Albert Breer on Top Combine Standouts, David Montgomery to Texans

The running back position was a problem for the Texans.

All right.

Welcome in the Breer report for March 3rd.

We are a little less than a week away from the beginning of the legal tampering period.

We are a little more than a week away from the beginning of the league year.

That means draft season is underway.

That means trades are happening.

That means free agency is almost here.

So we A lot to cover this morning with the franchise tag deadline also looming here at 4 o'clock.

And our first topic will be the moves of the Houston Texans.

It was a busy Monday for the Texans.

They trade for David Montgomery, sending 4th and 7th round picks and interior offensive lineman Juw Scruggs to the Detroit Lions.

And they trade away Titus Howard to the Cleveland Browns for a 5th-round pick.

Now, there are two ends to this trade that are important to look at, and I think important to analyze as we look at the fallout of all of this.

Number 1, the running back position was a problem for the Texans early last year because of their reliance on Joe Mixon.

Joe Mixon had a serious foot injury that wound up taking him out for the entirety of the year.

They did get a spark late in the season from Woody.

Marks, promising rookie out of USC and so bringing in David Montgomery will give them a little more stability in the backfield, and this isn't a great running back class.

Yeah, two players at the top, both the Notre Dame guys.

Jeremiah Love probably goes somewhere in the top 10.

I'd say Jaar and Price probably goes in the 1st 60 or 70 picks.

And after that, you may not have another back go in the 1st 3 rounds of the draft.

So that being the case, the Texans having just gone through the Joe Mixon thing, Woody Marks coming back off of his rookie year, it makes all the sense in the world to go and get somebody like David Montgomery to solidify that position.

There were some options in free agency.

This is a little bit more of an economical move from a financial, from a cap standpoint.

And so they bring in David Montgomery.

That piece of this does make some sense.

The other piece is interesting because they traded away two offensive linemen, and it's Stu Scruggs, who's been a sometime starter for them at, uh, at, at Garden Center, and then it's Titus Howard, a former first-round pick of theirs, who to me, Um, was probably their bedrock on the offensive line last year with so many moving parts.

And so I think to really understand what the Texans are doing here on the offensive line, you actually have to go back two years to 2024.

They felt like things got toxic in that offensive line room.

They felt like they needed to overhaul it.

I'm just not sure anybody saw the overhaul coming to the degree that it has wound up coming.

Um, if you look at the last game of the 2024 season, that would have been the divisional playoff game in Kansas City.

There were nine linemen on the roster for that game against the Chiefs.

Seven of those nine were active.

Of those nine linemen, only 2 remain as Jarrett Patterson and Blake Fisher, both young linemen out of Notre Dame, both developmental guys, both guys are still on the roster.

Again, those guys are sort of part-time starters.

Uh, haven't nailed down positions yet, but those are the only two guys left from that game, which was less than 14 months ago.

So this is a complete and total overhaul for the Houston Texans on their offensive line.

They went and took care of one important position last year in drafting Ariante Ursy in the 2nd round.

He did a nice job, um, at left tackle, uh, as a rookie.

Whether or not he's the long-term answer at left tackle, I think it's an open.

Question, but now you look towards the draft and some of the return that they got for Laremy Tunsil is a part of, of, of, of their war chest of picks this year.

And after the Montgomery trade, and after the Titus Howard trade, what are they left with?

Well, they still have 3 picks in the 1st 2 rounds, and they still have 7 picks in the 1st 5 rounds.

So, the Texans now are under a lot of pressure.

To get the offensive line right.

It wouldn't surprise me if they go out and sign somebody in free agency, and you've seen some of the names that are out there.

Um, it wouldn't surprise me if they doubled down on the offensive line in the draft.

But you have to think over the course of the next two months, through free agency, through any additional trades through the draft, the Texans are gonna be hyper-focused on getting the offensive line right, and they do have the capital to go and do that.

Going and getting David Montgomery is gonna take some of the pressure off of CJ Stroud and, and, and the guys in the passing game.

I think having an ability to find and develop young linemen is gonna be a real swing factor here for the Texans.

Like, are the Texans with, you know, what looks like the best defense in football, if not right there with Seattle, um.

Are the Texans a 9 or a 10-win team that's contending for the AFC South, or are they a 13 or 14 win team, which I think they have the potential to be in competing for a Super Bowl and competing to go and win a world championship.

If they can hit.

On a couple of offensive linemen in the draft, if maybe they can add a lineman in free agency.

If they can do what the Chiefs did a few years ago when they overhauled their offensive line, and it led to them getting back to that high level they had been at before, when they went, they drafted Trey Smith and they drafted Creed Humphrey, and you'll remember they went and signed Juan Taylor in free agency.

They brought in Donovan Smith from Tampa.

Um, if they can do that, if the, if the Texans can do that over the course of the next two months.

Then, uh, then all this will have made sense.

There's a lot of pressure on Nick Caserio, Damio Ryans, and all of those guys to get that pos those positions right over the course of this winter and spring.

Um, all right, our second topic is the thinking of the Lions and the Browns with these moves, and in both cases, These are offensive line-centric moves.

Uh, the, the, the Lions let go of Graham Glasgow on Monday, kind of the corresponding move to bringing in Juice Scruggs.

Um, I would expect that the Lions are going to , in the draft, address their offensive line.

Their offensive line isn't bad, and I don't want anybody to take that away from, from what I'm saying here.

But, you know, over the course of the last couple of years, Taylor Decker's gotten older, Frank Ragn's retired.

You lost Jonah Jackson a couple of years ago, you lost Kevin Zeiditler.

So there are all of these.

Moving pieces here on the offensive line, and now, how do you go and do you reset that because that was the strength of your team.

Again, they're good in that area.

Can they be great in that area again?

And I think that's what you're looking at.

The Lions are trying to get back to the point where they can be great in that area again.

They viewed you Scruggs as a, as a good young player to plug in and see if you can get a little bit more out of him than Houston did.

Obviously, it's an ancillary piece to a trade where you wind up getting a 4 and a 7 for a player who, you know, maybe was looking for a little bit of a contract adjustment, um, and so you come out of this with a line lineman to put in the hopper, and again, it's not, it's not the move that the Lions are gonna make this offseason as far as upgrading their offensive line, but I think it could be a precursor.

To more moves coming, and the same goes for the Browns.

You know, the Browns going and bringing in Titus Howard, gives them a guy who come, who can come in, who can play tackle, who can play guard.

You've got some flexibility there with what you can do with him.

He's played left tackle in the past.

I think he's mostly been a right tackle, but you can move him inside.

Um, and with Joel Batonio up with some uncertainty on Wyatt Teller, um, where is Dewan Jones?

Like where are you gonna wind up playing him?

Is he a left tackle?

Is he a right tackle?

Do you move him inside?

You bring in another guy with some flexibility, some position flexibility that I think, I think can help you over the course of the next couple of years as you look to rebuild that offensive line.

That's really been a problem the last couple of years for you.

So for both the Lions and Browns, I think we're seeing sort of the first moves towards reimagining where they are in their offensive line.

All right, finally, um, we have the combine in the books now, and as always, there were guys that jumped out and guys that Uh, made a move and I think this year is an interesting one from that perspective and that you don't have the super prospects at the top.

There isn't a locked-in top 5 or a locked-in top 10.

There are a lot of guys that might have this shortcoming or that shortcoming.

You don't have the prototype Julio Jones receiver.

You don't have the prototype Miles Garrett defensive end.

You don't have the prototype Patrick Certan corner or Joe Alt, left tackle.

So that's allowed for, I think, some uncertainty at the top, and that's gonna mean some guys with a chance.

No, you're not gonna turn from the 30th pick into the 4th pick, but maybe a guy has a chance to go from 6 to 3 or a guy has a chance to go from 19 to 12.

And so you saw some guys making some of those moves over the course of our week in Indianapolis and a couple of names that really stuck out to me.

Number one is the name that we gave you from the start.

That's Kenyon Siddiq, the Oregon tight end.

Just an unbelievable workout .

That's what most of the scouts expected.

At 6'3 and about 240 pounds, he ran a 4.

3940, jumped 43.5 inches, did 26 reps on the bench press.

I mean, these numbers, again, 26 reps on the bench press would be a good number for a lineman.

And a 43,940 and a 43.5 inch vertical would be good for a 5' 10, 160 pound receiver.

So the fact that Siddiq can generate these sorts of numbers, I think really elevates him.

He's already a good player.

So now, how do you view him?

Well, you're gonna have to have a vision for him because he's a little bit more of a Brock Bowers type, where he's not a traditional wide tight end, uh, but he certainly helped himself, um, and, you know, with the Shannon Sharp type of build, I think a team that has a vision for him.

Uh, would be comfortable taking him now in the middle of the first round.

Eli Stowers, the, the, the tight end from Vanderbilt, another guy to watch at a 45.5 inch vertical, that's pretty incredible.

I'd say the other star of the combine would be Sonny Stiles, the linebacker from Ohio State, ran a 4.46 in the 40, jumped 43.5 inches.

Um, he is, uh, 6'5, 244 pounds, just Like every athletic box you want to check has been checked, and on top of that, he blew it, blew teams away in the meetings.

Very, very good in the meeting room.

Uh, they felt like the year under Matt Patricia really helped him from a football IQ standpoint.

And so now, are we talking about Sonny Styles going 5th to the Giants?

Are we talking about him going 7th to the Commanders?

Those sorts of things are in play now with this sort of athletic testing.

He was already a really good prospect.

Jeremiah Love, they checked every box that, that, that, that you'd expect him to check, run sub 44, in the 40, that's good at 212 pounds.

Uh.

You know, it's more confirmation with what Jeremiah Love.

You wanted to, you wanted to see what showed up on tape, it showed up in his testing, it showed up in the position drills, um, a Bjon Robinson type of prospect, so he'll likely go somewhere in the top 10 for some teams.

I think he's gonna be right there, um, with the top prospect, with, with the very top prospects in the draft, maybe number 1 for some teams.

Uh, David Bailey from Texas Tech, Arvel Reese from Ohio State, both sort of confirmed what teams thought about them with the athletic testing.

Bailey was just over 4.5 .

Um, you had Arvel Reese coming in at 446.

Uh, both those guys, I would guess right now will go inside the top five.

the comparisons you're hearing for Reese, he's like a Micah Parsons type of prospect with David Bailey, you hear a little Khalil Mack as a pass rusher.

He's not as stout as Mack.

I've heard some, some comments to, to Nick Bonito.

So both those guys go, go, go likely go in the top 5.

Brendan Thompson from, from, from Mississippi State, he's little, but ran 426.

And that's gonna help him.

So he's, he, he's got a shot there.

And then finally, among the big men, Caleb Lomu, the, uh, the big man from, from the University of Utah.

You might ask why, uh, Spencer Fto, who's likely gonna be a top 10 pick, maybe the first lineman to go, he'll be right there with Francis.

Maui Noah from Miami , why, why, why Thano wasn't the left tackle.

Well, Caleb Lomu is why.

If you look at Caleb Lomu physically, about 6'6, 319 pounds, um, he looks like he was made in a lab to play left tackle.

Um, ran 499, 32.5 inch vertical.

I think he solidified himself as a first-rounder, and he's gonna be a really interesting prospect for somebody because he's still raw.

He's not the player Spencer Fo is.

Um, but I think a lot of people look at Caleb Lomu and say, man, 23 years down the line, this guy could be a top-flight NFL left tackle if you can get your hands on him and develop him a little bit.

And as always, I appreciate you guys coming out.

We're gonna have you covered all the way through.

So free agency, any trades that happen in the draft season, we'll have our regularly scheduled reports, we'll have some emergency brewer reports for you.

It'll all be here and we appreciate your feedback.

We love your feedback.

We're gonna incorporate your feedback.

So please leave your feedback down below here by commenting on the YouTube page or you can get to me on my social media at Albert Breer on Twitter, at Albert R.

Breer on Facebook, at Albert_Breer on Instagram.

We will see you guys on Wednesday.