I'm a little pissed off that John Harbaugh didn't listen to me.
Uh, we're talking about Giants Texans this weekend, which is oddly.
One of the great, like, one of the premier matchups of this weekend, which you could say, uh, you know, it, it says a lot, but it's Houston heating up.
It's the Giants trying to stay on top of this just disgusting NFC East, and John Harbaugh ends up pivoting, um, to JJ McCarthy, the consummate Michigan man.
So take whatever Albert says, uh, with a grain of salt .
Yeah, CJ Stroud revenge game from 2022.
Oh, right, yeah, and Marvin Harrison, right, go get him, Siege.
Let's start with the JJ McCarthy of it all though, um, you know, we, we, we kind of deep dove on this on the show on, uh, on, uh, Monday, and it's an interesting move.
It's probably the biggest move that Harbaugh has made as head coach so far outside of green lighting the Dexter Lawrence trade, right?
Um, and this one.
I think you, you know, you've always been good at kind of bringing this perspective where this is probably, you know, this is probably gassing up the locker room a little bit more because it, it, it may be hard to get the guys going against Houston with James in the lineup and just kind of understanding what James has been .
Yeah.
I just think it's premature and And I'll stand on the hill saying that, like, JJ McCarthy doing what he did against the Saints, like, Kellen Moore was pulling starters at that point.
It was effectively like a permanent 2-minute drill.
Sometimes it's easier to get those deep completions in there, and I get it.
I, I've heard the explanations.
It all makes sense.
JJ is closer in complexion to Jackson Dart, so you can run a version of the offense that they installed during training camp.
Fine.
Totally get it.
But Jameis, if you look at, if you look at James, and you listen to James, and you look at James's past, his level of don't give a, you know what, is beyond a 10.
If this guy has a shit game against the Houston Texans, it will not matter one iota to him in the future, like, that guy is beyond consequence, personally.
If JJ McCarthy gets walloped by this defense, and this is a 10-point spread going into Sunday, so I think Vegas thinks he's getting walloped.
I think he's getting walloped.
What happens to that kid?
And then you can't bench him again.
You gotta ride with him, you know, and so I think that's where you're getting yourself stuck a little bit.
In my mind, JJ is sort of the quintessential, like once you go with him, you have to roll with him, um, and I just, you know, I, I, I, I'm with everyone on, like, he is a fit for what Matt Nagy was building for Jackson Dart, like you mentioned.
I think that's true.
Um, in a lot of ways, like there are stylistic similarities between him and Jackson Dart.
Um, and, you know, when I ask people like to compare the two, JJ may have a stronger arm.
I think Dart has maybe a little more arm talent in his ability to change speeds.
The question with JJ is like the sturdy build that Jackson Dart has to run RPOs and be and use his legs to get around like, like JJ has already been hurt a bunch and doesn't have the same build that Jackson Dart does, but I can see where you can make it work.
Like my question is how much of the offense can he possibly have right now after only having been there for a couple of weeks.
And what's that gonna look like against Houston?
And I think I'd be, I'm, I'm gonna be curious if you agree with this.
I think if Houston is gonna take off, we'll see it this week.
I think if Houston's gonna, if they, if that that went over the Jaguars was their foot in the ground moment, right?
Like where they're turning it and now all of a sudden you're gonna see what they really can be to me, like this is, this is it.
This is the week and it's, and it's gonna be foot on the gas.
And they wind up winning, winning this going away, and they go into their buy with a great shot to reset, you know, and so, I, I sort of look at it that way.
They've got a wounded Giants team at home.
For the Texans, this should be the one, you know what I mean?
Like, where it's like, oh, They are the team that they were last year, you know.
A couple of things.
I, I think one, CJ Stroud has been playing phenomenally well this season.
And, and, uh, you know, you go 0 and 4, and I think that that goes a little bit unnoticed.
But here's what's happening in real time.
Last year, the struggle, I think in part was like, the Texans did something that teams don't really do anymore, and that is take, you know, he was in kind of a pre-baked.
Kind of Miller-lite version of the Kyle Shanahan offense, and it was working for him, right?
But they wanted to pivot, Stroud wanted more control, and so they bring in kind of a hybrid version of what McVeigh does for Stafford and what the Patriots had historically done for Tom Brady, right?
That makes you a little bit more of a pre-snap quarterback.
That gives you a lot of flexibility at the line, but that also demands of you that you understand coverages at a doctorate level, that you understand protections at a doctorate level, and that you can operate all this at basically the speed of light.
We saw the struggles with that a little bit last year, but what we've seen this year.
are myriad examples of the correct identification of when a route needs to be adjusted, uh, when you're seeing someone come hot and you have your read on a blitz.
And so, Stroud now, like, this is the benefit of it.
This is the payoff.
You go through a little bit of a struggle, and I think this is probably where I failed as an analyst last year, and I think a lot of people failed in saying, oh, Stroud's just being crappy, Stroud's just being crappy.
And Nick Casario's out there like, what the F are you talking about?
I'm not gonna, you know, I'm not gonna trade this guy.
Now, he didn't sign him also, so I think he may have had some of those doubts too, but I think that everyone was waiting for that moment where the rubber met the road.
And now credit to Stroud because He is now gonna get himself 70 million bucks a year because, you know what I mean?
Like it was a nice little, it was a nice little gamble if he keeps paying this way, uh, playing this way.
Defensively.
This is still a top 6 unit in dropback success rate, opposing quarterback dropback success rate, and they're 11th against the run in the NFL in terms of EPA per play.
And I think that what we have to, what we have to consider, and the Texans have been saying this.
And I, I get it.
I'm Texans defender in chief this year.
I'm the guy whose name is under the, the byline on the cover preview issue, and everyone's saying I'm the jinx, I'm the jinx, and I, I, I gotta defend my, my, my pick here, uh, my Super Bowl pick, but Um, they were also one of the unluckiest teams in the NFL through the 1st 5 weeks of the season.
Like, guys are making insane catches, um, 50/50 balls, there were drops, there were weird fumbles that they weren't recovering.
There was a ton of stuff, weird weird oddly timed penalties, everything, right?
And so, I think that the Texans are now just getting to the other side of this, and the credit to them should be the fact that like, Nobody's gonna, nobody's betting with any degree of confidence that they won't make the playoffs now.
Well, I mean, and here's the other thing is if they can win this one, they have their buy.
Then at Chargers, at Browns, Colts on Thursday night.
That could be 6 and 4.
And now you're going, you're, you're, you're, you're having Baltimore come in, coming off of your mini buy your 6 and 4 Thanksgiving weekend.
I I mean, Connor, you look at the rest of their schedule, it's, it's freaking manageable, you know what I mean?
Like it's really manageable and like I, I just, I don't know, I, I like, I think if CJ can keep up this pace, they have too much talent on defense, and I, I think like you start to see, OK, Marvin Harrison is gonna be able to make an impact and Jalen Noel looks like, I mean, like a real star, and we'll see what they get with Tank Dell coming back, but You know, the one question I still have, and this is where the Giants will be able to, to, to, to really test them, is the offensive line.
And the Giants should be able to really test.
The Texans and how far they've come along in that area.
Um, but I just about everywhere else, it looks like they're OK.
Not OK, they're good , just about everywhere else.
If you get something from Dell and Marvin Harrison's.
70% of the Marvin Harrison we believed we were getting in the draft.
This all of a sudden becomes like the second deepest wide receiver room in the NFL, like, and that was after losing a guy they thought was going to become a star in Jaden Higgins.
Right, I mean, next year, I don't wanna get ahead of ourselves, but imagine what like if Harrison becomes this, you imagine Collins, Harrison, Higgins.
It's like a basketball team out there, you know what I mean, that you're dealing with.
Like if you remember the old school Chargers offenses when they had Vincent Jackson and Malcolm Floyd and all of those guys, yeah, yeah, like it's, they have a, it's, it's a really, really interesting situation going forward for the Texans.