Helllllo Houston. I hope you guys are good this Friday. I wrote a long thing about why I'm posting in your thread and hoping you'd welcome me for spending time doing this, and it's really because Nico is on my fantasy team and you guys have a cool homer thread, much like Detroit's. So I hope you don't mind but I went down a rabbit hole tonight and think I found some cool stuff to help you all either maybe understand your predicament a bit better or confirm what you all already know and have been hearing or reading. If you all already know this stuff cold and in more detail, my apologies. I'm sort of a frustrated Jets fan and would spend time on that, but our coach divulges nothing, nobody gives a rat's *** about our tendencies or dramatics and lousy start because we have no talent anyway, and I refuse to invest too much time into our team until we can be sure the owner's 18 year-old son Brick and his brother Jack aren't secretly running it or vetoing trades based on Madden ratings.
I'll start by just saying that I don't think CJGJ is long for any team he plays for. He seems unstable and disruptive everywhere he goes. I think it bled into his performance rather badly and the Houston guys on Twitter were both unsurprised and ready to ride him out of town with no compunction or concern for keeping his idiocy discreet. Who knows if this is true, but I've sort of followed him and everywhere he goes the defensive backfield seems to get hinky, although the 2024 season in Philly saw him tied for the league lead with six interceptions. He's been on four teams since 2019 and one of those teams twice. He's got issues. I watched an interview where he had sympathetic interviewers like Ryan Clark and a few other ex-NFLers and I just came away thinking he's got issues. I don't dislike him. He's just not a guy you can have or want on your team. His lack of professionalism bled onto the field this year in apparently very significantly ways, costing you guys a few touchdowns that you couldn't afford to give up in close games. The link below is a link to the Twitter post detailing the accusations/allegations (is allegations the right word here? - heh)
The OC of your team is certainly in the news. They thought they caught Ryans upset with him on Sunday, something Ryans denied. But what was interesting today was a beat reporter asking Caley why he was running the Patriots' offense when everybody but Tom Brady had failed trying to run it. Caley denied he was running a "copy" of the Pats' offense and said so
And that sounds legit, and the link below doesn't contradict his remarks, nor imply he's lying, but it does put more emphasis that their offense is based upon the Patriots' offense rather than the Rams because somebody dug through some coaching press conferences and found Todd Bowles, who knows a thing or two about defense, responding to a question from a reporter asking him the similarities between Atlanta and Houston's offense because of each OC's time with the Rams. Bowles quickly said and sort of corrected the premise by saying that, "Atlanta came from McVay" and then went on to say that "the Rams, even though they came from McVay, that was the Patriots system they were running." Bowles misspoke here and meant "the Texans"and not "the Rams."
He's saying it was indeed modeled after the Pats
So, it's interesting. Nate Tice, formerly of The Athletic, had this observation about the Patriots philosophy coming to the Texans
I would urge you to read his blurb over at Yahoo. Here's his take on the Texas Patriots
"New offensive coordinator Nick Caley had an interesting background with Belichick in New England and then with Sean McVay in Los Angeles. I was very curious how he would deploy his personnel, considering the stylistic differences that Josh McDaniels and McVay have. Would Caley prefer a motion-heavy offense with plenty of under center and 11 (one RB, one TE, three WR) personnel, or would he be more of a static “at you” offense featuring a fullback and downhill runs?
When the Texans added Christian Kirk and two Day 2 wide receivers from Iowa State in the draft, it seemed to me that they’d be leaning more toward a Rams style of attack. That was intriguing to me! But now that the games are mattering, it seems Caley has defaulted to something he feels more comfortable with, which is more static and more plodding. And it feels archaic.
https://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/articl...ker-chaos--the-biggest-moments-041855550.html
The Texans have used 21 personnel (two RBs, one TE, two WRs) on 23% of their early-down snaps this season. Is it a harbinger for how this offense will be deployed? Patriots tree favorite fullback Jakob Johnson made the roster and is actually playing. In fact, Johnson has played 40 offensive snaps so far this season, while third-round rookie Jaylin Noel has played a grand total of 41. And that was with Kirk missing time! While the “Patriots Way” is to let rookies earn their playing time, it’s a hard argument for Noel not to see the field when he’s also being tasked with the responsibility to return punts as well.
The Texans don’t even use play action to help balance out their tight offensive looks, ranking 28th in early-down play action rate. And they've been drastically better (at least relatively) when they trot out 11 personnel on early downs, with a 39% success rate (ranking 20th) compared to 30% in all other personnel groupings (31st).
Every facet improves when they get more speed on the field, from efficiency to explosiveness (9.3% to 13.3% explosive play rate, a jump from 17th to seventh). I feel like this shouldn’t even be much of a change from what Caley had been around with the Rams to the Texans' current personnel make-up. Just put your faster, better players on the field and figure out a way to make it work. Use those wide receivers!"
Slow on offense. Porous on run defense. A messy operation. These AFC contenders have plenty of issues, and need to start fixing them quickly.
sports.yahoo.com
Tice's partner at Yahoo!, Charles McDonald, addresses Nick Caserio and the weirdness of how he built the line for the year.
Houston had a clear plan to improve in 2025 — and somehow dug itself an even deeper hole.
sports.yahoo.com
I might continue or I might move on to other things, but thank you for letting me have part of your day and thread regardless of where this goes. Peace.
