, this is your answer.
09:02I would say I'm going to factor in AI potentially might kill us all before then, so it wouldn't
09:06happen, unless AI decides to pay C.J. first.
09:10Okay, so factor that in.
09:11I'm going to put it at 7.
09:127?
09:12Yeah.
09:13Okay, yeah, I'd put it probably between 7 and 8 somewhere.
09:17He had a really good day yesterday.
09:19Like, if the decision had to be made tomorrow, maybe that's how we should look at it.
09:23If they had to decide tomorrow to give C.J. Stroud a contract, it might even be higher
09:27than that.
09:27He was really good yesterday.
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