it makes me so mad..all these years we had a outstanding D and our QB was holding the team back from Superbowl level and now we finally have our QB and the D has fallen apart. Sucks...
So if Fuller has 7 tds from 11 catches... Y we no throw him more????? Stoopid bob can't call plays proper
If this continues on with the defense which I truly think it will for the rest of season, then hiring a new DC is a must in the offseason....i don't wanna hear that **** about 2 of our best defensive players are out, those 2 best players are pass rushers and they aren't coverage players, no team ever should allow that abysmal performance from their players let alone allowing more than 450 passing yards.
https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/10/30/houston-texans-seattle-seahawks-russell-wilson-deshaun-watson-mmqb Seattle 41, Houston 38. I’m not sure if it was the Arena-Football-like 952 passing-rushing yards between Russell Wilson and Deshaun Watson … or the cumulative effect in the second half of this game of tie, Texans lead, tie, Seahawks lead, Texans lead, Seahawks lead, Texans lead, Seahawks lead, Seahawks win … or Jimmy Graham and Wilson meeting on the sidelines after the game-winning pass and the boom mike catching them making this collective sound at their top of their lungs: “AHHHHHHHHHHOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!” … or maybe the seven or eight heartfelt seconds Richard Sherman embraced Watson, the new great lion among NFL quarterbacks after only six starts, a sign of true respect by a cornerback who does not give respect easily. “What’d you say to Watson?” I asked Sherman two hours after the game. “I’ll tell you,” Sherman said. “‘You played the best game any quarterback has ever played against us, and we’ve played all the legends. I respect how you hung in there and kept battling and battling.’” Think of that: The nucleus of this defense (Sherman/Thomas/Chancellor/Wagner) has been together since 2012, and it has played Tom Brady three times and Aaron Rodgers five times in those six seasons. Richard Sherman told Watson his game Sunday was better than any of those eight games Brady and Rodgers have played against Seattle since then. And Watson lost Sunday. The winner played the game of his professional life. This was Wilson’s 99th NFL game, regular-season and playoffs, and it was his first 400-yard passing game. He threw for 453, which is 68 yards more than his previous best. Numbers … meh. The drama of the game, the sheer drama, in such a loud place. Watching Watson, 22, duel Wilson, 28, you wanted it to never end. Couldn’t there be overtime? Quintuple overtime? The college overtime? The Buffalo Wild Wings never-ending overtime? In the last 11 minutes, Watson drove Houston 71 yards to go up 31-27, and Wilson drove Seattle 75 yards to go up 34-31, and Watson drove Houston 75 yards to go up 38-34, and Wilson threw an interception (“Just trusting it, and lettin’ it rip—one bad play,” he said), and it looked over. Houston ball, 2:49 to play. Two first downs, and they could run out the clock. They got one. Houston punted. “No doubt we’d get it back,” Wilson told me. “I had no doubt. In fact, I went to the bench to prepare for the two-minute drive. I went over to the receivers. I said, ‘Hey, we’re probably gonna get the ball back with maybe a minute-thirty left, probably no timeouts left. Maybe one timeout. Be ready for these calls. Be ready for this, be ready for that.” Seahawks ball, their 20-yard line, 1:39 left. No timeouts. “That was cool,” Wilson said. “It actually happened that way.” On first down, Wilson, who throws one of the prettiest deep balls in football, lofted a tight spiral 52 yards in the air, straight down the middle, to Paul Richardson, running a skinny post. “My second read there,” Wilson said. But Richardson was single-covered, and Wilson knew, jumper that Richardson is, he’d have a good chance at a 50-50 ball against safety Marcus Gilchrist. Two plays later, no one covered Graham, trolling the middle alone, and Wilson hit him for the easiest touchdown of the day. “This game’s one of the best for sure, one of my favorites,” Wilson said. “All I know is it was THIS game, the only game today that mattered. The only one. If you have that mentality, hopefully all the good games will add up.” This was an emotional game for Wilson. Graham is his best friend on the team, and before the game, NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reported the Seahawks have had discussions with Houston concerning left tackle Duane Brown; Rapoport hinted that Jimmy Graham might be on the trading block for Seattle. Seattle GM John Schneider said Sunday that Graham would not be traded. In any case, Wilson’s very aware of the world and the business around him, and he certainly knew of the report, and certainly reveled in the fact that Graham, who has underachieved in Seattle, was the receiving hero of the game, with two touchdown catches in the fourth quarter, in the game right before Tuesday’s trading deadline. Knowing Wilson, there’s no way, even for a good left tackle, he’d want Graham out. Graham was in Wilson’s 2016 wedding. Wilson went to the funeral of Graham’s manager and mentor in 2015. Knowing Seattle GM John Schneider, if he thinks he can get a tackle like Brown, just coming off a long holdout in Houston, and the most vocal of the Houston veterans against owner Bob McNair after McNair’s “inmates running the prison” remark in ESPN The Magazine last week, he’ll find another way. The Seahawks are snug up against the salary cap, and if they want Brown, they may have to redo Brown’s deal and redo some of their own contracts. That’s, of course, if Schneider can find a deal to satisfy the Texans by the 4 p.m. ET trade deadline Tuesday. My money’s on Schneider. It may be moot. But I don’t think so. Schneider is one of the most aggressive GMs in recent NFL history. He knows his offensive line is the major Achilles heel on the team, the one thing standing in the way of what could be the last deep playoff run for an aging defense. To beat Philadelphia’s outstanding front seven, Schneider knows he might have to go get a tackle by Tuesday’s deadline. Joe Staley’s overpriced in San Francisco (and suffered a reported suborbital fracture under his right eye on Sunday), and Cordy Glenn not likely to be freed up in Buffalo. It might be Brown or Colt Anthony Castonzo … and Brown’s better. We shall see. Wilson made sure he found Watson on the field after the game. “He’s a special, special player, and I’m going to love watching him play in the next few years,” Wilson said. “He was so good today, so special. I told him on the field, ‘God is good. Keep putting the hard work in. It’ll keep showing.’” Wilson is special too. In a crowded field led by Philadelphia quarterback Carson Wentz, Wilson’s an MVP candidate for getting Seattle to 5-2 while playing several Sundays in survival mode for getting hit so much. In this game, he put up 41 points … while his running backs rushed 16 times for five yards. That is not a misprint. Maybe Watson studied Wilson playing hurt. He was doing it too. Sherman was impressed that, late in the third quarter, Watson seemed to hurt his ankle or calf, and it didn’t affect how he played the rest of the game. During a TV timeout, Sherman went to Watson and told him, “Hang in there! Ain’t no time to come out of the game!’” Said Sherman: “My God, Houston’s so lucky. By next year he’s going to be a top-five quarterback in this league, and that includes the two big dogs [Brady and Rodgers]. He makes you dig to the deepest part of your competitive juices to beat him.” You know the biggest shame of this day? Because the NFL schedules cross-conference games once every four years, barring a Super Bowl meeting, Wilson and Watson won’t face each other again until they play in Houston … in 2021. So keep this game on the DVR. Cue it up on some ugly February or March day. Maybe you’ll yell at the TV the same way you did Sunday.
http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/pag...ll-obrien-houston-texans-trust-deshaun-watson Is DeAndre Hopkins the best wide receiver in football? The most damning thing I can say about the Brock Osweiler era in Houston is that his black hole of mediocrity managed to suck in Hopkins for an entire season. After suffering through a totally anonymous 2016 season, Hopkins has turned things on with Watson at quarterback. Sunday was the receiver's best game of the season: Hopkins turned his 11 targets into eight catches and 224 yards, including a 72-yard touchdown that saw him run through most of the Seahawks' defense on a screen, breaking Kam Chancellor's ankles along the way. Hopkins has become a target hog in the Texans' offense; his 75 targets are third in the league to Antonio Brown, who paces the NFL with a whopping 92. His numbers commensurately rank among the league leaders as well; Nuk is now third in the league behind Brown and Adam Thielen with 606 receiving yards and tied for the league lead alongside Fuller with seven touchdown receptions. In addition, Hopkins has been a monster in terms of drawing pass interference penalties. The 25-year-old already has been the victim on seven pass interference calls this season, which comfortably leads the league. Nobody else in the league had more than five heading into this week. The 97 yards he has generated on those calls was tied for the league lead coming into the week with Brown and Demaryius Thomas. Throw those seven conversions into the pile and Hopkins has generated 40 first downs for his team, narrowly topping Brown for the league lead. We don't think about Hopkins as being on the same tier as Brown, but it's becoming clearer and clearer that much of that difference had to do with the quality of his quarterbacks. Brown has spent his career with Ben Roethlisberger. Julio Jones has been working with Matt Ryan. Before 2017, Hopkins had been thrown passes by Osweiler, Brian Hoyer, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Ryan Mallett, Case Keenum, Matt Schaub, Tom Savage, T.J. Yates and Brandon Weeden. Hopkins' predecessor in Houston, Andre Johnson, had to spend his career propping up Schaub and a series of similarly middling quarterbacks. Here's hoping we get to see Hopkins and Watson together for a long time.
Thanks J.R. as always, but none of this mean **** to me. A loss is a loss which was only eased by the 'Stros winning.
Promoting Vrabel was a desperate move to keep him and is proving to be a terrible mistake. The talent in the secondary is horrible and that falls on Rick for letting 2 starters walk without replacing them properly. But we have had more busted coverage and missed assignments this season than I can remember as of late, add in BoB's in-game decisions to put games back in the hands of the defense against Tom Brady and Russell Wilson and well...you reap what you sow.
O' brian should ask himself what the other team would want him to do that situation? Would wilson want watson to shred that legion of boom and expire the clock or would wilson want o'brian to run it up the gut so he can tear that wet toilet paper of a secondary. Watson is your best defense, bill. ^still mad. It's frustrating because he has designed a lot of misdirection that makes it easier for watson but goes brain dead (since 2014) in those situations. An onside kick had a better chance of working than those dbs remembering their assignments.
As great a game as it was, I really only watched half-heartedly and the only thing that got me off the couch was the bum ass playcall on 3rd down at the end and then not using a timeout to give the D a break at the end. Partly couldn't get into because had to save it for Astros and nothing compares to playoff baseball, and partly because I'm just getting tired of all the other noise surrounding football that it's finally wearing me out, especially now that the Texans are in the middle of it. I don't care why you are kneeling, I don't care what the owner thinks of his players, I don't care what Trump, Goodell, or Kaepernick think, I don't care about Duane Brown's opinions -- I just want to watch the games without all this other noise. If you really want to stand for something, hang up your cleats, give up your fat paycheck and go work in politics or for a non-profit organization or something. All they are doing now is ruining a good thing that the NFL had going for future generations of players who will feel the impact of the decline in ratings.
Bill O'Brien on coaching in a crisis what you do: 'Understand the players' feelings. Make sure you listen to the players' Bill O'Brien: 'Make sure you support the players. I think the coaches and our players have a very important bond.' Bill O'Brien on dealing with distraction, said his Penn State experience was invaluable to him Bill O'Brien: 'Big emphasis on we, not just me. We support our players 100 percent' Bill O'Brien on Deshaun Watson: 'He's a very bright guy, very even-keeled guy. He's able to compartmentalize' O'Brien on #DW4: "Got great poise. Obviously has as great deal of talent. Has great instincts... He's a remarkable young man." Bill O'Brien on Deshaun Watson: 'I'm never concerned about his confidence.' O'Brien: "Yesterday was disappointing, but I feel like we're close." Bill O'Brien on Marcus Williams "Very tough, competitive guy, made a big play for us at the end. We're glad we have him' Bill O'Brien on defense struggles: 'Our guys need to do a better job of combining coverage and rush' Bill O'Brien on Kevin Johnson: 'Had been out for a while, knocking off the rust, he'd been out for a while, very competitive, smart' Bill O'Brien says Deshaun Watson's ability to compartmentalize helps him. Has an ability to put loss behind him and move on quickly O'Brien: "It was a great football game... There's a lot to build on from us." Bill O'Brien on Deshaun Watson: 'I love coaching the guy Bill O'Brien on trade rumors Duane Brown: 'I don't have any say in that. Duane played well for us. That's the business side of things.' O'Brien on trade deadline Tuesday: I don't have any say in that. Duane played well yesterday. He's played well here for a number of years. O'Brien on Covington: "I think he's probably going to be out for the season. Torn bicep." O'Brien on Colts: "It's going to be a tough game. I'm glad it's at home. Going to need the fans here like they always are."
I mean this seems a little reactionary. The Texans lost Watt and Mercilus. They lost Bouye. Then they had bad games against Brady and Wilson?? Well... yeah. And if you really dig into some of the big plays... it's not like you thought man what a horrible play call? The long catch on the Seahawks last drive for example. What exactly did Vrabel do poorly there? Heck, the defender was perfectly positioned. Even more heck... if I had one comment about our dbs out of yesterday and the whole season, sure they look ridiculously beat at times, but just as often if not more frequently, they're right there and fail to actually "defend". I mean what's the point of sticking with someone if you're not going to defend the pass? Put your hands freaking up, block a ball, hit someone in the arms once the ball hits theirs. We saw that one time down the end... looked like a catch by the Seahawks, but the Texans defender then got his hand out, on the ball quickly and popped it out. I'm seeing this as a bit of a trend throughout the league the last few years. Maybe its a reaction to the rule changes and the way they call the game... not wanting to get called for PI... Point being, it's all those things together, more than Vrabel's play calling, that is the problem. Which generally reduces to talent. Specifically yesterday you'd have liked to see more pressure, but it probably would have been worse if the Texans blitzed more frequently. They don't have defensive talent. Which honestly makes it even more ridiculous that in his second attempt at the same ending, Bob again refused to let his offensive star get a first down when it mattered most.
Also something you didn't mention, I mean, RAC is still there. Changing his official title didn't make him go away and stop running the defense. I don't get why that is confusing for so many people.
But couldn't you say the same thing about a lot of failed DCs? Bad play calling by a DC is a lot less evident compared to an OC and most of the time you are looking at the players and asking what the hell happened there? Sometimes the defenders are perfectly positioned and the WR makes a play, sometimes its a dropped INT or the DB just getting juked out of their shoes, you could say none of that falls on the DC which is hard to argue against. But what I'm talking about is how Graham runs free straight into the end zone without a defender within 5 yards of him, the same for the first 3 TDs Brady threw, and the same on multiple 3rd and longs vs KC. Most of these weren't situations where Gronk, Hogan, Kelce, and Graham were just making plays over defenders, these were plays where our defense for whatever reason let them run by them or just didn't account for them. To me, that falls on the coaching staff, especially when it happens as often as it has this season. The talent is terrible and I recognize that so I see how it's double edged sword when I also blame the DC for getting beat by the likes of Tom Brady, Alex Smith and Russell Wilson. But it's kinda like BoB's ridiculous second attempt at the same ending, it's the same as watching Vrabel call zone defense 3rd down after 3rd down vs. KC and expecting a different outcome.
