Texans All-Access: Rod Wright on Jadeveon Clowney's Return and a 12-Round Fight With Buffalo

0:00happy Friday everybody. Welcome into another edition of Texas All Access from the Texas Radio Studio. And I like to say it, we are less than 48 hours away from kickoff against the Buffalo bills. Yeah, the bills will be flying in tomorrow. Kickoff at noon right there on 957. The fan you hear the pregame show with Sean and Seth. Then you hear the game broadcast with me, your host this evening, John Harris, the Plano Sylell reporter. And of course, the voice of the Texans, Mark Van Damir along with our good friend, Andre, where and then the post game, hopefully discussing a big win over the bills to follow that. So Sunday is going to be a full day. So get it done between now and noon. Get it done. Get whatever you got to do done, mo your yard, picture dishwasher, clean the garage, whatever you got to do, but get ready for noon. They kick off and get ready for this one against the Buffalo bills. It's John and Mark with you. Mark, good evening. Good evening,

1:03Johnny. How are you feeling? I have to confess. I do not owe my own yard. I'm not that guy. I don't either. I don't know. I does it for me for 25 bucks. Right. And he comes in. I was like four guys with him. I don't ask any questions. They get it done in like 15 seconds. Right. And they're out. Right. I mean, it's so fast to make their heads spin. And I'm like, this would take me a long time. And I know it's therapeutic for some. You know what I do? I don't pay a pool guy. I got to I live at the suburb. Yeah. A pool. Yeah. And so you handle your pool and you're going to handle my pool. I do the big filter cleaning. That's my therapy. Right. That's my backyard therapy dealing with the pool. I get it dealing with the levels. You know, is this going to be okay? Alkaline wise, you know, cleaning the filter, doing the backwash together, filter, all that stuff. So that's my thing. But the yard, I'm not going to mow the grass. But I will this weekend be at Reliance Stadium on Sunday with you to watch the text and the battle the bills and Johnny. I don't know how you feel

2:04before a season starts. There's something about it that half hour to 15 minutes before kicked off when the regular season begins. You know, we're on the air for the free season. And people think that, oh, free season, no big deal. We do our job. It's big. I mean, you're on the TV broadcast, right? And radio booth TV. It's a big job for us. It's harder to do those games because you have so many players. You have so much to talk about. You have so much to fill on TV. That's right. These games are, let's get on the roller coaster, everybody. The ride is about to begin. Here comes documenting history in real time. And you just never know how it's going to go down. I mean, Demiko Ryan's in the opener, right? Well, the Ravens, that was the rookie year for him and for C.J. for Will for so many. The next year beat the cold post game beat the cold. And in the year in LA, close game lost and lost 14 to nine. I don't know what's going to happen Sunday. I expect the Texans to be very competitive to

3:07play well, but the bills could be awesome. You just don't know what to expect. And I expect them to play well. I expect Texans to perform now. You play well enough. I don't think you're going to have a problem winning this game. But as I say that I'm thinking, well, jeez, Mark, how do you know what the bills are going to do? How do you know what Jim Leonard's three, four is going to, right? Look, I mean, how do you know? Right. You know, and that's why we are here because it's a beautiful thing. Who knew the Rams were going to get their doors blown off by the 49ers last night? It's awesome. The NFL is awesome. And it's great to be a part of what we all knew what was going to happen because the 49ers played that game in the future. So we all knew that I was going to have that they played that game in Australia. It was a back yet. I don't even know. I they got to be at some point. And obviously a lot has been made about the Niners and the Rams. The Niners showing up with GERLY the Rams showing up when it was time to play. And look, if Matt Stafford gets six more inches, it's 17, 14. And now it's a whole different ballgame, but he didn't. And then the Niners did

4:11something that I think if you do this in a game, I think it's demoralizing for the demoralizing for the 99 yard drive, 99 yard drive. And maybe not even just like a 99 yard drive, but I think what it's demoralizing is you have a drive, you get it all you get it all the way. You get inside a low red zone and you can't score. You go for a fourth down, you're okay, you can feel go go for a fourth down, you don't get it. But then you give up a touchdown after that. Yeah, that is a that's a death flow to a team. And once it got the 24 seven, you can kind of see the Rams and like, Hey, once our fight back to LAX, we'd like to get back. Can we go? It's scary. Didn't do much. And obviously there's so much. There was so much run about the Rams. And that here's what happens in week one. And you've been around for a lot of them. I've been around for a lot of them. Here's what happened in we here's what happens in week one. The Raiders beat the Patriots and Fox pro weird things happen. Yeah. Now I'm not not going to sit here and say the 49ers

5:17are going to you know, play them out like the Raiders, but just weird things happening in week one. And then they happen all the time. What was it? Oh, one or oh two or oh three, one of those years, the Patriots, they lost badly to the bill. Yeah, 31 nothing was with these bills. It was the lawyer. Maloy. So three game 31 did nothing. So three 31 did nothing. 31 and nothing. And guess what happened later on the Patriots went to the Super Bowl in this building. I didn't want it. But before they got to the Super Bowl and wanted to beat the bills in their place, 31 enough. Oh, it was both later. Yes, 31. It's 31 and nothing, but flip. At that point, the Patriots got it. They were in the midst of their street, 0.1 game winning street, which Ciox are on one now. So I think the Ciox can continue with that. But you know, I don't know how many, you know, lessons you take out of for the Texans specifically because it feels like everybody is week one is kind of a choose your own adventure novel in a sense. You never know. Everybody's

6:17seemingly healthy. But then we saw in the in the Patriots and Ciox to the most, it's two of the most important players for each side. AJ Brown for the Patriots goes down in second half. Sam D'Arno goes down on a fifth play. And now you got to play this game. You've been all y'all year from the Super Bowl. You've been leading up to this one. And the two most important guys in each side are out for at least half the game on one side. So it's weird. They're just weird. Weird things happen. Weird bounces happen. And then the one thing that does happen for some teams, they start off great. Like we see us within nine hours. Nine hours start off great. They look great. 49ers. Good. Yeah. But everybody's healthy right there. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. There you go. They got to go back to substation work at some point. So wait. How does the meme come out yet? Because I'm thinking this morning, why have a nice D NFL memes do it? Yeah. This is what happened. The 49ers a week away from the substation and just have all the avengers

7:18for something. I don't know. I mean, and maybe it's up there already by the time we do this. Right. I've seen it. Yeah. I haven't seen it yet either. But their quote unquote old guys showed up play. Yeah. Mike Evans big ballgame. He's a good fit. As long as he's healthy. Debo looked like he was shot out of a cannon. Debo looked like he was 23. I mean, he looked really, really good. Trent. Trent tremendous man. He is tremendous. One of the things I love about week one, two mark is you get a chance to see not everything, but you get a chance to see what these coaches have been cooking up all summer. And one of the and some of the Trent, one of the trends, actually JJ pointed this out last night was how the 49ers are using Kyle use check. So instead of just sliding him across in motion, they actually he kind of runs this arc motion. And it's giving him kind of like a running head start towards the one of scrimmage. And it was like, well, this is interesting how they're using him. So the whole point was,

8:23my guess is, as long as he's not running towards the last scrimmage, so he's got to time it up. Oh, you know, at least he's got a, he's got a run start. And then boom, he turns it up. The 49ers are doing some cool things in the run game. And I'm like, all right, what Sunday will we see where we go? Okay, that's pretty cool. They took that are whether it's us bills, etc. Somebody's been cooking up something in the off season. So now you get a chance to see what started off on an Appkin, what that looks like in real life on Sunday. Well, guess what the Texans have going for them, the element of surprise with K. Sean Booty. But nobody knows exactly how they're going to use them. Where he's going to line up? You and I don't even know. No, we have not seen here. See the practice. Wait, how about I meant to say this during our conversation with Nick, but he was on a roll. Yeah. But remember, I said no one has seen Booty, right? Because he shows up at Carolina. Right. And Demiko Rises talked about it. I mean, he got right to work with that Daniels. He went at it, learning the playbook and everything. But he wasn't doing any 11 on 11 in Carolina. We didn't see him. And then after that, no more open practices. Right.

9:27Correct. And Nick said, wow, the media is going to be a practice this week. So you'll see him. I'm like, yeah, we'll see him like, we see him there. We realize he's a tangible being. But Nick, we're not watching practice. He's not watching practice. Training camp is over. He knows. Maybe he thought we were watching practice. I don't know. I think he said the media. Now he does. He probably thought I was referring to just seeing Booty and Jackson's uniform or something like that. Right. Because we have not seen Booty with 11 on 11 work. And who knows what this is really going to look like. It's a guessing game for the Buffalo Bills. Now they have all the tape they need on him. They've seen him plenty of time. That's right. But how do the Texans use him? That's the difference. How does Texan? How do you work? No, Lynn? Well, who are the top three guys? Is it going to be X is no going to come in earlier than you think? Or maybe your thought he was going to come in from the get go. How much? I don't know how much they use the tight ends. How many tight ends do they use? Yeah, this is a great element of stuff. I think so. Absolutely. I think

10:29Booty actually, I mean, if you're the Bills, you're like, you know, how they're going to use them, you know, I think that's a great question. And look defensively. I think the Texas defense, I think Bills offensively, they're going to have to figure out that you did Jadevian Clowney can under where does he line up? How does he line up? What are they going to do with him? Yeah. How often do they use it? I love having that. In fact, that's probably one of my key to the game is how Clowney gets deployed. My guess is he's been at practice. He's not been an injury report. You know, he's healthy. He's ready to go. And hopefully the time rehabbing whatever he was dealing with in the last couple of weeks of training camp, he's good. But I did the math on this for by the numbers, 2888 day. You know what that refers to? Great Clowney was drafted. Nope. The last time we saw Clowney in a Texans, Jersey. Okay, I didn't do the quick math on that. Okay.

11:31Seven and a half years. The playoff game against the Colts. Yeah, the Clown Mask game. Yep. That was his last game. His last game January 5th, 2019. Well, Sunday will be 2888 days. Seeing him in that number 90, Jersey in the free season was fun. Very cool. But seeing him with Will and the Neil out there will be even more fun. He came in with the second unit. Seeing him with those guys. Or subbing in for those guys. Right. Or whatever happens. Yeah, like you said, they might put him inside. Who knows what they're going to do? Like you said, this is element of surprise. Totally. Stuff with DeVion Clowney against Josh Allen in that number one rushing attack from last year. And I know we'll hear from Domingo in this one. It's weird with the bills. Yeah, number one rushing attack in the league. It's kind of like Lamar Jackson when they're running them all really well. Yep. You know, he's a part of it. Some of it is a designed run with the quarterback. Some. But a lot of it is I'm going to throw it. Oh, wait a minute.

12:33I'm going to run it. That's right. And it adds to the total. And it's a beautiful thing. Now with the bills and the Ravens, but with the bills, it's legit. You got James Cook, number one in the league last year. But Allen, you get over 10 rushing touchdowns. Dude, come on. Come on. Yeah, it's that's the quarterback. Yeah. I know they've had different and look, there are different plans you can have for him. You know, rush, rush three drop eight. You can blitz, but you spies. There's all kinds of things you can do. I think one of the things that we haven't talked a lot about, the bills are going to have more offensive pieces than they had for that Thursday night game. The obviously DJ Morton play wasn't even a member of the bills at that point. Don't you say didn't play that was a huge loss for them at Oliver on defense didn't play in that game. He will play, but I also think it's week one too. And I think it's exciting. You got two of the best teams in the AFC. They they are going to lock horns. I think it's going to be fun. But I want

13:34to I want to go here before we do our our true dive right into a game preview with our sleepers employers to watch. This is season 25. Yeah. You call every game. Yeah. This is week one of the 25th season. Yeah. So I'm just going to throw out there. How does that feel when you hear that? It feels like 10 years doesn't feel like 25. I keep freaking out about 25 years. It's a long time. It's a long time because I think about right. We're in a car now before 02, right? What was my life like 25 years before 02? We all think about that. Those of us who have been Texans fans or involved with the Texans as fans or whatever in any way since 02. That's freaky. Yeah. That's a lot of water out of the bridge. That's a lot of life live. Yes. And to me, it feels like a science fiction movie. This is a different time measurement because 2010 is not 15, 16 years ago to me. No, it's not. It's last Tuesday. It feels different when you look at it in a football context. I was never

14:39anywhere in my career longer than four years prior to this. And this feels like a lot longer than four years, but it doesn't feel that long. It doesn't feel like 25 years. Yeah. So when I hear that, I think it's great though, all the different celebrations and everything that we're going to do to acknowledge the 25th season. And look, this is the first time. It might be the first time ever without play walk or singing the national anthem the way I do your Liberty White, which is great. We are going to honor and acknowledge Mrs. McNair and Bob McNair in this game, which is very cool. They loved Liberty White. They love the opener. I mean, who wouldn't? And it does harken back to Dallas. But we'll get to that week four, the Dallas week. We're going to have a lot of 25th year stuff. I'm just excited to get it going again, you know, to embark on another journey. Every season is a different journey. You know, I mean, we've written out a lot of these together. Yep. And it's so much fun to put pen to paper. That's what it feels like. Now we're going for

15:39real here. We're recording history in real time. It is so much fun. We're looking forward to it. In fact, so much fun. We're going to tell you what's going to happen in our game preview and keeping you're out for our sleepers presented by matches firm. It is on game preview Texans bills week one lock in. Let's go, Johnny. It's a brand new year, but you can't stop people from bringing up Texans success against Josh Allen last year in 2024. The playoff game in 2019. Okay, throw that one out. The last two years are kind of relevant. Are they? Yeah, I think they are. But we say it all the time. New year, new teams, new everything. So what might have worked for you the last two years may not work at all on Sunday. And you got to figure out, okay, we tried that plan that didn't work against Josh Allen. We're going to have to try something different in the same for the bills. The bills might, hey, we got this new defense. We're going to try this against the Texans offense.

16:40It might not work. So you got to be able to adapt and adjust especially early in the game. So yes, it's relevant in a sense that yeah, there are some struggles. So maybe confidence for Josh is maybe shaking a little bit, but it's a new team. It's a new start. So I would expect everybody guns blazing week one. Let's get to our Texans to do list because stopping the run is key. This is the number one rushing attack from 2025 coming in here. And James Cook, Josh Allen, these are touchdown scoring machines on the ground. But when you say stop the run against most teams, yeah, it might be a running back. We're not talking about Derek Henry here. We're talking about Cook and Allen, the law firm of and they're very dangerous. They're dangerous. And I think it's interesting to look back at last year. Last year James Cook ran 17 times for 116 yards. It's a pretty good number. In fact, only two running backs went for over 100 yards last year against the Texans. James Cook was one of them. The flip side that is he got 58 yards of that 116 exactly half on two runs. The other

17:4315 runs of Texas did a really nice job of slowing him down. It's okay. What happened on those chunk runs? Miss fits, not tackling well and looking week one. You know, I harp on this, tackling for guys that haven't tackled since January literally taking a guy to the ground. That can be an issue, especially against the guy like Cook is 5 11 195. You think, that's not that big. But he's tough. He runs behind his pads and he's got great vision for the home run lane. He can see where that lane is amongst the chaos and bounce out of there and then all sudden because he gets out of there so quickly as a defensive back, you're not ready for it. And so you throw a shoulder into him. He pops through that. He runs 45 yards for a touchdown and now you're down six nothing like last year. So tackling's got to be on point. Run fits. It got to be on point. And then you got to bring everybody to the party. Well, speaking of taking people to the ground, Josh Allen was taken to the ground eight times last year by the Houston Texans tying a franchise sack record in a single game. Now it's going to be a lot to ask that to happen again. Yeah, but it might.

18:46So get after Josh Allen, we talked about stopping his running game. We've got to stop him through the years. Got new weapons to work with DJ Moore. The Titans are really good. What about stopping him and getting him to the ground? Well, I want to say this and make sure I say it the right way. You have to be filing on Josh Allen. If he's going to run the ball, he's got to feel it. When he's back in the pocket, you got to hit him with more than just Will Anderson Jr. You got to hit him with a number of guys. Last year, I felt like one of the keys in that game as the game wore on, you could see Josh starting to wear down a little bit because of the pounding he was taken, especially in the second half. That's got to continue. And you can't give them things either. You can't give them the ball in short territory. Josh will take advantage of that. But I think having Dalton King came back is going to be a big thing for Josh. The safety linebacker, the nickel combination for covering Dalton, King Cade, has got to be on point because he will go to King Cade and I think what they're stressing get rid of the ball, Josh. Get rid of it or run.

19:49Yeah. And I think they really want him to get rid of the ball. And he can't sit back there and he was held it way too long last year. So they're going to tell him get rid of the ball, get it to your weapons. But these guys work for you. Stay healthy. Do not take the pounding that you took, especially in that second half. Okay. As far as offense goes for the Houston Texans, you know, they want to run the football. There's no secret about that. The bills were 28 against the run last year. Look, everything changes year to year. They have Ed Oliver playing in this match job. You mentioned King Cade on the offensive side, having Oliver the Estonian on the defensive side, big addition, other changes as well. How about running the ball against the bills with this new look Texans ground game? Yeah. And a new look, Bill's defensive front. There'll be more of five man down, a three fours. We call it where Ed Oliver will probably move outside a little bit, play a little bit more four I maybe all the way out to tackle. But he can penetrate. He's quick. He can be a problem when you want to try and run outside zone to his side because he's so fast. Dale Walker had a really good preseason. He should play over the nose. You can't miss him. I mean,

20:52he's six foot seven. He's 300 something pounds. He looks like a, you know, power forward out of the field. He's got a really good training camp. He'll play over the nose. But I don't think overall all throughout that defense that they can slow this run game of the Texans down completely. Last year, we got away from the run game in the second half. The first half, Woody Marx was getting chunk runs, especially early on. And that's set the tone. We got to be able to do that for 60 minutes with David Montgomery and Woody Marx. I have another key here. Be special. Special teams. Big factor here. Hey, two years ago, remember special teams how large it was with the punt game and Robert Woods a little return. Yeah, see you with a short pass and all of a sudden you're kicking a 59 yard field goal to win the game. Well, how about Kai Kroger making his Texans debut the youngest punter for the Texans since Trevor Daniel in 2018. This is big stuff. You think about some of the experienced punters they've had here with Cameron Johnson and Brian Anger before that. And Tommy Townsend last year. This is Kai Kroger making a big debut. Now,

21:54his net punt average in the preseason would have led the NFL last year. So he's been doing better as camp has gone on. And it's a big moment for him and the entire special teams units. It is massive. His first game here in Houston, the opportunity to pin the bills back inside the 10 yard line you go back to that 2024 game. Late in the game. Tommy pinned them down inside the five yard line. And we were able to capitalize with a three and out then came the short punt. Kick a few little few plays later. Complementary football as we call it. So Kai is definitely on the microscope. But what do you remember about last year? What do you remember after the Texans took a 13-9 lead? What happened on the very next kickoff? What happened? All of a return. Ray Davis won 97 yards for a return and stole all the momentum back to Buffalo on that particular return. Thankfully, Davis Mills led a two-minute drive and in Texas, we're able to take a 20 to 16 lead to half. And in the game, we changed back into the hands of the Texas. But special teams have

22:57been a big factor to last couple of years. Texas dominating in 2024. Last year that Ray Davis returned was big to get the bills back. And think about this way. James Cook scored on an opening run. That game is six-nothing weeks and missed the extra point. Ray Davis ran a touchdown back. That's 13. How many points did they end up in that game? 19. Every other possession amounted to fuel goals for them. That's a key point, Johnny. And also, your point about being able to answer that punch with the 97-yard kick return back with a score to take momentum back before the break was a huge factor in that match-up. Last year, removed some of the sting of that kickoff return for a touchdown. Okay, let's get to the Modelo moment. And we're having a debate. What is the Modelo moment? Is it something current? Is it something that happened last year? Is it something that's about to happen? There are many Modelo moments. I have this going out to practice on Wednesday and see a lot of guys out there practice who have been unhealthy or seemingly for the past two, three weeks of training camp pre-season. Some guys we haven't seen out there seeing them out there. That was given me a really warm feeling

24:02about this match-up and beyond, Johnny. What about you, Armadillo moment? I think my Modelo moment is a guy that's going to play another big role in this game. And he was massive last year. We had him in studio a few weeks ago and we talked about it as Caleb Bullock. His game against Buffalo last year was as good as I've seen as safety for the Texans. That's a legendary. Force fumble, two interceptions. Tons of tackles was all over the place. I mean, he was absolutely fantastic. He's going to have to play well. But to me, when I think back to this game against the bills and I think about playing the bills, his game comes up on that Thursday night. He was incredible. Okay, mattress firm, sleeper of the game. We do it every week. Who do you got? Okay, it's hard when you talk about the defense to have a sleeper. But I still feel like Tommy Togoye, I get slept on. Okay. They just don't talk about Tommy Togoye and he's a stud. He is everything this defense wants to be. And I thought I was hilarious listening to William Anderson, Jr. and Sheldon Rankins, talked with Chris Long about friendly fire. And they said, Tommy Togoye is the one you got to look out for. Why? Because he's hustling with the football.

25:05He's always looking to make a play. He is a problem for interior offensive linemen. He's tough to move in the run game. Tommy Togoye is my sleeper of the game. Okay, I have Buster Moro. And that's the proper pronunciation. Yes. It's Moro. The tight end, making his Texans debut. And I know there are a lot of weapons to look out for in offense. But this is a true sleeper. I think he's going to be hurt from this year. I've said it before. His attitude, his ability to block, but yes, he will be hurt from in the passing attack as well. Not voluminous, but he will make an impact from time to time. And it could be in this game. Couple of key first downs, maybe a key touchdown. I get a Darren Phil's vibe from him the more I watch. And I remember Darren Phil sitting in this seat right here. Yeah, they brought me to Houston to be the left left tackle. His insinuation was that yeah, I'm a blocking tight end. And then he became one of our most reliable passing threats over the next couple of years, even though he was advancing his career. I see Foster having the potential to do that this year, where maybe the volume of catches isn't up there. But the moments,

26:09the situations, the touchdowns might be huge for this team this year. I like that. Good sleep. Thanks, John. Thank you. We'll see how it plays out together. It's week one. Lock in. Let's go, Texans. All right, if I should say so myself, that was pretty darn good. The head coach for your Houston Texans. Well, he's even better. His name is Demiko Ryan's if you didn't know. And he sat with Mark and give his thoughts. Give his game preview, right here. All right, coach. And the getting ready department, did you get everything done? You needed to as you get to the starting line to face the bills. We got everything done. We had a great week of preparation. Our guys earned that confidence all week. And I'm excited to go see them go put it all together. I want to talk about the third phase first, special teams. It's a big factor in these matchups you have with the bills historically. What about that? Starting with the special teams, they have a really good kick returner and Ray Davis. So we have to do a really great job. Last time we played him. He made a big play on us. So we got to make sure we're spreading the field the right way, covering

27:11the right way and making sure we're finishing with positive tackles. Do a great job in protection. We got to make sure we set up our weapon. And that's Kaini. Kaini has done a great job for us. All training camp all last year. We know we get him in range. He can score points for us. So when you talk about stopping the bills run, obviously they have Cook, but Josh Allen is such a big part of it. But it's not always a running play. It's a busted passing play might take off. How do you handle all of that, coach? First and foremost, his eyes on James Cook. You have to stop that running game first. They're going to try to run it over 20 times. We got to make sure we're physical. We're stuffing the run. And then on those passing plays is going to take our guys covering a little bit longer than they used to. Josh is going to escape the pocket. And now we have to have awareness that nobody goes and gets him until he crosses the line of scrimmage. So there are some discipline we have we have to have and coverage guys have to stay discipline. You got to play smart. And when it's time to go get him, we have to go get him. How tough is it to run on this front? You don't really know everything they're going to unveil.

28:12There are a lot of unknowns with this defensive front. I expect their defensive coordinator to mix it up a lot, mix up some five down front, mix up some four down fronts, do some blitzing with his safety. So everything and anything could come our way. And our offense just has to trust their rules, trust their preparation for training camp to be ready to handle whatever they throw at us. Being opening day, there have to be some extra chitters maybe or extra adrenaline. Whatever the case is, coach, how do you handle that with the team? It's another game, but it's a really important one. You allowed that adrenaline to get high. It'll be high during our warm-ups during the pre-game. The adrenaline is going to be high. And I think after that first couple series, everything starts to settle in. You start to figure out, okay, this is what they're doing. Everybody starts to calm down a little bit, really get back in the flow of just playing football, just executing and focus on what really matters. So execution matters. The adrenaline we needed is the first game of the season. I expect our guys to be pumped up, hyped for this game. We got white out. Everybody's going to be excited for stadiums going to be looking great. Now we just

29:15got to go play great. Yeah, I know it's not lost on you to open it home for the first time in your career, right? Man, so excited about that. Yeah, to be here, to not be on the road, to be in front of our home fans, our first game here. In reliance stadium, this is a great opportunity for us to go out and put the stamp on starting fast in our season. Outstanding coach, thanks a lot, good luck. That is one great way to kick off this Friday edition of Texans all access, not a Texans radio studio, adding to that one of our favorites. Steven's line coach Rod Wright going to join us next, not Texans all access. All right, what's happening? Everybody, welcome back to this Friday edition of Texans all access from them to Texans radio studio. I'm your host John Harris football analyst side line reporter. I know I speak for Mark. When I say that one of our favorites in this building, just favorite individuals is Rod Wright. He fets a line coach. He's great on the mic. So when we get a chance to see him and he can join us on the mic, it is that much better. Here's

30:17our little two on one with Rod Wright. He fets a line coach getting ready for this one against the bills in studio with us defensive line coach. Rod Wright has a go at coach. Sure, I had to be back all at the place. Oh, yeah, it's always fun to catch up with you. The engine. Yeah, the defensive line is called the engine. We mentioned that on the show a few times. Tell us how that nickname came about. Honestly, this is something a part of our part of our system. The D line, the disdain that go to D line has. D line has a tag. D line has to be energy. It starts with us up front. All right. And that's and that's kind of where we got it from. It kind of we we also say that about the beef. It's saying does a run if that D line does run. We say that humbly. No, that's a that's a motivating key for us. That's something that we take with us on the practice field. It starts on the practice field. We don't show up on Sunday and do it. We got to show up on

31:19Wednesdays Thursdays when nobody's out here. That's kind of just kind of a reminder of who we are and what our standard. All right, coach, I know. I know how you do this. I do do that. But I know our fans are like, Hey, there's so much talk about this defense line. How do you keep them from getting the big head? You know, you got guys like willing to kneel and cover sports illustrated. They're all over the place. Everybody's talking about them being so great. How do you keep everybody leveling grounded in front of? Be where your feet are. We don't know anything about that. Obviously, you can hear the outside noise, but like it's Thursday, practice. And it's hot outside. Yeah, yeah. And we got a lot of rep. We got a lot of work to do. So you got to be where your feet are. And it starts with the men in the room. Those guys don't they don't care about any. They probably wouldn't even know that they were on the cover of a magazine if they didn't go to the photos. Like, they that's just the kind of guys they are. They're not looking for that. I'm not looking for that. We're just looking for good play. And you you lock in on the process. And we

32:25really believe that if you focus on the how and and and what everything else is going to take care of yourself. So we just stay for our feet are today. Thursday, on Friday, like each day, we got to do our job and everything. The results of taking care of. We've talked before about if you're in the Delight Room, you're going to play at some point. And if you're dressed, you're definitely going to play in substitution patterns coach. They changed from game to game in certainly early season versus later in the season. You go into game one with a plan and then adjust it as the game goes along. How do you go about that? Well, I mean, it's it's four quarters over time. And we even come to that. But you got you got to begin with the end game in mind. Like it's going to most of these games are going to be one two minutes into the game. So you got to think how fresh do you want for guys that got to post the game. I'll be y'all think about that early. I think about that in the first quarter. So at the end of the day, like we need everybody to suited up the play.

33:32And everybody's going to share the wealth. And we got to be able to have those guys that need to rush the pass. So it's not about winning the first quarter and running out of gas because you tax those guys early. Not about that. It's about getting these guys going in the good rotation going in the certain situations myself and Frank O'Cam, like really communicating every drive. Hey, man, this guy has this many plays. Like, hey, we probably need to get this guy more plays. Like, you know, all of our guys that they're playing are going to be on their top. We got all those guys players. So we got to be really intentional about making sure that we don't tax guys early. You don't want to run out of gas. Because I can't remember we talked through last, but I believe that Debian got here after we haven't had to talk about Debian. I think it's been interesting for Mark and I because we saw him coming as the young pup come in 21, 22 years old,

34:33whatever he was when he got here. And then when he sat here when he just got here and we did interview with him, it was like, he's a different guy. You're seeing him as he is right now. It's cool for us to see him in that way. But what have you seen from him since he got here? I've seen a veteran. God has been around the block. A guy that really wants to be here and a guy that just wants to hurt. We had an early conversation before he signed here. In the conversation, we had about that I'll say that was intriguing to me is how much he really wanted to be here, wanted to be a tech wanted to come back here. And so I believe man, like you can train and you can love football. You can do all of that. But when it just when it just means a little bit more, like you'll see it, you'll feel it. And it just means a little bit more to him being here. And you can tell that by the way he's working. He's no different than the nails. Then the shelter

35:37and rain games, those guys that's been here and they know how to do it and know how to take care of their body. They've seen a lot of football. Like it's very comforting for a coach to have a guy out there that's played a lot of games and won a lot of games. We have the Neil here who's very much the finished product, of course. But we'll hear for code. How is Will different if at all going at the year full? Will is a guy that's very locked in on the process as well. From the watch him and face point when nobody's out there, face two, face three OTAs. He really empers himself in that situation. And whatever it is at that point in time, that's what he locked in on. So I just continue to see growth in his process. He knows his game. He knows what he needs to add to it. And he has a lot in his bag now. So he's able to say, hey, this is the weakness. I need to

36:38really work on strength and the confidence and the understanding of who he is. It's really about knowing yourself and what you need. So a lot of times like, you know, as a rookie, those guys, they're trying to learn to lead. So the coach kind of has to teach, hey, this is how the NFL is. This is how we work. How we work defense. This is how it is. You're a veteran. You know what you need. So it's still a collaboration. But when they know what they need, a lot of times for the coaches, like, okay, what do you need to see? And we just working together. So him, he's just different. Because every single year, he understands himself for. He knows what he needs. He knows doesn't need, he knows what he meant. Hey, man, this was this is something that they attacked me with last year. We need that. So it's just different. It's different for me and their coach. I thought about you and Frank and the D line group. We want to Charlotte because it was like going to the Green Briar with their

37:42for, I don't know, seven, eight days. We went to a high where they're like seven, eight days. It was only a short time for him, but it was really the only time we got away during training camp. And I think about you guys because we've talked about how close that group is, how close that group is. But when you get away, that group gets off the street gets closer because they what you got. Absolutely. Kids and the family, everybody's at home. What was that trip like for you guys to build even a closer bond or some of the guys that were kind of due to the truth as well? It was great. I love, being on the road because it's it's already adversity as soon as you walk into a stadium. Right. For sure. As somebody else is free. So there's already a sense of urgency. It's already a tension there. Like the fans are on you. And so to me in training camp going on the road, like being in a hotel, it's, you know, you're there with the guy. And I love it. I enjoyed it.

38:43Going on the joint practice, you just get to compete. You get to break up the monotony of going against your guys and the same field. And I just think you just you just adjust and adapt on the fly. You're in a different locker room. You're in a different field. And I just think I think the adversity brings the best side of you in my opinion because you adjust and adapt. And it makes you have to say, okay, like we're, you know, we're warming up over here now. Okay, this locker room is here now. Okay, like where's the where's the team meeting room in this hotel? And they just push you in a situation where it's like, okay, I got a down front fly. I love, you know, coach, the bills and the Texans third consecutive year, your meeting. And last year, everybody talks about the exact same or whatever I know every year is different. But what about the matchup? Because these games you've had some success on defense. Yet at the same time, these have all gone down to the wire. These have both the recent ones gone down to the wire. So what do you tell your guys about that 60 minutes from the rest of? Yeah, I mean, I think you got to recognize who the playmakers are.

39:49Obviously they have a really great running back and in cook. And then obviously a great quarterback. And an Allen O'Line is one of the best that you're going to see. So I mean, you never know how the game's going to shake out. If we had our choice, we get a eight, ten sacks every, you know, but you want to focus on playing winning football. All right. And that starts with repping our style and how we play. So, you know, the biggest thing is like, you don't focus on the result, you know, and we just keep on reeling back in. It's just like I said earlier, like it's the process and being where your feet have. So if we go in there, like last time, we got eight sacks. So we don't get eight sacks this time. Like, that's not how this works. You know, I'm saying there, they have great coaches, they have great players. They're going to adjust and adapt. We're going to see something different. We're going to see something that's similar. So at the end of the day, you know, we get in this game. We focus on who we are, playing fast, playing our brand of ball, adjusting to whatever is new, and handling the live

40:54adversity and the togetherness on the sideline and staying locked in together. And like we say, we expected to be a 12 round fight. And we got to out execute them and finish in the end. And wherever, wherever that looks like it, whatever that looks like in the end, as we're going to do, that's what we're going to have to make sure we can. You always know the age of somebody when they tell you how many rounds in a fight. Yeah. They're talking about 12 round fights. 12 is only 12 now. So you know, 15. I love that coach. I love the beginning of a season just from how important the first quarter plus becomes when you're facing a team. And you have to team you face before. It's not offensive. You've probably seen before, but they're going to have some new wrinkles. And how that 15 that first 15 minutes becomes really important because, okay, they just went on on a drive to come back to the sidelines. And now it's like, okay, what did you guys see? Mm-hmm. Coach, they're blocking this differently. They're lined up this. This is differently.

41:56How important are those first 15 minutes? But yet, how fun are they that you've got to react on the fly? Like, hey, we got to make this adjustment. Hey, we got to adjust here. Hey, look for this. How fun does that become? How to make it all those adjustments on the fly in the moment? I mean, I love it again. Like, there's nothing like the intensity that's going on, even free game. Like, you just, you just fill it, fill it in the roof. Obviously, we're at home. So it's going to be loud when we're out there. Then we have to do is we got to do us. That's first. Right. You never know what you're going to get. They can come out and do whatever they want. That first play they can do whatever they want to do. It's like a hooking laugh. Yeah, they can do whatever they want to do. So, you know, coaches, we're going to do our best with, hey, these are the tendencies. This is what they normally do, but we always sell them like, hey, they do whatever they want. So the best thing we can do is focus our linemen, our stance, we're going to lean on, all right. And there's going to be jitters.

43:00There's going to be the adrenaline and then all that's going to settle down. Like, you can hear a pin drop at some point, you know, when the offense is out there, it's going to be super loud when the deep. And you got to be able to lock in. Kind of the day. We don't know where they're, but they don't know we're going to run either. So they got, they got to deal with some two side to end of the day. You just lock in focus. What we do, how we do it. And something is different or something doesn't go right. That's why we got the sideline. We got, we got an opportunity to talk it up. You don't overreact when something doesn't go wrong. All right. You don't get to, you know, obviously the celebration, the adrenaline, all that's going to be there when we do something right, but you also, you got to come back down. So it's fun, man. It's fun. And then in the settles down, you just playing football. So at the end of the day, I do love that part of it because you know you're going to see something that you didn't see.

44:03That went in with a 12 round fight. Well, for 15, whatever it takes, whatever it is, if it has to be 15, 15, I was a little coach, another game of note this weekend is happening at 48. And you were part of a crew that went up to Ohio State. The last time the Longhorns won an national championship game one at Ohio State, you won it. So what about this match? I know that was two decades ago, but here we are in the present. This is a big one. Yeah, definitely. I mean, it was actually game two, just like the game two. Who'd you open up with? I think a new Mexico. So a little bit of a two. No, no, no, no, it was the reason. Okay. That's right because it was week one of the NFL season. So happy week. What's college powers? Yeah, four teams. Yeah, man. Come on, man. Anybody can do anything now. Yeah. But, uh, but yeah, like it's a great test. And it's at home. So I know, um, I know they're going to be ready to,

45:03they're going to be ready to play and get them at home. It's very, very nail-biter. Last year, up in Ohio State. So I know they're going to want to, want to win that game and get a little bit of revenge back. Flash. So, I'm excited to see it. I mean, the defense is playing well. Our quarterback is looking just as good as advertised. So, um, I, I expect the close one, but I definitely expect us to pay Tommy and pay them back with a win. I knew that was coming. Yeah. Got two. Got two buckeyes in there. Two of them. You got two of them in there. Yeah. I heard they're feeling great stuff from Rod right now. He mentioned Kayden McDonald's some tough news about Kayden. And we'll get to the status report. We'll do all that next right here at Texans. All access. We are less than 48 hours away from Texans. V bills on Sunday at reliant stadium cannot wait. I'm your host John Harris footballing on a sideline reporters time to get to the status report.

46:08Two days out of every game other than Thursday game. Then it's the day before. The NFL requires each team to put out a status report who's in, who's out, who's questionable, who's doubtful. We'll handle all that right here. Now, if there's any good news, good news, not new news, but good news. It is that the Texans have nobody out. Wade Wood has Trent Brown. They are on the injury report, but they are full. No designation. However, there is news. And this one's not good news. Kayden McDonald injured his ankle at some point. I think it was Wednesday in practice. Just kind of based on anytime there's a guy's limited that you saw in the shooting period of practice. Well, that's usually not a good thing. They go from my saw him in the shooting period to limited. The next day DNP. Oh, yeah. That happened in that particular practice. Whatever day it was. And it seems as though that happened. But either way,

47:12Kayden McDonald out of this one. In fact, I shouldn't even say out. He is un-interred reserve. But technically not out. But he's un-interred reserve. So he will miss the next four games for the Texans. That is a gut punch for the bills. Tie Johnson back up. Running back. Questionable. He J Sanders. He fence Alignment. Questionable. Now they were limited in practice on Friday. So we'll see what the status is for Sunday. So check those in active. But nobody out for the bills. Nobody technically out for the Texans. But Kayden McDonald did go on IR. All right. Coming up. Let's hear from the man himself. Aziz Al Shire and a wonderful guest. You're going to love that. That's next on Texans. All access. All right. We got one hour down and one hour left to go right here on a Friday edition of Texans. All access from the Monday. Texans. Radio studio. I'm your host. Gun Harris football analyst. Side line report. We got a lot to do. And we're going to kick it off with one of our favorites. Actually two of our

48:14favorites. Interview. We interview. We're the interview. We're is Greg Bailey. KTRK, ABC 13. Absolutely. Love Greg. He's just one of the best to have interview. We is Aziz Al Shire getting ready for this one against the Buffalo bills. Greg, take it away. As the captain is the leader, what is the basic part of your message to your teammates before you kick this off against Buffalo? Man, we're just taking it one day at a time. Obviously the game is on Sunday. But you got to prepare, prepare, prepare all the way right before kickoff to be ready for the game. Obviously everybody's going to be ready. You know, it's just like emotions to I've been ready to play since the season ended last year, but just being prepared. You know, so taking it one day at a time, getting the coaching, working on the field, working together, getting the communication. So we can go out there and play the way we want to play on Sunday. How does the concept of trust drive everything between you and your teammates for a great Texan Steve? Man, it's everything because you got to trust the guy next to you and they got to be able to trust you. So there's no Superman, you know, on the team, whether it's

49:18offense, defense, especially things, we got to all trust each other to do our job, do our 111, you know, Coach Billy Davis, my linebacker coach, he gave a presentation today and he was talking about that the first part is trust. One guy doing his job, that's the gift that you give to a teammate and the second part is communication and everybody on the field has to communicate with each other. So that's a huge part. Now is that even more important when you're facing somebody like Josh Allen who can hurt you in so many different ways when he breaks out and makes plays both running and throwing? Man, it's a huge thing. I mean, obviously talk about just officers in this league, it's an explosive league and he's one of the best at doing that. Great and explosives. Now what is legs, like standing plays, he has all the arm talent at Thunderball. 60 yards down field. So you've got to, you know, rushing coverage especially when you talk about that trust. Us as the back seven, the guys covering, you got to trust the guys in the front end to keep their rush lanes and even in the run game because James Cook obviously is a super explosive back leader in Russia last year, a ton of respect for his game. So you got to like have gap integrity as well when you talk about

50:20the right game and run fits as well. So it's going to be a good matchup. Specifically on Cook, man, how quickly can he hurt you long distance? Man, I mean, you've seen just how he tore it up, you know, really he's been like that since he got into the league, but specifically last year even against us. He was a fourth and one and he breaks it for whatever 40, 50 yards, whatever it was for touchdown. That's a short yarded situation where they're just trying to get one yard. He turned, you know, one yard into 60 yard games. So I'm going to have a lot of respect for his game and the way he plays it. How much fun will it be to take the field and a home opener in front of your fans who are so committed to backing you and being with you every step of what's going to be a long journey? Oh, yeah, man, I'm so excited. Like even like the preseason, seeing the fans, and then like when we had the open practices during training camp, we never interacted with the fans, but now like everything is like all money in. It's really counts. And you know, we're going to be wearing them all lights. I'm just so excited to have a season opener and to be here in our stadium. You guys like the Liberty Whites? Oh, yeah, for sure. I guess clean. I think me and K-Lem Bullock,

51:22we go back and forth about who wears the best, but yeah, I think I think it's me. We can say what's the answer? He copies me when he sees me go out there before you know, you look at the mannequins like he just likes to look at see what I'm wearing and then he goes and change it into whatever I got on. So if you feel good and play good all at once, right? Everything works together, man. Have a great time against Buffalo. Appreciate you, brother. Thank you. Yeah, that man is ready to go and cannot wait to see him on Sunday against the Buffalo bills. All right, let's get to, I don't say our surprise guest, but I just haven't unveiled who it is. Doug Bossick, senior vice president of marketing, CMO chief marketing officer, absolute marketing genius. We had a lot to talk about with these rivalry jerseys. Oh, such great stuff. And beyond a lot of stuff. And he's great. But one thing I love about Doug is the fact that he gives credit to so many other people other than himself. He just won't take credit. It was

52:22such a great time talking to him. Here's Doug Bossick with Mark and myself in studio with us. After a long wait, Doug Bossick, Doug, it's great to see you. Awesome to see you all too. CMO and senior vice president of marketing, great to be with you. Now it's funny because you and I were talking. I said, well, why don't you do our show? And you said, I haven't been asked. Yeah, and I thought, good point. So here you are. Yeah, you are last week was a big week. It was a bit you're busy. You're busy. Don't busy, but this is my number one place to be. Thank you. Thank you for being here with us. Well, flattering. Of course, yes. Let's talk about the rivalry uniforms. We have other questions too, by the way, Doug, but let's talk about the rivalry. Just rivalry. Of course, the rivalry uniforms. I mean, hit it out of the park to use a baseball metaphor. Really, this was a phenomenal launch of these uniforms. How did you see it? But first, what's the football version of hit a homerun, a touchdown touchdown. Just the touchdown. I know. I know what it is. It's a straight and eco count 75 yards on the first play of the game. And you see the apples.

53:25Cool. I like that. That was good. That was more than seven probably. It's hard to say. They're all the way out. So how would you characterize the opening, the launch of the rivalries uniforms? World class, best in league. Okay. I got I got the facts to back it up. Yeah, it's true. So number one across the board in sales engagement, you tell us it was crazy. You think about three phases of launch the way that the way the league does it. There's the tease phase where you can't show anything, but you could say it's coming. Then there's the debut phase. We actually unveil them. And then there's the sale phase, the way the league spaced it out. There's three different phases. This is not just like here it is. Go buy it. Right. So for us, like tease phase, it's all about content, all about PR. Number one of the A rivalry teams, we measure that through social engagement, video views, PR capture all the kind of stuff. Then there's the actual release. Here's what it looks like, everybody. Same thing. Number one to leak engagements, video views, PR capture. Awesome. And then it's like, okay, are people actually

54:29going to buy it? Right. Number one, a league in sales. So the team absolutely crushed this one from the story they built to the way they marketed it, the way we shop the story around, to getting fans excited, having essentially just a really great retail launch. The store looked amazing. We were well in stock. That in the e-commerce site. What a launch. What a launch. Number one. When you saw the jersey for the first time, Doug, did you just know like when you saw it? Because I know Mark and I got a chance to see it during media days and I turned a corner and I saw it and walked back out. I saw Mark. I said, this is the one the fans have been waiting for. Did you know when you saw it? Like, yeah, that's a hit. You never know. You never know. You operate with confidence. Right. Like we knew the story was on point, meaning we found a local story, the White Tiles and be someone that hadn't been told to that extent in a uniform from a Houston team. So we knew the story was right. Number one, number two, the White Helmet. Yeah. Right. Teasing since 1999 as someone said last week, the longest teaser ever. Right. So we knew we had something

55:33there that that fans wanted. Right. But at the end of the day, you still have to gut-check yourself. Yeah. Did we bring it to life in the right way? It looks awesome. It looked awesome on paper. The first time we saw a sample on a player, look awesome. But you also realized we're so in it that we're like, man, this thing's going to work. So you need that like healthy nervousness before opening day. You'd be like, I'm confident. I'm going to go through a bunch of TVs today. But is this going to win? So you always have that pity your stomach. So we are confident, but not overly about, was it going to, was it going to hit? All right. So I want to know about this because with the H town uniforms as we know and love and you're wearing the H on your hat right now, this H the way it all came to be, you said, let's lean into H town H town thing. This uniform is H town. But when the league comes up with this rivalry thing and I think this is a league edict, right? Like do it. But lean into your city and you're thinking, we've done that. We've leaned into the city a lot. Yeah, we just did this. So what was it like to say, let's go deeper?

56:36The timing was crazy because they came to 60s and 90 days after the last uniform was launched in still 2024. So you have like a couple months of sales data and we knew at the time, H town alternate and battle red were killing it. Like fans were going crazy for it. Obviously, aside from social and PR, but like actual sales. So we knew that they already hit and then the league says, tell a local story. Hey guys, we just did it. We really want your local story great. So you have a couple months to kind of go, how do we make H town better, even though you only have a couple months of data from sales and from paying feedback. So part of it is intuition of like if you got a dark one, she goes a little lighter. Part of it is you know, fans clamoring and as Callahan Hannah always saying the press when they're asked about H town blue, they always say, every time we get in the uniform, we're going to keep trying to get a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more. So that was the other key indicator. It was like, okay, where else can we take H town blue from call it an outline perspective on the original H alternate right and make it more prevalent in this rivalry one. And obviously,

57:38it's the number fill that's having more accents. So you kind of knew what you're playing with, but it was so early on where like we just did it right. Crazy. So when you hit the release of the uniforms of 2024 before they were coming out, I think of not the fans that I followed, but just hearing from fans, they were convinced a white helmet was happening. And then we get the red, then we get the H town. It's like, no white helmet. When did you know this had to be a white helmet? Was it in those 60s and 90s? Did you call to you? Probably, probably. If you look at the fan feedback from the last round in 2024, it was very clear the things that they wanted to see for the next opportunity. So when the lead came to us and said, you're going to have a chance for a fifth uniform. It was a no brainer. Like you have to go away. And that's the number one thing. At the time, the fans were still looking for us. You got to deliver on it. Yeah. So let's go back because you've been here for a half decade now, Doug. How about that? Does that sound long when I say it? It sounds way longer than four and a half years. Wow. Your first year, we unveiled with the older

58:40uniforms, unveiled the red helmet, the battle red helmet for the first time, training camp, wear it to a practice, warden a game. And people went nuts for the red helmet. And I think you said, hold my beer because we're about to go all in on new uniforms and everything like that. What was important to you as far as envisioning the whole thing, the whole movement of new uniforms at the time when the redesigns were on? Fan feedback. Okay. Fan feedback number one. It was interesting when I joined because obviously the brilliant people before me came up with, let's do a red alternate. That helmet launched within my first month. So that was already cooked. Okay. So all the brilliant people that were on this team before and still on this team came up with that idea. And but anything about it for a team that had not changed their uniforms at the time for 20 something years, the finally introduced the red helmet was revolutionary, right? Like people are like, oh my gosh, they're finally giving us something fresh. And you saw that level of excitement. It was something like a 96% approval rating. It was crazy. Just the fact we had a red helmet. So you kind of knew there is this appetite possibly for change. And then within my first couple months sitting down with

59:42Valentina, you know, they they asked them pretty basic questions. And as they indoctrinated to the Texans way, are we called the charge here? They're saying to me two things like Doug, how do we feel this leave all of and how do we challenge everything? And I said on uniforms, right? They're like, well, we showed on the red like we're willing to change if the fan data is there. So Doug, like go do some hardcore fan work, right? Do focus groups, talk to fan counsel, do surveys. And if the data comes back that the fans want more uniform change, we're going to support that. So it's kind of like the edict from the McNair's validated by the fans that led to like, yeah, you just do it. Fans want it. And we work in a culture where ownership supports it. Doug, I remember four and a half years ago sitting at the very first meeting that you had with us. And remember, it was in that meeting, you talked about the H, you talked about, you know, Astros got their thing or how it's got the we got to have our thing. We've got to have the age. And I'm glad you weren't at hat because

1:00:43to get to that age, I remember when again, seeing it for the first time went, that's it. But well, wait a second, why weren't we doing this before? Why was the age such a big deal to you as you were coming in saying we need to establish this? Yeah, again, it wasn't a it wasn't a meeting. I have a lens on the way I market is just, you know, we all have our own and Aaron bias when we come into a role. For me, it's always asking, does the brand represent the local community? It's always the first question I ask myself walking in. And I looked at the previous brand work and everything I've done. And I was like, Hey, you know what, the team had done a really great job of associating our brand, our club, the Texas, hence the name Pexans, where there was a gap was that local connection to Houston or to H town, whatever it may be. So the fan data is what came back and said, can you find ways to better incorporate our city and what makes our city part of the brand for Houston Texans versus just being Texas based? So that was the first nugget of insight that said, okay, more H town representation. What does that look like though? Nobody knows at the time. Right. So I think if you remember training camp 2024, we know 2022. Yeah, we threw a

1:01:48t-shirt out there. Right. Just had an H on it. It was a generic H which is audit on some website and writes to put it on t-shirt. And it sold out like crazy. Simple fact that it was an H bullhead and H town on the back. So we knew from that early on because we were selling thousands of shirts and all different colors that there is demand for it. And then we went into those focus groups. We simply asked the fans like, Hey, what if there was an H not that H? What if there's an H that made it onto a uniform? Do you feel like that checks a better box of representing H town? Yes. Hey, Doug, can you get this color that was not part of our palette back then? This H town blue color be part of the club? That's another way to check the box for a you feel like H town visually. So you took those two things together to create like where where's the local nuance that you can bring into a uniform that led to the 2024 refresh. So pretty, pretty fan validity to process all along. And then those Hs man, like you were part of that. We tested like 100 Hs. Yeah. I like I've seen more Hs in my life after a while you can't see him anymore. I got to refresh

1:02:49the talent. But you got to the right one. And again, I go back to when you see it, you know, you know, and when you saw it went, that's it. That's the one. And that's the one the fans want to be. He's going to say something. Yeah, no, we still tested it. Hey, and we still tested it and tested and tested it. The beauty of this one, like, you know, like even you'll you'll see coming out any content where we talk about the H you'll see mixed reactions online. No doubt, right? Nothing is 100% approval rating. So honestly love you're gonna see, hey, you can see whatever the what I can say had had done all the testing. It's the only H the only one that if you are a day one PSL holder Texans fan, which means you're probably a little bit older now, right? Right? In 50s, 60s or you're a 20 year old or teenager in Houston. It's the only H where very different age groups were like, that's it. That's hot. Okay. The other ones, the data split all the time. It's the only one. And people said like, Hey, it reminds me of like an OG MLB logo. So I kind of see where it is. I kind of like it. And then the younger fans were like, that looks like streetwear, album covers

1:03:51or things. So like the data really showed like it had to be the one because it's the only one where very different age groups all thought it was cool. The original age that was on the t shirt back in 2022, that'll be a collector's item. So you still have it. Might be. Oh, I've got a shirt in my closet. Absolutely. Oh, yeah, I'm saving that sucker. It'll go down for the 50th. Doug, I'm going to sell it. Maybe. Love it. So I'll be here. Doug, tell me about Nike's involvement and the process a little bit because other teams are doing this at the same time the Texans are, you get to see what the other teams are doing. Hey, can we check in on those guys? No way. I wish we could. I wish we could. But you know, at the end of the day, maybe ignorance is bliss because we came out with the best one. Yeah, it's true. I say that subjectively, of course, but I'll say, look at the data. Right? Data doesn't lie. Well, we went editorial on our show. It's a lot. It's a lot. Yeah. Yeah. So there are a lot of rules here about when you can and cannot wear alternate uniforms. And I'm not going to ask you to recite all of them right now, but it's they're very

1:04:51particular, right? On a Wednesday, the November, I don't even know. It's exactly exactly. So these will be warm for the Colts game, right? Colts game week 11 once a year, once a year. Is there any chance of them widening that that allowance? But because battle red, you can wear it once, but you can wear it twice. You can actually put it on for another game. It's not the official battle red day, but you can wear it again. Yes, we could. Yes, okay. I mean, the league has at least loosen the restrictions on alternates, right? We get to wear more than we ever have. But rivalry being the new baby is just that one. But it could get interesting, though, as you think about, you know, little secrets, all here. Okay. We're allowed to update uniforms every five years. The 2029 is our next cycle. Okay. We actually start that work this coming January. That's how long it takes. If you follow the rules, that's how long it takes. Talk about clear in the palette. If you follow the rules. Well, last time around, we pulled off the new uniforms in a year and a half. So that was that was light speed, right? So if we if we do the normal timeline,

1:05:55which means by 29, if fans love this uniform that much, maybe it becomes more of a permanent alt than it is just a rivalry. And that's not too many years from now, really. Really? Man, short amount of time. Just like that. It'll just double Doug's time here. Yes. Exactly. Let me a decade. There you go. Toral district will be open by then. Yeah. Look at that too. Yes. That'll be good. That'll be good. Holy smokes. I can't wait for that. All right. So Liberty White, fans are encouraged, required real, I'll say it. They're required to wear a white on Sunday at noon against the Buffalo bills. But there's nothing to stop people from wearing their rivalry gear, right? That's why it's why qualify whether you want to wear the white away or the new rivalry. Yeah. Please wear white. Let's go. Let's let's let's white this bowl out. Yeah. So you have no particular problem with that. This is going to be awesome. Discussion. Come on. Where where white no matter what it is. Doug, how much did the players reaction videos complain to the enthusiasm because you had a bunch of guys just reacting to it. They couldn't see it, but you could just see the reaction to it. I think the fact that the Neil Hunter had the reaction that he did.

1:06:58And we all know that the deal is pretty just across the board. Pretty, you know, he gets excited with a big play. But when he saw that that's when I was like, whoa, how much of the player's reaction kind of play into this? Yeah. It's funny. We all do player reaction videos. Ars out performed all the other ones. So our guys got extra height. They got extra animated. We knew I always go back to testing. We knew going way back to 2024. Even the players are like, man, I was hoping to get a white helmet. So we even knew from them, even though they were part of like the whole creation of it. We so helmet alone. You can just show them that helmet and do you know how I'm like, yes, right? Let's go. I think every player's reaction was a little bit different and crazy, right? Yeah. Demo who had that face that's now me worthy. Right? We're going to use that over and over again. Deniel breaking character to a bit to show that. And even look at a guy like Nico like on set, we're like, what's your favorite part? And he rattled off like 10 pieces of uniform. He's like all of it. All of it. So the reaction from the guys has been amazing. And I'm probably asking the same question. I would wear it more than once. I think what was fascinating was as soon as they saw it, they went in dog wash mode because they were like,

1:08:02they started marketing themselves like, okay, I'm wearing the blue gloves. Okay, I'm wearing the blue cleats. You know, I'm a spat with this. I'm going to do this with I'm going to wear this like they started just getting their flare all together like right there. Is that exactly right? Come on now. That's what I got. Yes. All right. So just for entertainment purposes here, let's go any sport internationally. Are there uniforms out there that you really love that inspire you? Well, maybe just like as they're cool or whatever. What can you share with us? Oh, God jumps out to you. That's a super, super deep question. It doesn't have to be US sports even. I was thinking more like internationally. I was watching primarily go over the weekend. I thought some of these are pretty cool. That's a really hard question for me to ask. Having worked previously in global soccer and on American football, the gamut is out there. And I probably contradict myself sometimes because I love crazy, loud uniforms. It's just my thing. But then I look at the classics like menu, love those uniforms, Barcelona uniforms, love those. Except my favorite Barcelona uniform is the one that everyone hated. They switched from stripes to checkereds one year. And I love that

1:09:06kit and everyone hated that one. That was a great discussion with Doug Voss. GMO chief marketing officer and senior vice president of marketing for your Houston Texans. That dude gets it done. All right. We got to get it done next prediction time, baby. Got all of our predictions. We got to do them. We're going to go rapid fire through these lot of games on Sunday. We got to do them all. We'll pick them all right here. Texas all access. Tabernor, everybody. Welcome back to this Friday edition of Texas all access from the Texas video studio. I'm your host John Harris football analyst side by reporter for your Houston Texas. So glad you are with me. But we got a lot of work to do over the next few minutes because we got to get our predictions done. We got a relatively full slated games. Yeah, one Wednesday, one Thursday and one Monday. Everything else is on Sunday. So let's rock. Give me some music and let's go. We're going to start in Pittsburgh. But the Steelers are taking on a Falcon. So it's a Falcons team that will have Cooper Rush playing quarterback. Now last time who saw Cooper

1:10:11Rush, he was playing for the Ravens as the Texans beat them 44 to 10 last year in ballpark. That's who started the Falcons Pittsburgh to six point favorite. We're playing the points that we're taking to Steelers win and cover. All right, get the Ravens bolts. Baltimore's fair by three and a half adding. That means they're about to touch down better than the Colt. That's about right. I think the Ravens are going to go into Indy. They are going to trowelts the Colts. Now let's give a 10 point. Let's go 30 to 20 Lamar Jackson and Derek Henry getting it done. All right, bears, Panthers. Bears are fair by three on the road. I think Carolina's kind of a tough place to start on the road. I think the Panthers are going to pull it up set here. They're going to win the game. Obviously, but winning the game because they're an underdog. Go cover that three point. Fred, I think Bryce Young and a Panthers Steel won from the Bears on Sunday in Carolina. Now I would love to Cleveland Browns to Steel one for the Jacksonville Jaguars, but it's not going to happen. Jacksonville's

1:11:16eight and a half point favorite. I think Jags jump all over Pasha Watson and Browns. Jags win by a couple touchdowns. Get a win and a cover. Now I think one of the surprise teams in the NFL this year is going to be the New Orleans Saints. Long as Tyler Schuck gets it done. I think it can. I think they're going to get inside that seven. It's going to be the Lions of win for the seven point spread, but the Saints get inside that seven. Somebody already said the Titans game against the Jets is a must win. Like, what? It's week one. Robert Salis first game. He's he played a game yet. What are we doing here? Titans are fair by one and a half. I think they'll get a win. Even though I'd like to see the Jets win. I think the Titans will get a win for Robert Salis. I like Robert. I hope he gets that win. Box taking on the Bengals. The Bengals are fair by three and a half. They will get that win and get the cover over the box even though it'll be a high scoring game. Jeremiah loves going to play for the cards. It won't matter. The charges will beat them mercilessly. Chargers will cover that nine and a half. Packers Vikings. Packers are going to go get the winning

1:12:18Minnesota. Even though the Vikings are fair by one and a half. Packers get the win. Dolphins, Raiders. Man, the Raiders are favored by three at home. I think the Raiders are going to get that. It's going to be one of their few wins this year. Commanders Eagles. I don't think Commanders have a chance. Eagles win that one big and the Giants are three point underdogs at home and the Cowboys are going to go to New Jersey and get that win. It's time to feel good on a Friday, right? It's like the D'Amico Ryan. It's the best way to do it. That's Texas, the Lexus. All right. We got one final segment. This edition of Texas, all access from the Texas 3. You I'm your host John Harris football analyst. It's not an out of a border for your Houston Texan. And on a Friday night heading into a weekend, I want to feel good. And there's one way that that happened here from D'Amico Ryan. Do it every Friday. Go feel good Friday. Coach Ryan's here. Week one with the head coach D'Amico Ryan's coach. Great to see you. How's it going? Great to see you guys back to it. Back to it. Indeed. I want to start here because week one,

1:13:20you're coming off a semi semi by week really. You had your third preseason game. You got down to the 53, the initial 53, the following Sunday. What's it like to get on track for week one? And has that changed for you over the years of being a head coach? My first off is just refreshing to get a little break. That's so we need a training camp is a long grind. And we needed that break this past weekend. So that was good to just hit reset, recover, recharge a little bit. And now, and now we're I'm fresh. Our guys are fresh. We know all of our guys will be out there. So I'm excited about the first game of the season just to see you. You never really know. All right. You prepare in training camp. You're going against each other a lot. You have joint practices. But now, man, we get live action full game. And it's it'll be fun to see just how it all comes together. So I'm excited to see what happens. Coach, I was chatting with Jerry Sheplinsky the other day. And we're just chatting and he said something that stuck with me because it's one of my favorite phrases. And he called chasing ghosts. And he said in week one, you could find yourself chasing ghosts.

1:14:25You don't want to do that. You just got to apply your rules and make sure that is you get ready for week one, especially for the offense because they're facing a new defensive coordinator. You don't know what Jim Latter is going to do. You have a little idea. You faced Joe Brady before. But how do you avoid chasing ghosts? Like, hey, we think they're going to do this. And we think they're going to do that. How do you kind of keep from doing that as you go into week one? Yeah, that chasing ghost thing. That's for everyone, right? Right. When you're going out, you're seeking things and you're searching deep for things that you could happen. Right. It may happen, but you have no idea. So that's why you call them ghosts. And it's easy to fall victim to that because you have so much time to prepare for this first game and you have a a new team. When I say new, you have new coordinators, new head coach. Right. So he's going to implement things that he's probably doing other places. So you say don't chase ghosts, but I find myself chasing them right. And go back to, okay, Pete Carmichael has been there. Right. He's been a long time. Sean, Peyton assistant. So you go back, you're watching some Denver film and things.

1:15:28How they attack us, you go back with Jim Leonard. He's also, he's been with Denver. So you go back in advance, Joseph, and that defensive philosophy. So you're watching that to see, okay, what could they possibly do? You go back to a lot of different things, right? But in that first game, like, you really, I tell coaches this all the time, you really don't know what they're going to do. Right. Right. So you, you can try to prepare as best as you can, but also don't want to cloudy players' minds with a ton of information that we think could this could happen. That could happen. Well, they can do whatever. Right. Right. And so for me, you start to chase them. You do just, that's what coaches do. You have extra time. You chase them. And you just try to see, okay, where have we been hurting the past? How can we prepare our guys in that way to show them a few things, a few defensive looks for offense to, hey, we got to be prepared for this type of pressure, this type of five down front defensively. Hey, you need to be prepared for these particular

1:16:31type of passes that have hurt us in the past. Man, you, you prepare that way. And then you just got to see on Sunday, hey, what happens, right? You have to trust. And I, all of our coaches, all of our players, we have to just trust our preparation and the things that we've done in training camp. And we, that's what we'll fall back on that training. We prepared a lot of days triple dizzy heat, right? We prepared the right way. Now you just have to trust that training and allow that to get you through the first game. Yep. Coach, the last practice we saw was a slug fest against the Carolina Panthers joint practice. And that was obviously our ones, their ones, that kind of thing and the twos and the twos. But how have you been practicing since then? Is it a lot of one versus one still like training camp or mostly getting ready for the bills, not to reveal everything. But what can you share with us about that? Yeah, for now, we've been practicing just really preparing for the bills. We had an extra week last week to start our preparation. We still did some good on good as we would call it one versus one just competitive periods

1:17:34because I also love those periods for the first, for the first game because as we talked about earlier, you can see anything. So defensively often, let's just line up throw your best stuff out there and let's see what happens. And so those are some of the best things you can get out of practice just by going against each other and not scripting anything, just playing normal football. Let's see what happens. And now this week we'll get into more car. It looks with our scout team, guys, giving us a good look on what Buffalo will run. Coach, today, captains are announced for guys. Those four guys have been around here for a while. They've seen some things younger dudes, a little bit older guys that have been around. You're thoughts about the four captains and CJ, Jalen will in his ease. Oh, yeah, man. I couldn't have asked for four better guys. I started with Jalen. Jalen was here before, before I got here. And I love watching Jalen from Baylor. And you get a guy who's from here in Houston, Stafford, Texas, hometown kid that plays the game like

1:18:42the right way. If I'm going to wear a jerk, it's Jalen, Pete, Jersey, right? Because of not only how the guy plays the game of football, he's fun watching Jalen play, but watch him do it in practice and watch, just watch how consistent he is as a player and watch him show up in the community. That's a stand up guy. That's a guy always root for somebody. Ask me, think it's my brother-in-law. They were asking, what jersey should we get with? And I said, man, you should check out this guy, Jalen, Pete, and his wife goes and she reads all up on Jalen, Pete, and she ends up naming her son, Jalen. Oh, wow. Wow. Great guy. Great guy. And I go to CJ, and Will, both guys have been here, going to their fourth year. Both guys are voted captains as rookies, and they have held the banner, man, through and through. CJ has done it on offense leading that group through a lot of different changes. He's still been steady,

1:19:43he's still growing as a young player. And Will, you can't say enough great things about him. You talk about the heartbeat of our team, just leader, man, compassionate. What I love about Will, a lot of people don't get to see this is everybody sees the player, right? You see how intense he is, he can give a speech. But man, if everybody could just hear this guy pray before the game, outstanding. And I have to follow that up. It's very hard for me to follow him up. But he's, man, he's the best. And then I go to a Z's, calling my baby. I've been with him the longest. It's been with the Z's since 2019. So the guy who probably knows me best and a guy know the best, this guy's grown just each and every year. He's grown. But he came into the league as a very mature young man. And he just always carried himself that way. He's that coach on the field. He's that big brother in the locker room. He's that voice of reason when I get out of my mind a little bit,

1:20:45he can bring me back in. So a Z's is that true glue guy for our locker room that no matter what position group you're in, offense, defense, special teams. If you have anything on your heart, you go talk to a Z's and he'll get you taken care of. Yeah. Well coach, you mentioned seven years ago, you're talking with a Z's, this an undrafted guy and look at him now as a captain, Walter Peyton, man of the year nominee for his club, pro bowler, all of it. And I know you want that for everybody, but not everybody can do it. But you want to bring that out. How hard is it to bring that out of these young men? Yeah, it's, you know, it's not hard to bring it out when it's in them. Right. That's what I learned from a Z's just his upbringing and who he is as a man like he's special. And, and I'm thankful to be in a position to coach him and work with him as long as I have work with him. But the young man is just special. God has something special in him. Like his heart for people is just I don't think there's another guy who has a bigger heart for

1:21:47people. I was asking him, Z's, what are you doing for your for the break? Like what do you? Oh, well, I'm going down to Galveston to help some kids and it's like, what do you not going away getting a break? Good. Like, no, that's just who he is. And he's truly man. One of my favorite players, the coach, favorite players, just to be around just because it's a it's genuine. I didn't that's what special about all those captains, right? It's genuine that there's those guys leave with their hearts first. And that's it makes my job a lot easier when you have captains of their caliber. Well, we talked with both Collins Sebastian, two undrafted for agents and they both separately. Yeah, Z's came and talked to us about that about, hey, you're an undrafted guy, but that's okay. Me. I was an undrafted guy. Speaking of undrafted guys, when you have guys like that coach that that make the team from the undrafted, that's a rookie. You're undrafted. Nobody thought highly enough of you to draft you, but you came into this camp. What did Collins

1:22:50Sebastian show you as undrafted guys to to make the 53 man roster, at least the initial 53 man roster? The thing that stood out with both of those guys is as undrafted guys is just their consistency and what's every day they went out and it was like, man, it's Colin Wright. He made another play. Yeah. And I'm showing team highlights throughout OTAs and I kid you not. I showed a play of Colin Wright every day. Intercept in the football or getting the pass break up every single day. I was like, all right, Bert, where's my Colin clip? I know it's on here somewhere every day. And then Sebastian Horst, he's just a guy who just, I mean, he just continued to like a sin. It was just every, that's like, wait, man, this kid has a little something special. Wait, man, he's explosive off the edge. Then it all culminated with the Carolina week. That's the day of joint practice. He dominated the practice and then he went out in the game and he did the same thing. And

1:23:53man, Nick, we're talking about the team because of my office. Like, there's no way we're letting this kid out, right? And as those kids, they have, it may not be all the way there, but you see that, you see a glimmer of hope there and you see this man, they have that ability. They have what it takes. It just needs a few more reps, but I mean, both of those guys are going to help us this year. And I'm thankful for, first of our scouting department, they can't get enough love and credit for finding guys who are undrafted is, it's a fight to get those undrafted guys. And it's always a battle because a lot of teams are vying for the same guys for, so I'm thankful for our scouting department of, you know, earmarking those two guys and being able to get them on our team was huge. Yeah, Coach week one, how hard is it? And everyone's in the same boat here, the conditioning side of things because you play through a half, you come out of the locker room, you play the second half game on the line, fourth quarter. How does that factor in because the guys haven't done that yet? Yeah, it'll be their first experience of going some guys over 60 plays, right?

1:24:56And some drives may get extended where you're going over, you know, 12 plays at a time. So, you know, it's really, you know, guys, most of the guys they've been there, they've done it before. So you're relying on that. We try to get our guys as ready as best as possible throughout training camp, trying to get them to hit like over 40 reps in this heat kind of thinking that correlates to 60 reps in a full game. But now they'll get more breaks than I give them in practice. So I'm hoping that help. Yeah, TV timeout. Yeah, TV time house and all those things that helps out a lot. But you know, guys have been working hard. Our strength and conditioning group. They've done a great job of prepping our guys checking their numbers, making sure they're hitting the yard is that they need to hit. They're hitting the speeds that they need to hit. So our guys be proud and ready to go. All right, coach, I feel like Mark and I are contractually obligated to ask. So we're going to ask, you can answer this however you want. What you think of the new rivalry jerseys. Oh, man, those are sweet. I mean, impressive, impressive, impressive jerseys. I mean, in the way the build up

1:26:01to it, I was like, my kids were oppressing me on it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. How do the jerseys look? What are they? I don't know. I have been seen. Oh, you've seen them? No, I really have not seen the jerseys. I was a little bit in the dark too on the jerseys and how they were looking. But man, to see how they came out to implement the Houston blue, right, and really get that Houston. My wife spoke about as she loved the us, yeah, and Houston. Like in that, in bodies, Houston, right? It's about everybody the community we have here is special. And I'm thankful that the reception from the fans, they love the jerseys. I mean, we have people lined up outside the stadium. I mean, everybody's trying to get some gear. Yeah. I'm trying to get some gear too. So it was really cool. Our man are marketing team. They did an outstanding job on those jerseys. You got to built in focus group like the perfect one because you've got the right age kids. Yes, but also have a wife from Houston. Yes, the perfect. They're going to make me know man.

1:27:04They're going to sound like on the yesterday like that. He wears my jersey. With your mother because right in Texans team shop. So plots are limited, I guess. I don't know, but they keep reloading. Coach Josh Allen, we have to talk about him here for a moment. And I know you've had success against him. But at the same time, you've had some amazing games against him. Yet these games come down to the wire anyway, the last couple of years. What about facing him? Hey, you talk about a tough out. This dude is, man, he's exceptional. You talk about a quarterback who can really where he sets himself apart is his ability to run the football, his ability to not only just run it, but man, I'm going to buy time running to the sideline and still have my eyes down feel. And I can still throw the ball 60 yards. So it just makes it difficult. Right, he's going to get out of the pocket. You talk about rush lane integrity and being where you're supposed to it's going to take guys just continuing to rush. He's going to find a lane.

1:28:04So how are you relentlessly pursuing him as a rusher? How are you relentlessly sticking in coverage as a as a defensive back as a linebacker? Man, you talk about the stamina and the energy you need is it takes a little bit extra playing against Josh just because of how he extends plays. So really great player. He's been MVP in our league for, you know, for a reason because and he's kept Buffalo in the playoffs every year. He's been there for a reason because of his playmaking ability coach. How important were those joint practices just from a standpoint of seeing, especially for your offense, seeing a different front than than the defense here runs. How important was that? Like I know Buffalo might do totally different things from Carolina, but they may line up the same way. How important was it for your offense to see a different front and some different coverage structures, but in particular the front, like they're going to see potentially against Buffalo. Yeah, the joint practice was very beneficial from that standpoint. Carolina runs the five down under front that will see Buffalo run when we put base out on the field.

1:29:09That'll be their base defense. They're going to try to make sure they stop the run. But it also the five down front gives you a little variety. You can send five. You can drop in outside linebacker. You can really hide your pressures a little bit more with the five down space. And I know that's what Jim wants to do. He wants to right confuse the offense a little bit. So it definitely gives him that flexibility by using the five down front. But I thought our guys handled that really well in Carolina and their first time going against it. And so we have some, you know, we have some reps to go back and look at how we handle those pressures and the five down spacing. So like our guys are comfortable with that. I'm going against Carolina. We needed that work against them hitting in a week one. Coach offensive line. Now that we're in the regular season and we talked about playing 60 minutes and all those snaps and everything. We're really going to see the fruits of your labor, right? The off season, how it all looks so far. And correct me if I'm wrong. Sometimes it takes two or three weeks to really see what it's going to look like long term. But you tell me how do you see it?

1:30:11Yeah, I see it. I see it very well, man. For our offense align last year at this time, I was thinking back, we were still kind of shuffling guys trying to figure it out. Like who was going out there? Our first five guys, well, our five guys now they've been working together for the past couple weeks. Okay. Right. So they have that that continuity. They have that. Hey, the guards and the tackles, those guys have been communicating with each other for the past couple of weeks. So it's not fresh and new hitting week one. And I think that'll that'll lend us some. There was some moments to really go through some little I think go through a transition a little bit easier when we do see a look that we may not have scouted, right? Those guys have communicated. We can fall back on that way. Hey, let's just go with it. Guys have can communicate better. Guys will be on the details. I think it'll help just having a consistent five guys out there. I'm excited to see how it looks. I think guys doing a really great job when it comes to protecting CJ all throughout training camp. When it comes to the run game, they've done a great job of working

1:31:14together. And that's what is about those five guys working well together. I'm excited to see what this group can do in this game. It's always going to come down to how you play up front. Right? Right. If we play well up front, we can run the ball well. It's going to start with how they block. So I'm excited about this group. They've done a good job of jelling well together. All right, coach, I'm asses knowing that as I've got an older, I feel like I've softened my stance on things. So I'm going to see if that's happened to you. But as I was watching college games this weekend, I kept seeing players grab the surface and do video on the sidelines, make adjustments and see the video on the sideline. Like I asked this question of you last year, you're before and you were like, no, no, just pictures and that's it. As you got a little older, as you thought, maybe maybe some video, especially in a, especially in a game like this where, you know, maybe Buffalo's doing some new things early on the season, you want to see it. Would you ever want video down on the sidelines? You know, it's, it feels like an advantage where you have video on the sideline,

1:32:18but I know just how the game is growing. High school, they have a video. They have a video on the sideline colleges having. So I think it'll be coming our way at some point, but I think most coaches who've done it for a while, you want that competitive advantage of guys who can actually see pictures and kind of piece together what actually happened, as opposed to some guys who can't. So you want to have that competitive advantage, I'm not having a video where guys just have the answers. Yeah. Easy and it's right there in real time. All right. The Amigee Bank asked coach question of the week coach, how much have you changed as a head coach? Probably evolved an awful lot. You're entering year four here, but what can you tell us about that side of things? Not everything you've learned necessarily, but some key points here as you do enter year fours. You are a very established veteran head coach now. A veteran now. Oh, man. Well, I would like to just say, just trying to, again, just delegate more, just trying to be more calm in the moment. It's just trying to,

1:33:24yes, understand that I don't have to do everything. Right. And I think that's where I've grown as a coach, really leaning on the coaches a little bit more, just trying to have more dialogue with players on, hey, how do you see this? Hey, what should we call this? Just trying to have more player input. Just trying to make sure, you know, I'm leading everybody right alongside them, heading not just leading from telling everybody what to do. It's like, let's have a conversation and let's figure this out together. What's best for us? Just so think when I come to growing as a head coach, I think it's just more, more of listening, more of trying to understand better from a player perspective and also the coaches perspective. So we can all just we're all trying to achieve the, the same thing. All right. And there are a lot of different ways to get there. A lot of different ways you can draw up a play offensively defense special teams. What's the best for our guys? What

1:34:26are our guys most comfortable with? And let's help our guys and put them in those positions as best as we can as many times as possible. Let's get out of the meeting rooms a little bit more. Let's go walk and talk a little bit more and in a kind of less hectic situation. And I feel like that's helping our players a lot more. Yeah, it's enough to do it right there. Coach, making me feel good about this one on Sunday. Hopefully did the same for you. So big thanks to coach, the big thanks. All of you out there for listening. Thank you so very much. It means a lot to Mark and I everybody with Texans that you're listening, taking it all in. We'll see you on Sunday. Again, kick is at noon, but get in there, man. Get in there. Ready for intro. Get that place rocking from play one all the way through the last play of the game. Like you did last year. It'll be awesome. Hopefully the Texas will walk out of there. One, and oh, we'll see how it's done. Everybody is always. Thanks.