Offense's fault, huh? I am strictly speaking about the "D" and while they have been GARBAGE this whole season last night they played well. They held the Ravens to 21 points being strapped with crappy field position and shut them out the entire second half. I can't be upset with that, special teams KILLED us last night and it was just another way this team found a way to lose.
I hear ya. My point was only to counter the criticism of the offense that found a way to throw up 4 TD's against the team ranked 4th in points allowed. They put up 28 on a team that only gives up, on average, 17 coming into that game. 28 points has to be enough.
28 points was enough....until Schaub threw off his back foot into coverage on his own 12 yard line. You guys are hell bent on blaming a defense that did its job last night, and probably played its best game of the year (including the Titans). They allowed only 21 points when their offense hung them out to dry in terms of field position and time of possession. Special Teams deserves a solid kick in the crotch - because otherwise 28 points wins the game. Kubiak deserves a kick in the crotch for sending Rackers out for a FG well outside his range instead of giving his defense a chance for once. Schaub lost the game with a bad decision and a worse throw - and his underthrown balls were just as bad as the drops by Daniels all night.
28 points was enough....TO TIE!!! Turns out, when you throw the ball 60 times, you might throw an interception or 2. Putting that loss on Schaub is just crazy. Again...you score 28 points against the Ravens, and you should win. End of story.
Then be furious at the special teams debacle. Defense did their job. When Schaub has an uneven outing and throws the game winner to the other team (a bad play 100% on him and him only), you can't pretend that at least partial blame shouldn't be at his feet.
Can we all just stop going back and forth on offense vs defense and point totals and agree on the whole with what's wrong? Ultimately, it all comes back to coaching. - Piss poor play-calling, especially in the first half of games (Run 1st down, PA pass 2nd down, 3rd and long, punt) - Schaub is inconsistent because he's not allowed to develop timing and rhythm due to all the PA and rolling out - Foster needs more carries, especially early in the game - Defense is lacking in talent at FS, CB, DT, and maybe even DE That's the meat of it. It doesn't matter if "28 points vs the Ravens/Eagles/Jets/etc" is supposed to be enough to win, because it wasn't. Regardless of how many points you score, you have to play a full game and provide some balance and gain some early momentum. Bottom line is with a competent coaching staff that could learn from their mistakes and recognize strengths, plus about 3 new players on defense, we are an elite team and we wouldn't be put in situations like we were last night. It ain't gonna happen with this regime, though.
He definitely made a mistake on that play. Of course, but for him and the offense rallying to score 4 TD's against one of the best defenses in the league, it wouldn't have mattered anyway. They put up massive yards and 4 TD's against a team that doesn't allow that. And I said earlier the special teams was part of the blame...no problem there. The defense gave up 3 TD's in the first half...which is more than the Ravens average over an entire game. And the special teams can't tackle to save their lives. Which left the offense, once again, basically needing 30 points to win. (29 in this case). I've said it all season and I'll say it again...you can't expect that week in and week out. You really can't expect it against the Ravens. So when you spot them 21 in the first half, you find yourself at a serious disadvantage. In spite of playing one of the best defenses in the league...the offense still put up 4 TD's. And that was only good enough to tie. The defense and special teams required the offense to give you MORE than 4 TD's against a team that only gives up 17 points per game. And you're saying it's the offenses fault? That blame is "squarely" on them? Sorry...we're never gonna agree on this.
We're not - but I'm not trying to say it's ALL on the offense, just that they share the blame with everyone else. I'm of the opinion that if they had played a damn in the first half and not been handing the ball over at midfield every time, you can probably take at least one of those 3 TDs and make it a FG. The offense had a hand in those 21 points....just like the offense going AWOL against Dallas contributed greatly in the collapse. Like you said, pressure's on for the offense to score 30 every game. But I don't think you give them enough credit - they're capable of doing that most weeks. These aren't the Titans we're talking about. Not the Cardinals. We've got a good QB, an elite WR, an upper tier RB, a good TE rotation, and a decent O-Line. They are capable of lighting up any D in the league and we both know it. They are as capable as our defense is porous. The bar shouldn't be "league average." (22 ppg, we're at 24 ppg this season). I'm not that mad about the game last night - I don't think we're in the same class as the Ravens. We aren't a playoff team. We have the talent, but lack the focus, toughness, and desire. It's okay for our O to take an offense off. It's okay for our kickoff team to epic fail. It's understandable for our D to handicap every game by 24. Kubiak's doing a fine job. Bush is the right man for the job. Don't forget to renew your season tickets.
Well I misunderstood then...because when you said this earlier this morning: I assumed you meant that it's ALL on the offense. And that makes no sense to me when they put up 28 points against one of the best defenses in the league. Like you, I'm frustrated with the whole thing. Ready to move on to something other than all this.
21 first half points beg to differ. And I don't buy this "the offense should have kept the ball longer" crap. All year long the offense has had to compensate for that POS defense. You can't have it both ways.
I mentioned it a few pages ago. You are exactly right. For me, the two poorest-coached units on this team by far are the secondary and the special teams. It's just horrendous.
emjohn, everyone agrees the defense played better and that the offense did it no favors in the first half. But can we PLEASE stop perpetrating this idea that allowing a team to score 21 first half points is, in any way, shape of form, indicative of a job well done? Pretty please? It's maddening. Doing their job would have consisted of NOT ALLOWING 21 FIRST HALF POINTS! How about mixing in a FG instead of lying down and letting a pretty pedestrian offense take full advanatge of good field psoition? Or - here's a novel idea: Don't allow them to score at all! They did their job after halftime- helped immensely by a highly-productive offense keeping them off the field. Unfortunately, they had already dug a 21-point hole.
What exactly do I want to have both ways? If you know you have a friend that can't be on time, you lie and add a 20 min handicap to the time you want to meet up. If you have a friend that never has cash on him, you bring a little extra. If you know you have a defense that's crappy, you probably don't want to hang them out to dry with an AWOL offense and bad field position. Our D is junk, but they played a decent game last night. They shut down the run, they blitzed very effectively, and all 3 scores came off of a short field. I'm not saying that's the D of a contender, but with our high caliber offense, they did enough to let us win. LOL, we so have two dug in groups. Group 1: The D gave up 21 first half points! The Offense scored 28! ST shat the bed! After 60+ throws, you're going to have an INT, it happens! Group 2: The D pitched a second half shut out! The Offense was AWOL in the first half! ST shat the bad! Schaub made a bad decision and worse throw in the worst place possible!
But if we're going to say the offense was good despite laying a first-half egg, why not the same for the defense? At the end of the day, the defense gave up 21 pts for the game, less than the Ravens scoring average. If, before the game, I had told you the Texans defense would hold the Ravens (or any team) below their scoring average for the season, would you have taken it? I would think that's basically as much as anyone could have expected from the defense. Remember also, the offense scored a lot of it's points only because it was in desperation mode - they went for a lot of 4th downs that they wouldn't go for in a close game. So if the defense had given up 7 pts early, and then 7 in the 3rd quarter, and 7 in the 4th quarter, the Texans probably don't score quite so many points. Not that it makes a difference or is a good thing - but at the end of the day, the fact that the defense gave up 21 in the first half instead of more slowly only increased the Texans' scoring output.
I'm baffled by this..truly. Because that offense scored 6 more points than they do on average....and 11 more points than the Ravens give up on average.... and it still was only good enough to force an OT.
They didn't do that. The Ravens offense averaged 20 ppg before this game. They beat that in the first half.
Not saying it's championship D, but for this team - I'll take it. A couple losses would have been wins with last night's D (Jets, for one). And you can't insist on crediting the offense with helping the shutout while at the same time ignoring that the offense hurt the defense in the first half. I've seen your replies on the topic, and yes, I absolutely do believe that at least one if not two of those short field TDs become FGs if the Ravens started at the 20 instead of the 45.
Great f'n game...wish the outcome was different, but you can't dig yourself out of a hole week in and week out and expect to win... The Texans, IMHO, did a lot of great things to comeback...Hell, even the D held in the 2nd half, but man, the way they lost is a typical Texans loss... I was glad the nation finally got to see how great AJ is and how great the potential is...
The Ravens were averaging 21.67 pts a game before yesterday. The defense held them to 21 for the game.
