Cowboys-Texans preview

0:00I'm Annagarcia, host of True Crime News, the podcast. Every week we bring you in-depth coverage on cases making headlines, as well as those that go under the radar. Tune in for murders that defy explanation, mystery seeking exploration, and shocking secrets that will leave you breathless. Each week we honor the victims by going beyond the salacious in our search for justice. Crime never stops, and neither do we. Listen to True Crime News available now on the Odyssey app, or wherever you get your podcast. We're going to do our own show next week. It's just going to be me and Bob. You know, human beings learn best and most from other human beings. Keep your friends close, but your enemies close. Oh, let's talk about Houston Texans, the soon to be AFC champion. Houston Texans. You and John McLean, what? Don Lopez. Don Lopez. What? What a dumb picks by you guys that have used to make the Super Bowl. How could you do it after watching CJ Stroud meld down in the postseason?

1:01How could you come off that and say they're going to make the Super Bowl? But the- Of a quarterback play. But the level to which they played on offense so far, like that doesn't look like a- Like that looks like a team that could absolutely pair that with the same defense from last year. It's just the defense hasn't, but the same is last year yet. So CJ has recovered? No, not necessarily recovered, but CJ is playing at a level right now that would make you feel- I'll put it this way. He can ride the D. Yeah. Bonaix was very close to being able to go into a Super Bowl last year. I think Stroud is playing better right now than Bonaix was last season. Okay. Which is not like a huge bar because I don't think Bonaix was particularly great, but it's one of those things where I just- I thought that they- their personnel is so good defensively. I mean, it's like really- like you sit there and you watch it and it's like, how did you get all of these people on one side of the ball? And I know- Well, we'll talk about the Serenzaq. It was John Lopez, Crapin' on the GM, or was it Casseria? Yeah, he was-

2:01He was Crapin' on various issues that they've had with certain personnel, groupings. I do think that, you know how sometimes like you can be a homer and then you can be the reverse of that, where it's like you're in the echo chamber of negativity so much that you kind of forget it's not that. That's how I kind of felt like John Mayhubin because when I was looking at him yesterday, I was like, this team doesn't look as vulnerable as John was talking about. It's just it's tough to swallow, oh and three when you're predicting Super Bowl. And so I- I 100% understand that aspect of it. Uh, would you like to start on the defensive or offensive side? I want to hear about their defense as they started off giving up 31 to Buffalo, then gave up 20 and 19. Yeah, they are 18 points, I don't know, points against 25 again, the Buffalo thing, slants things, 19th best. Will Anderson is three, three weeks watching people on TV, watching people on tape.

3:02Will Anderson is the best player in football right now. Now Miles Garrett's the best player in football normally, but if you're just measuring it to the year and right now Garrett not really being available to play, Will Anderson's a monster and even when Miles Garrett comes back, if Will Anderson keeps playing at this level and Miles Garrett has come down at all off of what he was last year, Will Anderson will be the better player. Like he's he is so much closer to Miles Garrett than I think people are comfortable talking about right now because there's just this reverence rightfully so for Miles that you don't even want to put anybody in that ballpark similar to the way Aaron Donald was at his peak. You didn't want to put anybody even near there because it sounded so blasphemous. Will Anderson's there. And I know line up against who? Will Anderson moves everywhere. And Andy, like I mean, he like if you look at I was looking at this yesterday, Will Anderson, get two and a half sacks against Indy. Will Anderson would lead all Cowboys corners in pass breakups this season.

4:02Will Anderson would lead all Cowboys linebackers in solo tackles this season. Oh my Lord. Will Anderson. There's how you beat us in sacks. Will Anderson has as many sacks as you're starting front four as a Raku Gary or not that sacks quarterback hits. He has as many quarterback hits as you're starting front four combined. So Gary, as a Raku Clark, Quinnon, they all have as many quarterback hits as he does at the point, which is six and he's got four sacks. He's got more than the entire team. And so he's that's somebody who there are sometimes you watch him. I remember I've talked about this before. Kobe Bryant like really kind of changed some things for me in terms of how I watched sports as a fan because I used to hate his guts and I hated whenever Bobby gets some right or I give him credit on a text message. He sends the same damn stupid Kobe jumper. Pump fake, pump fake hits the jumper and that's Bobby's brag is Kobe. Well, I know I just search swish and it's the top swish.

5:04Giff. Be a little original. Okay, just switch it up a little bit. But it's your signature. You're going to tell Shotty to switch it up with his play calling. I don't think so. No, but this Kobe had I remember watching Kobe and it like had dawned on me when he was going through that stretch post-shack where he was just putting up ridiculous games. And it kind of like hit me. I was like, I'm wasting time really enjoying watching somebody who's great, like just hating them for dumb reasons. I can still want to beat him and I can not like playing against them, but man it's a waste of energy not to be able to sit there and appreciate it. And I was thinking about the yesterday watching Will Anderson where it's like, I know it's probably going to be easy for Cowboys fans to be mad on Sunday when he's wrecking shop and I'm not telling you to sit there and like appreciate it when he potentially picks up three sacks. Not that at all, but when you watch him outside of games against Dallas, that's somebody worth stopping down to watch him on TV. He's so, so, so good. And if you're somebody who watches a lot of all 22 and like studies, those sort of things, he is so worth like, I'm going to be just probably popping in every week like when I'm doing

6:10film study stuff. I'm probably just going to pop in for a couple of Texans plays on the all 20s, just because I want to see how he's doing because he's he's that fun to watch. Just really technically sound explosive, fantastic player. You're not going to be able to block him. I don't care who you have. He's going to get it's the Michael Jordan. He's going to get his. You could beat the team and still have him get his, but this is a Houston defense right now that is definitely because to me, this is a magic number game. In my mind, I didn't think the Cowboys would be able to get there at the start of the season. And maybe the O and three is screwing my head a little bit too much where I'm like, if the Cowboys score this, they win the game. Is it feasible? Is it doable against this defense? Yeah, so they're inconsistent a lot of us. You remember how I was talking about with Dallas last week? It was blowing my mind how they running the ball so effectively. I'm Jennifer and I'm Angela Kinsey and we're the office ladies. We're still talking about all the hilarious behind the scenes details from the office with icons from the show like Rain

7:14Wilson, Greg Daniels, Malora Hardin and so many more. And we can't forget our two conversations with office ladies, super fan Billy Eilish. Hello, so join us for brand new episodes every Wednesday. And revisit the office, rewatch every Monday. Follow and listen to office ladies wherever you get your podcasts. Totally. And then after that, it started becoming super inconsistent where it's like they're getting no line push for two drives and then all of a sudden all the running the ball and I can't figure it out. There's a little bit of that that exists with Houston's defense where you're watching them like, you know they were great last year and you know the personnel is deep and it's really, really strong. And then you're still watching and going like, why are they having so much trouble in certain instances getting off of blocks or getting pushed like they're better than this? And it just kind of confused similar to how we were feeling about Quentin. Like why is he not playing better? This doesn't make sense. There's some guys on that side of the ball that you feel that way about. Stingly has not been as great as he's been in years past. I love him. He's not bad or what, but you're watching him going like, oh, that's more separation than you would normally think

8:18he would give up. That's more vulnerable than he's previously looked before. You know, he was mentioned by Shoddy, Kaylyn Bullock, who I really, really like. Bullock has not looked exactly the same level as he has in the past. Jalen Petrie. Another guy, Jalen Petrie is like a sort of a mini version of what Taron Matthew used to be and he doesn't look quite the same. He's taken some bad angles. He's missing some tackles. So there's just having some problems with some consistency right now. And that's what's terrifying about them is I'm worried this is the week they figured out. Like it's been three weeks. They've taken their lumps. They're going to settle back into who they are. But man, they have had some issues at times with the run in terms of like breaking through it the line of scrimmage and controlling the line of scrimmage. The secondary has been more vulnerable than it has in the past. And a big part of that is one of the big acquisitions they have this offseason. And one we talked about could have ended up here in Dallas. And that's Reed Blankenship Reed Blankenship has been bad. The safety from Philadelphia that had gone to Houston. Blankenship has not been good. Camarie Lasseter has not been good. Those are the two marks you have

9:21to really zero in on. And I'm just guessing right now, but based upon Shotinheimer with us an hour ago. There's I think there's going to be a Joey Porter sub package in this game. I would lean towards Porter playing. And it sounds like Nick Harris's favorite lineback in the league. Shia years not going to play. Yeah, as he's Al Shiair has been. How big is that? So he's been really good for them this year. I don't think pf f reflects that, but he has been really, really good. Al Shiair is a hundred percent somebody who if you don't have him out there on the second level, that's going to make things much more difficult for Houston to be able to stop the run. If Dallas is able to run the ball like they showed they could at times last week against Baltimore. If they come out there with that sort of attack and they're getting the sort of push that the line of scrimmage that they were getting, second level is going to have some issues if Al Shiair is not out there. That is it. That's a vulnerable area for them when he's not out there. And he's he had had some ups and doubt like he had played really well in San Francisco, played well in Houston. He had had like a

10:23little bit of a downturn recently. He had that suspension. Obviously a couple years ago where we got the great all praise to all of drop. That was his statement. But we got the he's somebody who he's really come back strong this year. And to me looks really, really good. Offensive side of the ball for Houston. Strauts playing better. Strauts playing more in rhythm, playing more in time. Looks more comfortable looking at things in front of him. I'm so freaking relieved that you got someone that will not say and they'll get to him. But you finally have a non-scrambler. I'm so I hate I hate going up against scramblers. Well, and it's it's you hope he doesn't like because I mean he doesn't show it. But I remember there's a point a couple years ago. I think it was 2019. Dallas was having issues with scrambling quarterbacks and it had started to become an issue of like guys who don't even run because of the lanes were so bad. So in this instance, I don't think that's the case. They just dealt with some really athletic quarterbacks. 54 rushing yards in three games. The Cowboys have allowed 176 to quarterbacks this year and CJ taking care of the

11:28football. No picks. Yeah. So so far he's not like just destroying like that. He's playing better than Bo Nick's was yesterday for like a frame reference. That's kind of like where I look at him from last year. But this is a last year. When you look at this Houston offense right now, it's the third highest pass rate in the NFL. They throw the ball a bunch and it's because they cannot run it. This is a really bad running offense right now. I was not feeling that weak one. Pay pay as I was ruling, ruling the drafting of Tyler Warren over David Montgomery. Oh, I think square three touchdowns. They are 25th in rush success rate. But they have a so a run stuff is no yards or negative yards. They're run stuff rate this year is 25%. That's one out of every four times they carry the ball. So they're really having some trouble in the trenches holding the line. They've got backs that don't have a lot of wiggle. They're kind of more physical backs, but they're getting met at the line of scrimmage a lot of times and having trouble around the ball. A big part of

12:30this is just going to be make sure you don't let them get their running game right against your bad run defense. You need just flash like you did for some of those drives against Baltimore and show that more consistently against a running offense that shouldn't be able to move the ball like Baltimore does. So if you can lock in against the ground game and just win at the line of scrimmage with your normal looks and not have to devote any more resources to that, you're going to be in a lot better position to just kind of focus things on the secondary and get some of those packages for Joey Porter Jr. to play man and get throw some more droppers if you need to at the second level so that you're not just having to devote resources just to be able to stop the run from running to a team that cannot run the football. So at Nico Collins, if he plays in this game, he's obviously a big problem. Match up wise, I don't love anybody on him, even if Porter's out there, I don't love it. Nico's just a good porter highlights against Nico. He has, it's just Nico's, he's so big and he's such a fluid mover for how big he is and strong hands and after the catch, he can be really,

13:30really dangerous. But this is a week, this week that I think because of some of the vulnerability in the line of scrimmage, you can stop the running game and you should be able to pressure stradding. He can't break away. That's going to be big for them. Bobby's film room preview, official picks at eight 40 and fast a to see where you go with it for Cowboys armpit eight 40 on the Frank LaFranco fan text and at some point in time, the sour paid and rusted will give you the Q to call to win sweet tickets were given away a pair of Cowboys sweet tickets to watch the bucks on Thursday night, this hour and a pair next hour for turning it on, leaving it on, do we have the worst airport in the entire country next? I'm Susie Welch, the host of Becoming You, a podcast where I help you stop living by default and start living by design. Listen to Becoming You wherever you get your podcasts.