What the heck happened to this defense?

Because they know there's no point. Why give it your 100% when the offense is going to jack it up anyway...

 

The answer to every question like this just comes back to O'Brien. He simply has not had this team anywhere near prepared to play in any phase of the game.

I didn't expect the defense to check out this early, but we all knew it was coming sooner or later.

 

Well since JJ Watt is all over TV and everyone thinks he's Superman maybe the rest of the defense resents it?

#hottake

 

I don't get it. They keep showing Watt and Clowney being double teamed. What the hell are our other players doing? Remember at the beginning of the season when everyone thought our front line was going to be unstoppable?

 

JJ and Clowney are about it. Crick and Kareem are maybe average on a good day. Everyone else is not even a starting NFL caliber player

 

Romeo Crennel forgot how to coach.


He's got to be fired.



Actually, we're being outcoached in all three phases by just about everyone we've faced (Tampa is debatable). I'm trying to figure out if this has more to do with O'Brien himself, or the responsibilities O'Brien has doled out to his supporting staff. Either way, he's not owning up to his end of the bargain in Houston. He's got to get better at decision making overall.

He may be a leader of men (or maybe it's just young men), but we haven't seen him prove that he is the ultimate strategist as those so close to him associated when he was first hired. He came here preaching weekly adaptations and schemes to exploit weaknesses of each individual team he faced each week. Problem is, he's shown that he can only give slightly different looks each week, resulting in a product that is confused and impotent.

I'm so confused by this team. I truly don't know at times whether we are consistently being outclassed in the coaching world, or whether we are just outsmarting ourselves each week.

O'Brien's biggest strength (or rather difference from Kubiak) is also his biggest weakness. He's seen New England plug and play so many people that he believes he can easily do it too. He simply changes personnel around week in and week out, and its obviously not working. Its like he doesn't believe in his team and is simply trying to find pieces that fit. Isn't this what training camp and preseason are for?

I just can't trust the guy. A head coach has to be a decision maker. O'Brien has proven that he doesn't always make the best decisions. The only thing he has really done for this franchise is essentially make it a less desirable place for our next coaching hire.

The one thing O'Brien has going for him is that he's had some flashes of being a good coach and he's young and fairly inexperienced. With that said, I'm hopeful that he may have room for improvement.

 

We are running a 3-4 defense with no 3-4 personnel to run it. Clowney is not a 3-4 OLB and neither is Mercilus. We play soft coverage which is basically code for a bend but don't break defense, but our defense isn't getting pressure and isn't creating turnovers. Last year was a fluke in regards to turnovers. We should be playing a 4-3 defense because we have the personnel to run it. Our safeties are also terrible. All of that adds up to a below average defense.

 

The defense has been basically hung out to dry by the offense for most of the season.

They can have a bad/off game every now and again, and that's normally where the offense would have bailed us out (against a CRAP Colts D... in our own house), but even with Hoyer's production we didn't get the points.

I think the defense will be OK... eventually. It will be more than OK if the offense ever decides to wake up.

 

We got very lucky with turnovers last year. This year not so much.

 

We severely overrated this defense. We looked and admired at the front 7, on paper, at basically ignored the secondary. But it turns out that the secondary is merely slightly below average to mediocre most games and that front 7 really isn't anything to be proud of, especially after Watt and Clowney.

I mean, Watt and Clowney are getting double teamed most of the time and yet no one else can get to the QB?! And we are rushing more than half the time, too? I think Watt is the only one with sacks this season.

Do we even have an INT, yet? I know we give up penalties like crazy.

Absolutely disgraceful.

Season is over for the Texans.

Funny because the Astro's season looks to be going strong, in the postseason no less, and the Rockets haven't even started what many think will be a long season as well. The way the Astros and Rockets are run are far superior to the Texans. Time for Houston to fully support the teams that are successful

 

Since the 2014 season the defense added three first round draft picks, one a first overall, they released a number of low impact players, and yet they are significantly worse this year. I don't know where to assign the blame other than coaches and scheme.

 

Linebackers and Secondary are both back to being garbage. Last season both groups were playing solid though rushing D wasn't that great last season either. McKinney has looked less than stellar, Mercilus has mailed it in. Cushing really isn't doing much either. The secondary is all kinds of mess. Joseph looks old, Kareem can't cover again and commits stupid penalties and then our safeties are just pure garbage.

Basically it's back to 2013 mode of defense again except we have Clowney now who seems to be getting a bit better every week.

 

I knew Kareem Jackson sucked with Garrett Gilbert threw all over him in the national title

 

They are undisciplined....they get plenty of stops but they always have a penalty to keep the drive alive.

DD

 

Not sound fundamentally in the secondary

 

Pretty much this.... too much cushion on 3rd and long or bad decisions to get a dumb penalty. Hard to win when you gift the other team free yards/1st downs on dumb penalties.

 

This team sucks

 

T

H

I

S


What a crap franchise

 

Wilfork got old
Crick is crap
Mercilus has always been crap
Watt is double teamed
Clowney is double teamed and limping again
Cushing's injuries have caught up
Other linebackers are talentless and do not play their assignments
Joseph lost a step
Kareem got paid and digressed
Safeties have missed assignments
Vrabel clearly cannot coach Same with RAC
No qb pressure, wide open holes, ,issued assignments and most importantly penalties to keep drives alive.
Other than that we are all good