I'm taking over as the GM for the worst NFL franchise. The Houston Texan, and this video can't end until we hoist the Lombardi trophy. And my first move as GM will be to trade everywhere. Let's start with all the positives. We of course have CJ Stroud out of Ohio State, the second overall pick in the draft. He may not be able to read or write, but he can play ball. This is gonna be the cornerstone of our franchise. We have a young and very well-developing Damian Pierce. We have one of the best tackles in football in Laramie Tunzel, a solid guard in Shaq Mason. We picked up Dalton Schultz from the Cowboys, who for some reason has white hair. On defense, our highlights are Jimmy Ward, 87 overall. Jalen Petrie is one of the most underrated rookies in the league, probably because he's on the Texans. But this is a 77 overall, 24-year-old, only one year of experience in the league. That's a future team cap. We're definitely hanging on to him. We also drafted Will Anderson. If CJ Stroud was a bit of a gamble and we're not sure on his talent, this is the exact opposite. Will Anderson is a freak of nature, virtually guaranteed to be a dominant factor on this defense. And he has 87 speed, 90 acceleration. He has the core of what could be an absurdly good left end, but we gotta get him there. And at DBs, we have Desmond King. Not a ton of room for him to get much better, but a solid starter. And of course, Derek Stingley as well, super young, could be super talented. We just gotta get him there. Now let's talk about the bad. We have arguably the worst wide receiver core in the NFL, with our primary wide receiver being Robert Woods. We did draft Tank Dell, but he is a 72 overall. The offensive line is quickly depleted. Jack Mason is not getting any younger. Howard is okay, Scruggs is bad. And although Kenyon Green is a star and young, he's only a 69 overall. So hopefully we can improve him as we go. On defense, Will Anderson is carrying a very heavy load. He really doesn't have a lot of help down here. All bronze is except for him. And I think the weakest point of this entire squad is the linebackers.  His backup is Toa Toa, who's a 66 overall, and Corey Littleton is a 70. This team has so much potential, so many players that could be incredible. Will Anderson, Derek Stingley, CJ Stroud, but as it stands, we're not gonna win any football games. My plan as GM is very simple. Since we're coming off the worst record, we are also going to have the easiest schedule in the NFL. Our first game is against the Ravens. Then we take on the Colts, the Jaguars, the Steelers, the Falcons, the Saints, week sevens of bye week. Then we've got the Panthers, the Buccaneers, the Bengals, the Cardinals, the Jaguars, the Broncos, the Jets, the Titans, the Browns, Titans once again, and then the Colts. But truly the greatest asset to the Texans franchise right now is our draft capital. After trading to Sean Watson to the Cleveland Browns for a ton of picks, we have a lot to work with. And I know I've never done a rebuild before, so please, if you guys have any advice or tips, let me know. But I wanted to rebuild this team because we're already young, already developing, and we still have a lot of capital to use. We have two first round picks in 2025, which of course is determined by how well we play as well as the Browns. I don't predict the Browns are gonna be very good either. So these could be some very nice picks for us. And for anyone wondering about the settings, it's all pro simulation, five minute quarters. If that is different than the standard, please let me know. If you really have no idea, if you guys are gonna enjoy this video or not, so it's just a little test run. If you love it, I'll happily rebuild other teams. My strategy for the Texans is simple. We are going to hit the ground running with CJ Stroud. Keeping Shaq Mason and Laramie Tunsel should help. I like the addition of Dalton Schultz, but CJ Stroud needs an elite wide receiver, and I'm not willing to wait for Tank Dell to get there. Stroud has excellent intangibles like speed and acceleration. So I'm gonna focus his upgrades on field general, just continuing to get his accuracies better and better. We get the accuracy deep and the accuracy mid, perfect. But before week one, we're gonna believe in our rookie QB and find ourselves a wide receiver. Now we just gotta find a team willing to part ways with our wide receiver. An optimal target is somebody like T Higgins. The Bengals do have a ton of depth at wide receiver. T Higgins is 24 and six foot four. Him and Stroud could be monsters for a long time, but I'm gonna have to give up a lot to get T Higgins. I do wanna retain my 2024 first and second round, but I could part ways with the third round. And I do anticipate that we will have a significantly better year next year, but I don't know if the Bengals know that. I'd offer our first round pick in 2025, which I don't think will be as high as the Cincinnati Bengals imagine. Additionally, I'll offer Robert Woods, our current wide receiver one. They're probably not that interested in him, but I wouldn't mind offloading him since we won't really use them anyway. A first, a third and Robert Woods for T Higgins. Were they bites? Oh, they bit. This is my first ever rebuild. I had no idea if they'd accept that or not. They did accept the trade. T Higgins is a Houston, Texas. Wait, that was way easier than I imagined it would be.  That's a good start. Higgins is looking crispy in his new threads. Six, four, 24 years old. We're gonna have to pay him a lot of money. And he gets three superstar abilities. As far as simulating goes, I'm not entirely sure what's the best here, but I'll give him deep in elite, mid in elite and short in elite, why not? So we lose future draft capital to put CJ Strout in an excellent position to win offensive rookie of the year. I think that's a good trade off. Now as for defense, there's a lot of work to be done here, but I won't make any adjustments yet. We still have a strong draft pick this year, and I wanna see how this season starts out. My goal for this season is just seven wins. I don't anticipate making the playoffs in our first year. I just want CJ Strout to develop. And if Will Anderson and Jaylen Petrie have an amazing year, even better. I expect CJ Strout to show flashes of greatness. Beat the Ravens and get two plus passing touchdowns with CJ Strout. I have a feeling he can get the passing touchdowns. I don't think we beat the Ravens here though. Now we sim to mid season and see just how well our strategy worked. I know it's just a rebuild, but I feel very responsible for how well this team does. At mid season, we're one and five, not good. Let's see where our players are. Will Anderson is becoming a monster speed rusher. Up to an 80 overall, still two more skill points. See, I already forgot that I gotta do skill points in between every single game. This is my rebuild virginity, guys. You gotta give me some time, but I am really excited to see where we can take this team. Will Anderson gets speed finesse, tackling awareness. He's up to an 82 overall. Morale is low in Houston, but damn, he's starting to look good already. 88 speed, 91 acceleration. CJ Strout's moving up as well. Up to a 77 overall. Improving his accuracy slowly, but once again, Morale is hurting the squad right now. He's got 89 throw power, 85 deep, 87 medium, and 90 short. I think once he gets the 90 pluses, I'll start to go into things like improviser so I can get throw on the run, play action under pressure. Wow, his accuracies are already really solid. Love to see that tank Dell has three upgrades already, so he's making moves. I'm gonna continue on Playmaker with him. Good Lord, that's a lot of stats. I know that Playmaker is the one that gives you just a plethora of stat upgrades. I don't know if that necessarily makes it the best, but damn, he's getting a lot of upgrades right now. Awareness, juke, medium, and spin. Tank Dell up to a 75, still hidden depth. T Higgins, I'm gonna stick with physical. I think that's perfect for him, and that's a massive upgrade too. Awareness, break tackle, medium, release, short spec, and trucking for T Higgins. 96 spectacular catch, 95 catch in traffic for the big man. We also have a breakout de-lineman. I wonder if this could be Will Anderson. Will Anderson is still hidden dev, and he's already getting an upgrade. I assume he's a star, and this'll take him to superstars, so this is a pretty massive, pretty massive upgrade for him. Also, so that doesn't happen again. I turned on auto-progress players so that my players aren't just sitting on skill points in between these games. I will be using an auto-generated class. Technically, I could import guys like Caleb Williams, but that's so far out. I wanna try the auto-generated rookies anyway, because I've never done it. Probably more fun that way, we actually got a scout. I also need to adjust this depth chart. John Mechie is young, I could keep him there, but Noah Brown's gotta move down. He's got six years experience in the league, he's not getting much better. I'm gonna move Nico Collins to my wide receiver two, and I'm actually gonna move Tank Dell to my wide receiver three. John Mechie currently does feel like a little bit of wasted talent. Maybe I could trade him, but for now I want my three-man guys to be T Higgins, Nico Collins, and Tank Dell. I use all my staff points on juicing CJ Stroud. We've got short accuracy, break sack, medium accuracy, and throw under pressure for him as well as two upgrades into catching for wide receiver and tight ends. This is the season for CJ Stroud. The league leader in passing yards right now is no shocker, Patrick Mahomes, and Anthony Richardson is actually playing very well with 1,500 passing yards. Brock Purdy's at 1,400, Pezman Ritter's at 1,400, Bryce Young's at 1,378, and coming in behind is CJ Stroud. Nine touchdowns, eight interceptions, 64% completion, he's definitely got some work to do. Actually, the only rookie whose deb trade is not revealed right now is Tank Dell. CJ Stroud is star, as well as Will Anderson, so this is a confirmed superstar breakout for Will Anderson, would be massive if he gets it. And we gotta look at the prospects in the draft as well. Number one right now is a wide receiver, Max Rhodes, 6-3 out of Louisville, that's a big boy, with a catch and a deep route running. This catch and traffic is C, we just don't need a wide receiver, we got T Higgins. Jayce Parks, I don't need myself a QB either, and Alex Barrow left tackle. Technically we could draft a tackle and trade Laramie Tunzel. I don't know, I kind of like Laramie Tunzel. What I wouldn't mind is pairing Will Anderson up with another dominant edge rusher. And since my linebacker core is kind of decimated, I could draft an edge rusher and move Will Anderson to linebacker, which isn't completely out of the question. Will Anderson is a slightly undersized left end. It's not crazy to think he could be an outside linebacker. There's also a middle linebacker, Trevor Hatchett. He's at pick 10, which might be a little far down for the Texans right now, but obviously we have no good linebackers. He's out of Michigan State, which I've obviously a little biased towards. A, block shedding, A to C pursuit, his tackle's not great, his zone coverage is not great. This might be my guy, Trevor Hatchett, physical player who delivers bone crushing hits, has a motor that runs through the whistle. That's not right, he's not white. His acceleration is good, great. Speed is good, great. Strength is good, great. Ooh, this really could be our guy. Hit powers, AC, finesse, AC, block shedding, A, play rec, A. That might be our guy. We really, really need to show her up where Christian Kirksey is. All right, I'm gonna favorite Trevor Hatchett. We'll see how everything plays out, but Trevor Hatchett is my guy right now. The second half of our season is a lot easier, so hopefully the Texans pick it up a little bit. Not looking good right now, but let's see, boys. Ho, ho, ho, ho. Second half of the season was so much better. We end here one five and 12. Yeah, that's not good, but we were one and five mid-season. We also end with an 84 overall offense, an 82 overall defense, and an 82 overall. We started this season at a 79. Anyone interested in the playoffs? Here's who made it. Jets versus Bengals, Jags Titans, Raven's Raiders, Chiefs get a buy. Niners get a buy. Panthers Vikings, Packers Saints, Cowboys Cardinals. Tank Dell is up to a 77 and he's still hidden. That's insane. Tank Dell is moving quick. Damian Pierce is an 87 overall power back, but Morale's taking him down to 85. We are gonna have such a good season next year. CJ Stroud's an 83 overall. Everyone's getting a big ding from Morale. I understand that. Will Anderson got his breakouts? Yes, Will Anderson is a superstar. Jaylen Petrie's up to an 81. Didn't develop as fast as I would have liked and I think I need to take Derek Stingley and start him over Nelson. Let's adjust the depth chart on DB's. But hey, first season went actually kind of how I wanted it to. CJ Stroud all the way up to an 83 overall. Looks like he really closed out the season well. I'm so happy for him. We're the only guys on our team with positive Morale. Steven Nelson is no longer DB1. DB1 is actually gonna be Derek Stingley. We'll have Desmond King after him and then Shaquille Griffin. Shaquille Griffin's actually pretty good. And in the 2023 season, the Dallas Cowboys win the Super Bowl with Dak Prescott as the MVP. Sure, bud. Trevor Lawrence wins NFL MVP. McCaffrey's offensive player of the year, Max Crosby, defensive player of the year. Zay Flowers is offensive rookie of the year. And the defensive rookie of the year is Will Anderson Jr. Does that mean Will Anderson is now an X factor? I'm pretty sure you get a Dev upgrade for that. That's massive. Dalton Schultz went up to a superstar. I don't know how I missed that, but good for him. And Will Anderson is X factor. Not to mention Jimmy Ward is superstar. Now Jimmy Ward regressed like crazy. He went from an 87 down to an 83 because he's older, but he did get superstar. I'm kind of shocked that both him and Dalton Schultz got it, but luckily we have no major. Ooh, but take a look at this. T Higgins X factor regressed. He went from superstar to star. That's no good. Damn, I didn't know we were gonna get clapped like that. Honestly, I didn't even know that could happen. That's all right. We can always earn it back boys. Will Anderson for winning defensive rookie of the year went from a star to an X factor. He went from a 78 overall at the start of this season to what I believe is now a 90. Once I give him these three upgrades. No, it'll be an 89. Will Anderson, how to be? Oh my God. Let's just stick with speed rusher, man. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Awareness, finesse, hip power, pursuit and tackle. Acceleration and awareness. I like acceleration. I don't know about awareness so much. Awareness, power moves, pursuit and three to tackle Will Anderson is a demon already. I'm gonna give him unstoppable force. Does he get edge threat? Not yet. He probably needs 90. Yeah, he needs 90 for edge threat. So we'll be sure to give him that when we can. I'm gonna give him no outsiders, probably inside stuff and defensive rallies actually really good. So bad news on T. Higgins. Great news on Will Anderson. Taking a look at the mock draft here. If we want our boy Trevor Hatchett, we're gonna have to trade up. Current mock draft has him falling to the Eagles at eight. Going five and 12 actually hurt us a little bit. Not to say that we should have tanked but our current pick is now pick 15 which would be Cameron Staley. I am very willing to unload some stuff and trade up to get Trevor Hatchett. Dude, A block shed, A to C pursue. Obviously I could have scouted him a little bit better but my scouting talents were all in quarterback so I know a whole lot about Jayce Parks and I would never take him. I'm gonna have to trade up with the Eagles. I'm gonna do all this and he still could be a bust but dude, I don't know man. A block shed on a rookie middle linebacker is crazy. The one thing I forgot to mention is Christian Kirksey did retire. On top of that we were unable to re-sign Denzel Perryman. So we have to draft a linebacker. We literally, we are trading up to get Trevor Hatchett and we're just, we're putting the fate of the franchise in his hands. I also wouldn't mind signing a free agent right end because we are looking really thin on this D line. Obviously William Anderson's William Anderson but we draft a linebacker and we sign a right end and I'll feel good. Let's see what free agents are available. Wow, there's a lot of good free agents available but I don't think I'm gonna pick up any of these top three guys. Maureen Cooper, Rashawn, Gary, Mike Williams. That's out of my, that's out of my wheelhouse. Christian Wilkins, 87 overall right end. He's gonna want a lot of money but we've got 68 million cap. He's motivated by our no income tax and a warm weather state. Obviously he could develop too man. Imagine Christian Wilkins and Will Anderson.  There are also middle linebackers available to sign in free agency. Christian Wilkins wants 20 million a year but we could get somebody like Carl Lawson for a little bit less. Let's give Carl Lawson an offer. I'm gonna give him a player friendly three year offer. Let's see what Carl Lawson thinks. I still plan to draft a middle linebacker but let's see about a potential left or right outside linebacker just to kind of beef up our core because our core is just so bad right now. Willie Gay would not be a bad pickup at all. Already interested in the team, 26. Needs a 77 overall. This should be a really nice free agent sign if we can get Willie Gay.  I'm fine with a three year offer. I feel like that's a good offer for that. He doesn't like the three year link but the overall strength is there. See Willie Gay does and to be safe just in case we can't get Trevor Hatchett I would like a little bit of depth at middle linebacker. Damn, none of these dudes are interested. They told me to get fucked. Hey, look at that the results are in and both of our offers were accepted. Carl Lawson added in free agency. Willie Gay added in free agency. Hopefully we pick up Trevor Hatchett and this team is looking a hell of a lot better on defense already back to an 82 overall. Oh, boys, we are developing. I do have the cap space to sign a big free agent if I wanted to but I think I'm just gonna hang on to the money and we can do that in 2025 technically if we need to. But I don't think we do. I feel good right now. There's no need to shell out a really big contract for one of these guys. There just isn't. Lots of cap room to sign a big free agent next year after CJ Stroud, Will Anderson and everybody has developed better. I love what we're doing here and we're available to resign big guys. I think we did great. We just have to draft Trevor Hatchett. The question for me is how much do the Eagles value their draft? I've got round one pick 15. I'm gonna offer that. I also have round two pick 35 which is a very high pick in the second round but I do not care about the second round. I just want Trevor Hatchett. Oh no, I gotta check with the Dolphins. I have to go up to seven. Okay, we need the Dolphins first round pick. Wait, they're round one pick two? That's not right. The Rams have round one pick six. This would guarantee me Trevor Hatchett. Oh, I'm putting so much faith in the fact that this guy's gonna be good. I'm not certain that this guy's gonna be good yet. I'm trading my first round pick and a high second round pick to move up nine spots in the draft. I don't really think they'd go for this. Well, they don't have any cap room. They kind of need the draft capital. I'm gonna submit it. Let's see what the Rams think. Oh my God, let's go. Oh, two for two on trades. Let's get it. Now we just need Trevor Hatchett to fall to us. Dude, I swear to God I did all that for a 72 overall linebacker. I'm gonna cry. We have no second round picks. So it's literally all about this first round pick here. Round one pick one bears on the clock. The bears take left end Mike Fisher out of Alabama. In the mocks, it had the Dolphins taking Trevor Hatchett, but that's when they were picked seven. So I imagine they won't take them here, right? Max Rhodes, let's go. That was the number one wide receiver in the class. Cardinals select Alex Barrow, left tackle USC. Okay, Lions, I swear to God. Lions, you got Jack Campbell last year, bro. You do not need the middle linebacker. Drew Franklin, you're not Trevor. Come on. Buckethears, don't do it. Don't cuck me. The Tampa Bay Buckethears, select Zachary Cameron.  I swear to God, this guy's a bum. Jayce Parks is projected next. Then Troy Brooks, then Zeke Carey, then Kion Claybourne, QBQBQB wide receiver. Technically I could have traded with somebody else for a different pick, but I had to secure this man. A block, A block shed. A block shed tells me everything I need to know. Trevor Hatchett, middle linebacker out of Michigan State University. Draft, Trevor Hatchett. Oh my God.   That's a rug. 82 agility, 81 jump, 79 string. 76 change in direction is not great for a user, but I'm not technically usuring him. Oh my God. I guess his overall is a question mark. I didn't know that's how that worked.  A play rec is crazy. Pursuit A to C pop. Oh my God. This dude's a monster. His tackle being B to D is not very good for a middle linebacker. That's, you definitely want that to be higher. You definitely want that to be higher. That's the centerpiece to our defense. And he's added there with Carl Lawson and Willie Gay. I'll advance to our next user pick, but this isn't till round four pick three. I literally didn't even scout this far. I'm sorry if most people do, but man, the round four, I mean, come on. I will take Raheem Parham, a Georgia Tech corner. 91 acceleration, 92 speed, low key, not bad.  All right, whatever, I didn't expect much. And just like that, boys, year one is in the books. Headed into year two where four overalls higher. 83 overall, 85 offense, 81 defense. Hatchet, whoa. It didn't show me overalls, but I could see it. Now Hatchet was a 78 and he's already got an upgrade from the preseason. This is my boy, man.  Tank Dell's about to be up to a 78. Juice Scruggs to a 72. Great work, everybody. All right, boys, about to kick off season two. Hoping for a big year on a Tank Dell. A bounce back here for T. Higgins. An amazing season out of CJ Stroud. Potentially a superstar for Pierce or Stroud. Dude, we can even go defense a player the year on Will Anderson. And I'm excited to see this new look defense and see just how good Hatchet actually is. Maurice Jones Drew is one of my potential scouts. I'm gonna hire Logan Mankin. His expertise is in interior offensive line and detackle. I may end up drafting a center or a detackle in this upcoming draft if I don't trade away my draft picks. So I'm gonna hire him. Ah, just kidding. I gotta fire someone first. Jeremiah Coleman. Sorry, buddy.  His expertise is in quarterbacks and I certainly don't need one of those. Now we can hire Logan Mankin. Oh my God. Year two, are you kidding me? The Houston Texans are five and one. The Detroit Lions are one and five. This same time, literally just last year, we were one and five. We really didn't unload that much draft capital or lose any significant players. Our free agency signings, T. Higgins and the progression of our young players is actually spectacular. And now that I think about rebuilding the Texans technically is easy because the rebuild is partially done. Maybe I shouldn't have broke. I rebuild virginity with this team because this is spectacular. CJ Stroud has boosted Morales by four. Damian Pierce up to an 89. D. Higgins, 93. Tink 1080. Schultz is an 85. The offensive lines looking spectacular. And on defense, Hatchet is up to an 80. He's a star dev, as we imagined. Petrie's up to an 83. Stingley's an 83. And Will Anderson is a 92 raw, boosted to a 93. Will Anderson has gotta be having a hell of a season. All right, let's look around the league to see how everybody's doing. CJ Stroud is already making a huge improvement from last year. Second most passing yards in the league though, Tyler Huntley, tip of eight Buccaneers. He has 13 touchdowns and 14 interceptions. Mahomes once again leads with a 20 and two. Josh Allen 18 and two. So obviously really good stats from that. The new rookie for the Vikings is going off Zeke Carey. 12 and 10, 1,700 passing yards. Justin Fields is up there 14 and four. Scheiste is 17 and one. Dak is 13 and one. Take a look at CJ Stroud.  CJ Stroud, 1,640 passing yards, 12 touchdowns, two interceptions. I'm honestly just shocked that he's getting outplayed by this rookie. I shouldn't say that, he's not getting outplayed. CJ Stroud has a much better touchdown interception ratio, but this dude, he's fifth in the league in passing yards as a rookie. Although the good news is that means CJ Stroud is almost in the MVP running already. Let's take a look at the weekly war to see if any of our guys got one. CJ Stroud was the AFC player the week in week six with 300 passing yards, three passing touchdowns. And he also got it in week one where he threw for 346 passing yards, four touchdowns, and he threw 27 for 30. He's been going off, man. Damian Pierce so far this season is okay. 433 yards, two touchdowns halfway through the season. Ramon Green actually has more touchdowns. The Damian Pierce, he's sharking those. If you're playing fantasy, you are not happy about that. Receiving my number one receiver thus far this year is John Mechie. Tank Dell is down here at fourth. John Mechie's got four touchdowns, Schultz has got four, and T Higgins only got two. Mechie is making the most of his 25 receptions though, a lot of yards on those receptions. I wonder if it has to do with where he lands in the depth chart. So I'm gonna go take a peek at the depth chart and rearrange things. Cause I really don't want John Mechie to be the guy who takes over. I want it to be Tank Dell or T Higgins. Preferably, probably T Higgins. God, it's almost seeming like I didn't need to trade for T Higgins at all. I could have just raw dog the Texans lineup and be going crazy. Obviously the free agent signings were really big and hatch it was an amazing pick, but damn I could have gotten, gotta draft it another good player in this year. So let's take a look. So wide receivers right now, it is John Mechie my third string who's getting the most reps. I'm just gonna play devil's advocate here. Don't really know why the third string wide receiver would be getting more yards than the second string, but I'm gonna move Tank Dell to third string and see if he progresses faster like that. We're gonna sim up to the playoffs. Don't tell me we're gonna win a Super Bowl in season two. That just doesn't feel right. The good news is we're a great team, but we also have a really easy schedule. Kinda like how the Philadelphia Eagles had it last year in the NFL. We were five and 12. So we're not facing tough competition. The AMC South isn't particularly strong either. So this regular season, pretty nice one for us. Let's see how we close the season out though. I'm taking a pause at week 17. The Houston Texans are 11 and four already. We have an 88 offense. We're an 85 overall with an 83 defense. We're progressing at an absurd rate. Thanks to just how young and talented this team is. Let's see what's changed in those eight or nine games we just simmed through. CJ Stroud is an 86 overall, but Morale is taking him up to a 91. Dolan Schultz is boosted. Damian Pierce is boosted. T Higgins, he's a 93 overall, but he's star dev, which is crazy. I really want him to be back to superstar, but we haven't gotten that opportunity. Tank Dell is rocking an 80 overall still and John Mechie at an 81. On defense, Will Anderson is a 94. Carl Lawson looks to be doing well. Desmond King, Stingley's up to an 83. Petrie an 83. And Hatchet is now an 82. Dude, these boys been killing it, man. I do want to take a look at the prospects though. We're already doing so good. Just super weird. I feel like, like, is something wrong here? Or are the Texans just this good of a team to rebuild? I feel like this should have taken me like four or five years. I must be doing something wrong. Please let me know. Or I guess I'm doing everything right, but I just used too easy of a team. Lance Moore is too high for him to fall to us. Hey, actually, let's take a look at the mock. Let's take a look at the mock. Our first round pick is going to be deep in the first round. And honestly, our team is already so good that I almost want to trade it.  We're ready to win a Super Bowl either this year or next year. I don't think I need a rookie. I'm definitely kicking the can down the road, but take me into the playoffs. I want to see who we're playing. We flipped our record. Oh my God, we started this franchise with our very first game against the Baltimore Ravens.  And we went five and 12 that season. And the very next season, after trading for T. Higgins, drafting a stud middle linebacker and signing a few defensive studs and developing our rookies, the Houston Texans fully flipped the record from five and 12 to 12 and five. And who do we take on with the Baltimore Ravens? Now they have the overall advantage on us. Buyup, a long shot, they're an 88 overall with 88 defense, 89 offense. We're an 85, but we lead the NFC South by far and we made the playoffs. Let's talk to the media about this. Coach, you're heading into your first playoff game. Playoff success often makes or breaks a career. I'm gonna guarantee a win against the Baltimore Ravens and I'm actually gonna watch the sim on this one. This will be the first game where we actually watch the sim and potentially step in. Is that cheating guys? How do rebuilds work? Do I have to literally sim everything? Or am I allowed to step in and play offense every once in a while? Bulletin boarded guaranteeing a win has fired up the Ravens and I'll have plus five break tackle and hip powered. Damn, maybe I made the wrong call. You guys will have to let me know for future rebuilds but I'm gonna watch the sim and potentially step in but I'm hoping the Houston Texans don't need it because right now we are hot. We are 12 and five. I hope it's just not because of our cakewalk schedule though. Oh, we got some massive upgrades to make before the playoffs. Look at how absurdly fast Will Anderson has developed. In two years of NFL football, he's gone from a 78 to a 94 overall. And scratch that, he's gone to a 95. Now granted, he did win defensive rookie of the year which gave him a significant boost but he just got acceleration, finesse, play rec power and another ability slot. Let's check in on his stats. Dude, if I can pick him up in my actual CFM fantasy draft which by the way, if you're watching this when it drops my CFM fantasy draft is tomorrow, August 20th, 7 p.m. Eastern. So pull up. Damn, if I can get Will Anderson, he's the number one ranked left end in the league after two years, 98 finesse, 89 speed 94 excel. This is a demon. He's got run commit there but we're gonna give him edge threats since it is definitely one of the best abilities in the game. He doesn't get edge threat elite unless he's power rusher. Obviously we can't take it but I'm more than happy to go with edge threat. I cannot believe he got that good that fast. Trevor Hatchett, the man himself dude. So Trevor Hatchett was drafted at a 78. He is all the way up to an 83 so five overall upgrades in his rookie year. Blockchart pursuit tackle and zone coverage. Let's make sure we look around the league to see who's gonna win what awards though. 89 speed, 89 tackle, 88 blockchart, 87 hip power, 90 pursuit, 91 excel.    And I'll auto upgrade the rest. It looks like Willie Gay and Carl Lawson, free agency signings did not hurt the bank too much. They play great. All right, let's look around the league to see where everybody landed and what the season awards are looking like. Let's go to the yearly awards. Dude, CJ Stroud is insane. CJ Stroud ends seventh in MVP voting. That is actually so impressive to me. His first year, he doesn't even win offensive rookie of the year. And in his second year, he damn near got MVP. The MVP of the league is Dak Prescott. The Cowboys are just taking over the league apparently. They won the Super last year. Dak's now MVP, runner up is Josh Allen, then Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow, Roger, CJ Stroud. And I'd say the biggest shock. There are honestly no big shocks in this MVP running other than probably CJ Stroud. You've got Lawrence Fields, Tug of Iloa, a lot of the younger guys taken over. Aaron Rodger is one of the vets still in there. But wow. Now let's go to coach of the year.  I'm pretty happy with him about that. Offensive player of the year in the AFC. This is interesting. So CJ Stroud is MVP at seventh. But as far as offensive player of the year goes, he lands in ninth. That's cause we got beat out by guys like Tyler Boyd, Pacheco, Kelsey, Josh Jacobs, who all got in the running there. Defensive player of the year, will Anderson find some self at 10? I'm really happy that he's there, but I mean he got beat out by Ed Oliver, Patrick Queen, who we actually had an opportunity to sign Patrick Queen of free agency, but I like what we did. Offensive rookie of the year, no shocker here. It goes to Max Rhodes. That was the highest touted of rookie. So he can take that one. But Ramon Greene, the running back that we drafted late actually got auto drafted, ends up getting 10. So it looks like he got more reps than I expected him to. Defensive rookie of the year, the Houston Texans breed defensive rookie of the years. Can you believe this? Back to back years, the Houston Texans are gonna deliver on a defensive rookie of the year. Trevor Hatchett is gonna be a superstar next year. Runner up was Mario Craig. Mario Craig, I believe was the first overall pick. He was the left end out of Alabama. I don't think the bills drafted him though. I think the bills must have traded for him, which is interesting to see that they traded away their first pick. But it doesn't matter because he got runner up and Trevor Hatchett. Hell yeah, man. Best QB Stroud is six, best running back. Damian Pierce is six, not bad.  No matter what I do, John Mechie's gonna ball out for the Houston Texans. Shit, man. He must be a dog. Maybe I shouldn't have bumped him down, man. He knows what he's doing. Nobody on O-line. On D-line, Will Anderson is eight. On linebacker, we've got nobody. We've got Jaylen Petrie making it to seventh there. We will take that. Kicker, Brandon McManus ends up at six and that is the awards around the league. Now let's take a look at the stats as far as our team is concerned. So CJ Stroud ends the regular season as the third most passing yards and a spectacular touchdown to interception ratio. Now, keep in mind boys, I know that switching your playbooks affects the simulated stats. I switched our playbook to Kansas City Chiefs to allow for CJ Stroud to get as many passing yards as possible. As far as rebuilds go, is that unfair? Like, is what I did not allowed? I've watched some other YouTubers do rebuilds. It seems like they do this, but if you guys don't like that, please let me know. This is all new content for me. This ain't Wheel of Mutte. So I want this to be the best experience for you guys.  In year two, CJ Stroud now an 85 overall, boosted to a 91 with morale. Spectacular QBR, 116.3.  Played a lot of downs though. 1,036 down compared to Mahomes 981. This is an amazing season for CJ Stroud. Rushing yards, yeah. When you run Chiefs offense, you're not really in the running for rushing yards. But Damian Pierce still ends up, what looks to be about 18th in the league and Nick Chubbs just barely ahead of him. Leading the league in rushing yards, this season was Jacobs, Kenneth Walker in second, McCaffrey Barkley and Bijan Robinson. Receiving, I got to imagine it's John Mechie. John Mechie eclipses 1,000 yards, but it actually looks like we were really distributing the ball and that had to probably do something with my depth chart adjustments. But if I go ahead and look just at the Houston Texans, we've got John Mechie with 1,000. Dalton Schultz getting crazy involved, which makes sense. It's Chiefs offense. They used Travis Kelsey a lot, but Dalton Schultz continues to progress really, really well. T. Higgins, two yards short of the 1,000 yard mark. Tank Dell going for 682. I'm almost getting to a point where do I switch John Mechie and Higgins? Do I put John Mechie at wide receiver one? Because John Mechie on only his 75 receptions made 1,100 yards out of that, but Higgins has 91 receptions. He didn't make a lot out of his receptions. I think there's more to this story that I'm not understanding. So I don't want to go messing with anything right now, but I'm very happy with how the team is doing. And then defensively leading the team in tackles is Trevor Hatchett, had 132 tackles on the season, get one interception. Two interceptions for Desmond King, one for Stingley and four for Jaylen Petrie. I was at a force fumble from Willie Gay. What about Will Anderson? Will Anderson with nine sacks on the season that's honestly a little low. I kind of expected a little more out of Will Anderson, but I didn't put edge threat on him until just now. So I think that would have boosted those stats. I would say even though Will Anderson is still a stud, she definitely had a much better year one than year two. This is a bit underwhelming for how good Will Anderson is. I would say nine sacks. I mean, Carl Lawson, who is Stardav, 10 overalls lower, no abilities, had five and a half sacks. And Will Anderson only had nine. I want to see more out of Will Anderson, but still I'm most happy about CJ's job.  And that's exactly what he is. So that is one hell of a season from everyone. John Metchie's breaking out, did not expect that. Let's play the wild card, baby. I guess the fairest way is for me to play the moments, right? It's the fastest way to play and I'm not determining every single down. I think that's fair. 86 overall, Houston Texans in their wild card playoff debut, taking on the Baltimore Ravens. Simming the first quarter, Texans around the board of the field goal into the second quarter. First quarter in the books, 3-0 lead. Raven score, Texans fall flat. Oh no, 14 to three. That's not looking good right now. Can the Texans get on the board 21 to three? See, this is where I feel like I would defeat the purpose of everything if I just jumped in and took over and won this game. I can't do that, no. Maybe I will next season, if it's close. But to come in here and erase this deficit, I think that's unfair. Yo, Texans damn near came back. We almost came back, but we fall short to the Baltimore Ravens. I can't say I'm shocked. I think our record of 12 and five was a little bit inflated due to the fact that we had a poverty schedule. So year three will be the real test. CJ Stroud made it to the playoffs, but falls short to the Baltimore Ravens. I guess I don't know how it's supposed to go, but I would have felt very, I would have felt like I was cheating. If I just jumped in there and started taking over, I don't think I would have liked that. Let's take a look at the stats though. CJ Stroud, 17 for 30. Lamar, 17 for 21. Much more efficient with the ball in his hands. Stroud did have a touchdown. Lamar and Jacob Dobbins were going crazy. Damian Pierce fumbled in a one possession playoff game. You can't be fumbling and receiving. Who else?   Higgins did have a big game. Two Schultz, three for 46. Tanked out for three for 25. Hey, I think this is incredible experience for all our young guys to just make the wild card playoff. It was our first shot at the playoffs. We don't make it past the wild card, but I think we're in just an absurdly good position right now. Tough loss here for the Houston Texans, but all hope is not lost. The 2024 season comes to a close. Let's see who won the Super Bowl and then decide what we're gonna do about this upcoming draft. The 2024 season recap. The Super Bowl MVP is Kirk Cousins on the Falcons. Who beat the Miami Dolphins? Jack Prescott wins back-to-back MVPs. Mike McCarthy wins back-to-back coach of the year. The offensive player of the year is C.D. Lamb. Max Rhodes, offensive rookie of the year. And as we knew, our middle linebacker, Trevor Hatchett out of Michigan State wins defensive rookie of the year. That's so amazing to get Will Anderson then Hatchett because now Hatchett is superstar. Hatchett did not get a breakout during the season. Honestly, if I had two superstar X-Factors just off of straight, raw rookie development, that would have been insane. But oh my God, oh my God. Making it to the playoffs was huge for these gentlemen. Dolm Schultz is a superstar X-Factor. C.J. Stroud is a superstar. Trevor Hatchett's a superstar. Jalen Petrie's a superstar. Ooh, Desmond King regresses to normal dev. Derek Stingley stays that star. Dawkins is up to a 74. Okay, this is good. Hey, we lost in the wild card but this is an amazing win of a season. Our team is so young and so good. We are set up for success for so, so long. Jalen Petrie, I'm gonna give him deflator and I'm gonna give him strip specialist. I don't really know how that works in sim but I'm just gonna try it out. I do have a lot of learning to do with these rebuilds but wow, this is actually so fun. I am praying you guys enjoy this. I'll be honest, because if you don't I'm gonna be bummed out to not do this again. And instead of the abilities that Schultz currently has I'm gonna give him double me. I'm gonna give him tank. Such a good ability. I'll give him mid out elite and he can stick with bruiser. My question to you guys is if I gave him the ability like route apprentice will the simulation CPU Bryce Young actually use that? Like will Bryce Young actually use route apprentice to his advantage? I suppose if I give Bryce Young hot route master then the sim Bryce Young will make audibles. I don't know. I don't know how that works. Bryce Young is an 87 overall field general with an absurd amount of morale taking him up to a 92.  Let's tweak this. I'm gonna give him tight out which is improve the catching prowess of all tight ends who are open on pass plays. He's used in Dalton Schultz a lot Dalton Schultz is now a superstar X factor. So inside dead eye tight out.  So I'll have dead eye on a lot of different throws he makes and he'll be boosted when throwing to Dalton Schultz. So that's beautiful. Now call me crazy but I'm actually thinking about jumping ship on T Higgins. This is a big move I wanna make. Number one, we have round one pick 28. I don't see a lot of value in round one pick 28 and pick 28 are realistic options are a few wide receivers. There's a detackle and a half back. Obviously, you know, we could come a little bit lower here but I don't see the value here. I think we should trade this pick, bundle it with T Higgins and get ready to win next year. I don't know if we need T Higgins. Tank Dalton and John Matchy have been great. T Higgins has been underperforming for what we thought he would do and Nico Collins is still on this roster. Not to mention the reason that we got T Higgins was to help CJ Stroud develop while CJ Stroud has developed and T Higgins just doesn't seem necessary. I think it's wasted talent. Upgrades we could use is a right tackle upgrade to keep CJ Stroud protected. We could obviously use a little bit of help on defense. Another elite linebacker would really help this roster and Jimmy Ward's getting to the point where Jimmy Ward is probably only on this team for another year. Before we make those trades though, let's see who's available in free agency. Damn, an update on defense. Tried to re-sign Desmond King. He doesn't wanna come back. Now that's okay because Desmond King did regress a little bit and Dawkins is a DB. We actually recently drafted who's all the way up to a 74 overall. DBs are a little thin right now on this squad though. Derek Stingley's nice. Jaylen Petrie's awesome. But Jimmy Ward's getting worse. And I don't know, my CB three now is Texada or Parham, another rookie. I don't know about that. But we have an absurd amount of cap space. We're gonna be able to sign a monster, monster free agent. Let's see who we can land. There are some excellent guard options which I would like the idea of getting a really solid guard but what I really need is a tackle. What are the right tackles in free agency? Lyell Collins is in free agency, highly interested in our team. 11.8 million a year though for him is expensive. The tackle market is just, wow, that's expensive. I'm gonna give him a player friendly two year deal.  He's getting paid. That'd be nice. That'd be a nice upgrade for CJ Stroud though. The big signing I wanna make though is that linebacker. The best left outside linebackers that I could realistically get would be Frankie Louvue. Odafe Owe, ooh, Odafe Owe, young. 89 speed left outside linebacker. If we could sign him, oh boy. Kolomak is available but he's too old for me. I'm looking for Odafe Owe. Nowhere near as expensive as Lyell Collins. I'm gonna give him a player friendly deal as well. We've got the bread for this. We can afford this. My only concern is down the line, CJ Stroud's gonna want a super max but I just don't have to worry about that right now to be honest. I wanna win a Super Bowl. I'm gonna make Odafe Owe a really good offer here and he most likely will accept that. I think if we're gonna make a big signing it almost should be a DB. The options are Byron Murphy, Chidobia Wujie and Taryn Johnson. I think I'm highest on Chidobia Wujie but he wants to get paid too. We've got the cap room for this. I'll be honest with you guys, I don't really understand cap room all too well but I see that the Texans have a lot of remaining caps so I'm going for it. I'm gonna give him a very favorable deal. I'd like to hang onto him for three years. Let's go two but just bump up a salary and bump up his bonus. That's a good offer. If we get Chidobia Wujie, Odafe Owe and Lyle Collins I'm definitely trading my draft pick then. I'm trading my draft pick and I'm trading T Higgins if this all goes through. I even could sign a wide receiver.  I didn't even realize that. You better come back buddy. We're just throwing money at people.  We definitely got some signings. Just how OP was this free agency. Lyle Collins has signed to the Houston Texans. That offensive line looking a lot better. Kenyon Greene's developed great. Shaq Mason's still kicking. Larry Mittanzel's still kicking. Deuce Scruggs is whatever. But we're past first so we don't really need to have back dive behind our center. And Lyle Collins, I love that upgrade. Defensively Odafe Owe does agree to sign with the Houston Texans and so does Chidobia Wujie. So we bolster our DBs. We bolster our linebackers.  We're sitting nice at an 86 overall and we are ultra thin at D-Tackle. D-Tackle is not looking good at all. It's a way we can sign at D-Tackle. Do I need to trade for what? Let's look at free agency. Who's available at the D-Tackle position? We might just have to throw some money at a bum. I'm gonna pick up Levi on Wuzerike. He's young. He doesn't really have a spectacular ceiling but he's better than what I got in there. So we'll bid on Levi on Wuzerike and now it's time to potentially make this trade that I'm talking about. I'm not quite ready to make a trade yet. So let's get to mid season of next year and see if we need to. But first thing we gotta do is the draft. Around one pick 23, D-Tackle's best case scenario from here. I'm gonna take Daniel Vasquez. 74 speed, 93 strength. I'm glad I got a really solid D-Tackle. Daniel Vasquez is a 76 overall. That's actually a really solid pick here. 93 strength, 75 block. That's not bad, man. 82 tackle, 83 excel, 76 play rec. He's no Trevor Hatch hit but to get a 76 overall, that deep. Pretty nice. The rest of the draft was nothing special. We got a an 87 speed wide receiver, 91 speed wide receiver. Nothing special here. Now I don't wanna say that this has to be our season but after this season, there's a lot of players who are gonna want a serious contract and we're gonna start running out of money fast. Namely CJ Stroud. Dalton Schultz is gonna start wanting to get paid. He's an X factor tight end and defensively, Will Anderson and Jaylen Petrie are gonna want some big contracts too. One thing's for certain though this schedule we have this season is gonna be a lot tougher. I'm headed to mid season of 2025. Come on, Texans. Ooh, yo, the week eight matchup is legit too. Five and two Texans taken on the five and two Cincinnati Bengals. Next man up, discuss being without a top player this week. I don't have injuries on. What are you talking about? T Higgins was seen limping around the facility. I guess we're telling John Mechie to step up but honestly, we kind of figured John Mechie was gonna step up anyway. I guess because it's one of those like scenarios that he can actually be injured. John Mechie and Tank Dell slowly but surely upgrading offensive line looks good. CJ Stroud up to an 89 overall and defensively Vasquez is a star dev. Good to see Jamie Ward, man. He's regressing fast. He's starting to worry me. Odafe Owe is upgrading nicely.  Let's give him that run stop or what do you got? Come on, give me speed. Zone play rec man, blockchain awareness. Spectacular, man. Passing leaders, CJ Stroud in second. Just barely behind Dak Prescott but he does have four more touchdowns. CJ Stroud could very well be in the MVP running right now. In fact, he definitely is. Second in sacks, Will Anderson. Will Anderson with edge threat made a huge difference. He already almost has as many sacks as he had last year. This is the Texans here right here, man. Take us to the playoffs, baby. I'm ready to win the bowl. Oh my God. Dude, our schedule really was that tough. We didn't make the playoffs. Hey, listen, we still got 56 million salary cap.  Alarms are sounding in the Texans facility right now. How did we not make it? T Higgins is up to a 94, tanked out. And damn, I knew it. I should have traded T Higgins. Oh, I should have traded T Higgins in that draft pick and loaded up on something. John Metzsche and T Higgins are developing great.  And we didn't make the playoffs. Vasquez up to an 81, excellent draft pick. Carl Austin's doing good, will he gay? Hatch it. Loa Morel looks like we went on a losing streak. Close the season. We're a 90 overall. We went on a losing streak, close the season. Year three yearly awards. CJ Stroud eighth in MVP voting. He's not quite there. Defensive player the year third was Will Anderson. Oh, we broke our streak but yo Daniel Vasquez got kinda close coming in at fourth. All right, I am making the biggest off season push that is humanly possible. Dude, I totally thought. I was like rebuilds are easy. GGs, that's a Super Bowl. Nope. Now we gotta play big time damage control. Damian Pierce leaves in free agency, unable to resign him. We lose a running back. So signing a free agent running back. I'm totally fine with that. I could also draft one. Tyler Algear, 86 overall. He doesn't want that much money. That's my guy. He's heavily interested. Let's lock him down for three years. He's signing. I love Tyler Algear. That's amazing. Let's sign a big player for something else. This is fully and I'm going to win a Super Bowl right now and that's it. We're gonna afford Taylor Ramsey for one year and we go for the Super Bowl right now.  Jalen Ramsey.  I expect them both to sign. Tyler Algear definitely signed. I don't know about Jalen Ramsey though. Oh and Jalen Ramsey does sign. Jalen Ramsey has regressed though. He regressed in overall. He's regressed down to a star dev. Nasty DBs. If you don't look at bold and solid linebacker core, not spectacular but a solid linebacker core and then D line obviously anchored by our literal 99 overall. Look at this young developing free safety on the Eagles.  He's already in 82. Let's see if they'll do AJ Warner for just our first. Around one pick 17.  Maybe the Eagles see something in the draft or something but they hand over their young 82 overall free safety to now the 91 overall Houston, Texas. No way we've done next year.  Week one. Derrick Stingley is not progressing as fast as I imagined he would to be honest but he's still in 87 overall.   Houston, Texans. We need to get it together. Pronto. Nothing looking too different. Some players are progressing. Some are regressing. We still got our two Superstar Expectors on offense. Three Superstars on our one Expector on defense. There we go, Houston. There we go. Last time we were here in the playoffs we're in 85. I really like our odds. Our opponent is hot. The Colts are hot. Let's see what the squad's looking like now. Jonathan Taylor's in 97 but he's a star dev. You got 99 overall boosted CJ Stroud. Tyler Alger with a great season. He ends up to a 96. Schultz is still killing it and defensively Will Anderson, Carl Lawson, Ramsey got our young free safety pickup. AJ Warner, Hatchett and Jaylen Petrie. And yearly awards around the league. CJ Stroud is getting so close to MVP but gets beat out by Mahomes and Jaylen Hertz. I don't mind getting beat out by those guys. Coach of the year goes to D'Amico Ryan's well deserved. Offensive player of the year is Josh Jacobs. Looks like Will Anderson had a bit of a regression this year. Goes down to nine. Tank Dell gets seventh in best wide receiver. Jaylen Ramsey ended up being a big siding and free agency. He got fifth as far as best DB goes and we actually made it here to the playoffs. No more talking boys. It's time to get the Houston Texans a Lombardi trophy because if we're gonna do it, we're gonna do it right now. We lose Jaylen Ramsey after this season. We start negotiating some big contracts. We gotta win. Super wild card weekend. CJ Stroud versus Anthony Richardson. This is an awesome, awesome matchup. Texans on their opening drive. Drill the field goal. Colts drilled airs. Already a close game. Texans score. Stop the Colts. Another field goal. I might not have to step in here. Six to 13. 22 seconds left in the second quarter. I'm gonna put some icing on this drive here. Let's let Tank Dell do this if he's there. I won't force it. Tank Dell, you dog. What a release. Texans are kinda shitting on the Colts.  I don't really need to step in again. Why not, right? They're giving us the option. Let's play it.  Can you get there? Look at CJ Stroud. Just geared out, man. This guy's on trend. He's gotta be. Don't tell me the same shots open. Dalton Schultz. Defense really came in big. We only needed to score seven to win that. CJ Stroud throws 27 for 36. Four touchdowns. Good God. All-Jir and Stroud getting upgrade. Stroud's going up to a 90. Eight overalls. He's literally one of the best quarterbacks in the league. Tyler All-Jir. Our nice little free agent signing. It's now an 87 overall. I'm sad we lost Damian Pierce. But if anybody's sad right now, it's Damian Pierce himself. An absolute stomp in the wild guard. We're on to the divisional. Browns versus Houston. Home field advantage once again. In the divisional. CJ Stroud taking on Deshaun Watson. Three to zero right now. I gotta keep looking to beat these seams against this zone. Oh, Tank Dal might have that same touchdown he had last time. Oh my God. Tank Dal? Tank Dal's a monster. Brown's unable to score. And we're back on offense. Third and seven were in scoring range. I like that. I like that easy pickup from T. Higgins. I'm gonna go a wide zone handoff. This is coming towards Miles Garrett's side. But we got Schultz blocking. Oh, cut it up. Oh, sheer. That was too easy. We got a hefty lead on the Browns. But let's not let him score again, right? Uh-oh. 11 to 14. It's the fourth quarter. I want to stay on to Sean Watson's head. Yup, yup.  Five tackles tonight. I don't gotta get fancy here. Oh, somebody get to Sean. Does he slide? Okay, he's five wide. He checks down. I can't get a massive hit with hatchet. Zone's not working for me right now. We're gonna switch the man. We're double manned up on someone for some reason. That's not good. I gotta stay with 11. Oh, we're there. Great defense. We're gonna fly on to Sean. We're guessing the snap count. Let's go. Hatchet. Oh, the wide. The Sean fumbles. It's picked up by Wyatt Teller. Damn. We have him do a field goal. Eddie Pinheiro could shank it. Come on, baby. Now he drills it. Great work. Single back, bunch, verticals. We've got three timeouts. Got to double team my miles, Garrett. I can roll. There's Dolan Schultz. Money. 14 to 14. Oh my God. No. Bet it down. I thought Tankdale comes down with that. We just win the ball game right there. Tankdale is gassed. I got Metchie on a corner out. I got Higgins down a seam. Metchie. Metchie is wide open.  Let's go. It's an ice kick. NFN, the divisional against the Browns comes down to an ice kick.  Here we go, Brett. That's right down the middle. Yup.  That was moving fast. Not a lot of power. Good accuracy, though. It's home. And the Houston Texans are headed to the ASC Championship. Damn. Conference championship versus the Chargers. Chargers, German James, Justin Herbert, Joey Bosa, Sean Slater. Sante Samuel, Eddie Springs. There's the first new guy, tight end. Max Kramer, left end. Daniel Bridge, left guard. Miles Sanders is the Charger. Warren Burns, Corey Lindsley, Zion Johnson. Michael Thomas. Michael Thomas. And Elijah Mitchell. The ASC Championship, the 92 overall Texans taking on the 88 overall Los Angeles Chargers. Here we go, boys. The opening drive. The Texans. I'm going to let them do it. I'm not taking over. Texans will score 7 to 0. We got a two minute drill here. We end up punting still 7 to 0. 14 to 0. Oh my god, am I not going to have to step in in the ASC Championship?  Chargers fans are leaving. They paid all this money. They flew all the way to Houston. Just kidding. I don't know where this game is played. Actually, no, it is. It's in Houston. They're onside kicking. This game is over. 27 to 6? 27 to 13, my bad. Let's see the stats. Look, like Justin Herbert struggled a little bit. 18 for 30, ruined interception. CJ Stroud, not the case. 200 yards, free touchdowns. Miles Sanders rushed for the most yards. Algiers was all right. CJ Stroud, 10 rushes, 28 yards. And somehow, 99 overall. Will Anderson just got an upgrade. The Super Bowl is against the Seattle Seahawks. Seattle Seahawks won it last year. We are a raw 92 overall. This is about as immaculate of a rebuild as you can get. But I think I just got lucky with how good the Texans are. I think I used too easy of a team here. Probably should have done something more difficult. No, this is my first ever rebuild. I'm happy to have done a team that it was very easy for. Look at the presentation. Teddy Thomas, two return. Texans are starting with the kick in the Super Bowl. We'll start with a jet touch pass to T Higgins. He's really not the guy for a jet touch pass, but whatever. Let's reward him. He left Cincinnati to be with us. Second and four. The rookie is open. Gonna go play action here. I'm looking for Dalton Schultz if he's there. If not, let's survey the field. Ooh, Mechie. Mechie, what a ball under pressure. After a strong play action, let's run the rock. Oh, great blocks by the wide receivers. One man to beat for all. Sheesh. Oh, I really like. Oh no. Oh my God. CJ Straug just threw one of the best balls ever under pressure, but it was just a little too covered. Yeah, I'm kind of lucky that that didn't go haywire, to be honest. Nice work.  Take down. Did they go to their 99 overall running back? I would. I gotta blow this up. Oh, it was a read. To the fullback. That he couldn't. Oh my God, they're going for it. Fourth and one, they're going for it. Another run. I gotta blow up Kenneth Walker. Come on. Let's go. Seven to zero, a goose egg for the Seahawks in the Super Bowl. This is real nice right now for the Houston, Texas. Now it's first than 10. Seahawks look like they're about to score. We're guessing pass here. Same thing. I'm sending Odafe, Oway, and Willie Gay. Just gonna hover the middle and guess pass. Good look. Scored. He almost just made a crazy throw. Willie Anderson, get home, buddy. Get home, Willie Anderson. I need you right now. I got everything. No. Oh, I just came off that. Shit. Let's go, Algear. I see the push-o line. Great work. Good. Good work, Algear. I'm looking for Dalton Schultz here. He usually clears real well. Don't force it. Don't force it. Now take it. Damn, the pressure got to me. I'm sorry, coach, but I gotta take over on this one. Seven to seven. I trust the run game. Let's go. Get that edge. Great work.  And then, fourth and four. Oh, my god. To run that ball with gorilla-sized nuts. Talk to me. 14 to seven. We're back on offense. They had another empty drive. This whole playoff run has been about defense, man. You'd think it'd be about this offense, but it's not. So a little play-action boot here. Probably had a few different things. That was a horrible ball. That does not keep the drive alive. It's 14 to seven. Oh, wait a minute. They're taking over from the five. Send in a big blitz here. They are in trouble. Oh, no. He had that much time. Going with the man blitz here. I'm guessing pass. I got the tight end. Oh, good defense. I'm there! Super Bowl MVP! Oh! One of the sickest plays ever. Shot it out, baby. Neither quarterback was particularly on today. 11 for 28. CJ Stroud, 22 for 35. The pressure got to him. Kenneth Walker, though. The 99 overall half-back held 2.3 yards per carry. That makes me so happy. Tyler Algear, 5.8 yards per carry. And he had a big touchdown. BK7 for 87. John Matchy, 4 for 43. But it was all defensive. Will Anderson, 3 TFLs, 1.5 sacks. Hatchet had 6. And of course, the biggest play of the game. Jalen Petrie's 90-yard pick six to seal up the Super Bowl. We're not done yet, though. I want to see Super Bowl MVP. I want to see what hands we're leaving this team in. Oh, my God! Like I said, man, after that season, our offensive line was going to get depleted. We used a lot of draft capital. Rookie offensive line. And we got Canard. We got Sherman, right? But Kenyon Green's the only guy left over. Shaq Mason is out. Laramie Tunzels out. Lyle Collins is out. Dalton Schultz regresses in overall, but is still X-Factor. CJ Stroud is still an X-Factor 99. Algear is great. Higgins, Tank Dell, John Matchy. The receiving core and the quarterback in backfield is still spectacular on the Texans. Offensive line is not where it needs to be. Defensively, though. Jalen Petrie is now 90 overall. Didn't get superstar. What if OA is great and young? Hatchet is great and young. Vasquez is excellent and young. Carl Lawson's regressing. William Anderson is spectacular. Ramsay will be out of here pretty soon. Dawkins, the young guy that can step in. We did not leave this team fully depleted, okay? We sold out for a Super Bowl, but it's still a spectacular team. And I'll leave you with this graphic that closes out the one time Super Bowl champion, Houston Texans. Beat, the Seattle Seahawks. Super Bowl MVP is Jalen Petrie. The MVP of the league was Mahomes. Demico Ryan's gets coach of the year. CD Lama again, offensive player of the year. Micah Parsons again, defensive player of the year. And the rookies aren't with us, but we did complete our challenge. All right, boys. This was my first ever rebuild.  But that's how you want. I had an amazing time. I hope you guys did too. And if you enjoyed it, I'm gonna rebuild another team pretty soon here. I love you guys. Thanks for watching as always. I'll see you in the next video. Peace.


A newer tradition that is part of the first City of Lights celebration has returned. The downtown window display contest featured 15 different businesses in Bemidji and today the Bemidji JC's announced and surprised the contest winner. Shoppers and spectators voted Gallery North as this year's window display winner. The window features artwork from the gallery, colorful lights, along with little elves that were handmade doing various tasks. This year is the second year for the contest and to be recognized as this year's top winner is an honor. Well this morning I walked in the gallery and I was thinking I wonder who won that because you know it's getting close to Christmas and and I just two hours later you guys walked in and I'm super excited I can't believe it. Now second place was awarded to Pine Country Insurance and there were it was a three-way tie for third place between Chocolates Plus, Freud Tech and the Senior Center. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland news, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.


So now we come to the end of the Austrian Econ basic series. And along with it, a way to show the world that you are now an official basic Austrian economist. With this stylish new mug and sticker set, they will make you the talk of the town for the low, low price of $7.17. Call now to reserve your order of this luxury item. So if you want to commemorate finishing this series with a little memento, a link to the teespring store will be in the description below. Now let's recap firstly on what this series was, then recap on the crucial points made in every episode. For starters, this was called Austrian Econ basics for a very specific reason. This is just for you to know what the Austrian school is, what it's comprised of, what it stands for, and what you need to know before you go on to embark on a journey to learn more. This is not meant to be a comprehensive series that tells you everything there is to know, it really only just scratches the surface and gives you the quickest explanation of each chosen area that's possible. After my recap here of each episode, I'm going to tell you the sources I obtained my knowledge from for each particular subject, some of which are books, others are online articles, and I expect you to at least do some more research into them. You will now have the footing you need to pick up any book included in an Austrian school reading list and be able to understand where it's coming from, but if you don't read any of them you'll be missing out on so much and wasting the foundation you've gained here. So off we go with the recap. Episode 0, demystifying economics. The field of economics seems like you need to be a student at Hogwarts to be able to understand all of its jargon, mathematics, and models, and seems an insurmountable task for the average person. But you can also ask, is economics so advanced and inaccessible that only bona fide geniuses can hold the knowledge required to understand how an economy works and why it moves? Well, if economists are that smart, why does the economy regularly crash and burn so terribly? Surely these self-proclaimed geniuses must be doing something wrong, and we can find what that is by going to the very roots and asking what economics as a profession is supposed to be. At its core, economics is a social science and the most tangible form of praxeology, which means the study of human action. An economy is simply the sum of thousands, millions, or billions of actions undertaken by various individual actors with various goals. Human action is spontaneous, unique, and left organically is technically unrepeatable as no two people will have the exact same goals at all times and people move, change their priorities, and some die while others are born. Human action itself is an ever-changing set of values in just one person, let alone an entire economy, and where the economic establishment goes so drastically wrong is trying to treat humans like controlled variables that can be quantified and calculated like heat and pressure can be in the study of physics. This imposition of the use of overly complicated models, functions, and approaches can be called physics envy, as economists try to pose themselves as hard scientists rather than the social scientists that they actually should be. Treating humans as these empirical variables immediately sets up mainstream economics for disaster and by changing the fundamentals of economics back to a social science we can get a much clearer view of what an economy is. At the end of the day, an economy is people and people do not have a predetermined path of behavior that can be modified and manipulated to achieve the aims of a handful of bureaucrats. This demystification of economics from the land of witchcraft and wizardry back to reality makes economics much easier for the average person to understand, and that's not because this Austrian view is in quotes simple, at its highest levels it can become just as advanced as any other, but the reason that it's so easy to pick up is because it is intuitively correct. No matter how good any economic analysis is, if it starts on incorrect assumptions, it is going to fail. But as we experience economic collapse again and again, the wannabe physicians in charge of our economies never stop to ask if their assumptions are wrong, and because the Austrian school puts extreme emphasis on being rigorous in building its assumptions before it tries to draw conclusions, we have an unbeaten track record of predicting how, why, and when economic crashes will occur. Sources Man, Economy and State by Murray Rothbard, this book will be in every source list. Economics in one lesson by Henry Haslitt, how an economy grows and why it crashes by Peter Schiff, Human Action by Ludwig von Mises, Individualism and Economic Order by Friedrich von Hayek, Economics for Real People by Jean Callahan, Economic Science and the Austrian Method by Hans Hermann Hopper. Episode 1, The History The Austrian school started, unsurprisingly, in Austria, officially with the publication of Principles of Economics by Karl Menge. Menge realized that more often than not, economies did not act according to the assumptions laid down by the classical economists such as Adam Smith and David Ricciardo. The chief example of this was in the way that humans understood value, which the classical scholars didn't have clear answers towards, often avoiding the question of value theory entirely, or concluding that the value of a good was objective and achieved by labour. Menge took inspiration from the, at the time, overlooked Spanish and French scholastics such as Richard Cantillon and Jean Baptiste Sey, and concluded that value was a manifestation of an individual's utility and that utility is subjective to that individual. Think of your favourite food, maybe it's pizza, tacos, burgers or anything else. Is that your dad's favourite food? Your neighbours? If not, why not? But because you simply enjoy it more than they do due to your own personal preferences and therefore it can be expected, if all else remained equal, such as all parties having the same amount of disposable money, that you would be willing to pay a higher price for it than they would. But Menge didn't just revolutionize this concept of value, he introduced one of the most fundamental principles that you will be taught if you ever study economics officially. Utility and therefore value is marginal. Let's say your favourite meal is pizza. When you're really hungry you might be willing to pay £20 for one, but after you eat that pizza you're not hungry and so if someone offered you another pizza for £20 you'd very likely say no. What if they dropped the price to £10? The pizza is exactly the same but now it might be worth to you half the price that it was just a few minutes ago and someone who is still hungry might still value that exact same pizza at £20. But the total utility or enjoyment that you'd get from one more pizza would be vastly lower than it was at the time when you bought the first one, so you would only pay a vastly lower price for it or just not buy it at all. And this principle of course works between people, as being given a £1 coin means something entirely different to a homeless person as it does a billionaire. Menge truly changed the entire field of economics and you'll probably never hear his name outside of Austrian school circles, as everything that follows from Menge's foundation contradicts so much of what the mainstream economic schools go on to say, while the Austrian school maintains intellectual integrity and doesn't contradict itself for personal gain and power. This is typified greatly by a quote from the next economist I'll mention just for this recap, Ludwig von Mises. To paraphrase something he once said to his wife, I'm going to study money but I won't make a lot of it. Meanwhile his contemporary, John Maynard Keans, studied very little about the history of money, yet decided he just knew how it all worked and by saying things that corrupt bureaucrats want to hear, he became the most powerful and influential economist the world has ever seen. Mises became an absolute machine of a scholar in praxeology and economics and devised many ground shaking theories such as the regression theorem of exchange rates, the economic calculation problem, the evenly rotating economy and the Austrian business cycle theory, among others. Two of those mentioned were given their own episodes in this series. All Austrian economics that followed Mises rests upon the shoulders of this giant. He also taught and then worked alongside Friedrich Hayek, who broke the Austrian school out of Austria and into the UK, America and beyond, writing the landslide anti-authoritarian book The Road to Serfdom and later going on to win a Nobel Prize for his work with Mises on the Austrian business cycle theory. However this remains a contentious topic for those in Austrian circles as this award was granted to Hayek only a year after Mises dies and while Mises was known for being stubborn as a mule, Hayek was more willing to compromise with mainstream economists such as Milton Friedman and this is believed to be a factor of bias on behalf of the prize being awarded to Hayek. The torch was then passed to the great Murray Rothbard, the man most known for being an unrelenting economist and historian who applied the Austrian methodology so unendingly that he determined that not only is government intervention in an economy unjust but the entire existence of a government is itself unjust and he created anarcho-capitalism. If I even try to list Rothbard's accolades, this recap will go on longer than the whole series so I will simply mention that he founded first the Cato Institute and then the Mises Institute when he found that Cato was not Austrian enough. These institutes have continued to go their separate ways and the MI stands tall and proud as the world's premier outlet of all things Austrian school. Almost all of the books that I list as sources can be accessed completely free in digital form from their website as well as great prices for physical copies and the quarterly journal of Austrian economics. Outstanding scholars who are current members of the MI are Robert Murphy, Ron Paul, Thomas J. DiLorenzo, Walter Block, Peer Bailand, Judge Andrew Napolitano and many more. Without a doubt the most accessible economics program currently in existence is Mises U, a several-day-long annual event for students of which they make many talks and lectures available on YouTube and I can't tell you how many hours I've spent listening to them. Seriously, get on it, it's free and it's brilliant. Sources Man, Economy and State by Murray Rothbard The Austrian school Market Order and Entrepreneurial Creativity by Jesus Huerta de Soto published online by the Institute of Economic Affairs. The Austrian School of Economics, a history of its ideas, ambassadors and institutions by Jürgen Maria Schulach and Herbert Intercuffler. Episode 2 Value and Prices In my history recap I already explained the subjective theory of value and marginal utility to emphasise the massive yet completely uncredited importance that the Austrian school has on the entire field of economics. But when the subjective values of different people meet at the intersection of what can be produced, we have the famous supply and demand. Supply and demand tends towards the equilibrium point where the most consumers and the most suppliers can be satisfied at a given price. With all else remaining constant such as resource abundance, technological innovations pull the price from suppliers down as the production becomes more efficient, requiring less time, labour and resources and new products supersede old ones at either lower prices or provide enough additional utility to consumers to justify a higher price, which still gets pulled down over time by production, innovation and competition. Consumer demand is always pulling prices down as people always want to spend less money and less supply is decreased, in which case the new scarcity of goods adjusts the price higher. A concept worth mentioning here is the inefficacy of price controls. In an all too common scenario where a local government of a built up urban area over regulates the production of houses, therefore making it more expensive, that same government prevents suppliers from charging more despite the increased cost. This removes the incentive to provide houses for people who need them or at least the incentive to provide good houses. Now most of a whole city is left with poor housing and the politicians who caused this blame capitalism and demand more tax money, while letting capitalism just do its job of increasing quality and lowering prices would have avoided this problem entirely. Minimum wage is identical to rent control in this way and subsequently halts any increases in job quality and real wage rates that would otherwise naturally occur. Sources, man, economy and state by Murray Rothbard, economics in one lesson by Henry Haslett, human action by Ludwig von Mises, competition and entrepreneurship by Israel Kersner, why Austrian school economists have a better understanding of goods and services by Peer Bailand, published digitally on the Mises Wire, prices and production by Friedrich von Hayek. Episode three, the economic calculation problem. Markets and their prices are the most efficient possible way to allocate resources and perhaps the only effective way in the long term. This is because the prices formed by the supply and demand model when left unmolested are signals that tell producers where resources are most efficiently allocated according to the economy, which as we established is the some decision making of the entire population. Other economic systems such as socialism require resources to be allocated by a committee to meet political ends rather than organically decided upon by all actors involved. This economic planning committee faces two impossible tasks, having all of the consumer information that the entire population does at any one time and then holding the economic rationale to determine where resources are best placed at any one time. This attempts to centralise into a single bureau what is fundamentally the most decentralised, organic and individualist display of human action that can ever exist, the economy. This inability for one entity to emulate an infinitely scalable process is why the USSR collapsed spectacularly, China is now basically fascist, Yugoslavia turned into PUBG and Cuba is somehow still managing to hang on by a thread. And I know US foreign policy had a huge hand to play in most of these events, but it's self-evident that during the Cold War America was never going to implode the way that the Soviet Union did despite the equal amounts of espionage, sabotage and much more and that is precisely because one was socialist and the other wasn't. Sources, man, economy and state by Murray Rothbard, economic calculation in the socialist commonwealth by Ludwig von Mises, calculation and socialism by Joseph T. Salerno delivered at Mises U 2019, the use of knowledge in society by Friedrich von Hayek from the American Economic Review, a theory of socialism and capitalism by Hans Hermann Hopper. Episode 4, Austrian Business Cycle Theory Leading on from the previous explanation of prices as organic signals of demand and corresponding resource allocation, we have to ask whether or not money itself is affected or exempt by this. Mainstream economic schools will try to justify the latter, that money can't be treated and examined like a consumer good, but their explanations for why are riddled with circular logic and straight up falsehoods. The fact is that money does have its own supply and demand, the demand to own it is simply savings. Saving stored in bank vaults would be loaned out to wanting borrowers and the demand to borrow money is represented by the bank's rate of interest which it charges to borrowers and then passes someone to savers to thank them for their business. But enter the central bank, a bureau created by governments to allocate interest rates to meet arbitrary economic goals. Does that sound familiar to the reason why socialism is doomed to fail? Then you see exactly why central banking is doomed to fail. However important to an economy the issuance of money and credit is, the fact is that it's only one component of an economy. So by deliberately applying the economic calculation problem to banking, it's absolutely no surprise that every 5-10 years the banking system collapses just as socialism did in the late 20th century. However because it wasn't the entire economy that collapsed so spectacularly, the remaining capitalist part can pick up and carry on just for the central bank to show its appreciation by bringing it all down again. The reason that this happens is because governments are incentivized to keep interest rates low by making inflation constant. This means savings lose their value over time incentivizing constant consumption and viewing savings as nothing but a drain on GDP growth. Interest rates being low would normally be a signal to investors that spending is currently relatively high and investors should make short-term and generally riskier investments as a result. This malinvestment creates speculative bubbles that will burst in only a matter of time and when the market crashes as a correction to this bubble, the government implements countermeasures, money printed going, that just put inflating the next bubble into overdrive, continuing the process in perpetuity. Thanks government. Sources Man Economy and State by Murray Rothbard. America's Great Depression by Murray Rothbard. What has government done to our money by Murray Rothbard. Monetary Theory and the Trade Cycle by Friedrich von Hayek. The Paradox of Saving by Friedrich von Hayek. Episode 5 Opportunity Cost and Time Preference. This is going to be an extremely short recap because it was a very short episode and is probably still fresh in your minds. Opportunity cost is the perceived cost of choosing to implement one action over the next best alternative. If you do not pick your best possible option then your opportunity cost is higher than it would otherwise be as what you gained either in utility or monetary terms is comparatively lower based on your subjective values. Time preference is a view of patience and you can most often expect that being patient or having low time preference will sacrifice a lower gain right now to achieve a higher gain in the future. This can be in the form of not buying a model of car now when you expect a newer and better model will be released in a year or not withdrawing any investments because you expect them to appreciate and having that money held as just cash will depreciate due to inflation or any other example. Lower time preference actions are generally more successful and wiser than higher time preference action but this is only a guide and certainly not to be viewed as a rule. Sources of Man, Economy and State by Murray Rothbard, Economic Science and the Austrian Method by Hans Hermann Hopper. So there we go, curtain draw. Once again I really hope you've enjoyed this little project of mine and that it wasn't too all over the place and confusing and if I inspire you to go out and learn more then my objective is complete. Take it easy.