i am ecstatic that we won. had that been a hard fought battle from beginning to end and we lost (or won) i'd still feel good about this team. winning in denver, against peyton. AWESOME!. what i don't like is the "prevent" offense any better than the defensive version. i don't think we tried to stomp them towards the end. after the fumble, the forehead smelled a chance of victory and he just caught fire. damn i hate playing against him. what if we hadn't converted that third down to johnson? i shudder to think. as stated in that otherwise dumb arcticle posted above: we saw late in Sunday's game, the Texans can go into a shell at times in terms of play-calling. i'm trying to antagonize (in this case). hey, i love gettin a rise out of people, sorry for any butts i've hurt . but in this case i am rabidly invested in this team and if we don't at least get to the superbowl, i will be gutted. oh, and LOL at the "true" fans vs bandwagoneers. GTFO, who cares.
The 4th quarter play calling was not that bad: run, run, run - first down pass, run, run - first down run - fumble In the above sequence they were doing what they do best until the fumble occurred. pass, run, pass - punt The first pass was a deep throw - doesn't appear to be a 'prevent offense' play call run, run, pass - first down run, run, run - punt This possession was designed to run as much time off the clock as possible. They made Denver burn their last two time outs. A mistake or bad clock management (e.g. incomplete pass) was the only thing that was going to give the Broncos a legitimate chance to win the game.
After years of being a Aussie Texans fan and having people in Australia say 'WHO? or WHY?'' whenever I told them which NFL team I support, I can finally smile and say 'THAT'S WHO & THAT'S WHY!!!’ Go Texans!!!
I wonder if CBS would have been all over Paidtons Manning's jock strap after the game had they actually won. Why didn't they interview JJ WATT? A-holes. Meh, who cares, right? I DO.
Texans are getting all kinds of love nationally right now...and they deserve it. Great game yesterday!! That's the kind of game they find a way to lose a couple of years ago...now they're closing them out. Now beat the crap out of the Titans!!!
Watt got more than enough love during the game. Who really cares about post game interviews? It looked like the altitude played a role in the fourth. Pass rushers all looked gassed, Watt included. Good for them holding on despite it all. I also realized I needed to say that the DBs yesterday were phenomenal. Even though Peyton got his, the coverage was very tight 99% of the time. The Decker TD was simply a perfect throw against coverage. I was very pleased with our first major test on the secondary.
Is that really him who actually tweets? I just thought somebody did it for him. Seems too old school to use social networking.
One thing on the pass rush that I noticed in the 4th quarter was that Barwin was rushing really wide and the end on his side was rushing in. This created a big window for Manning to throw between the LT and LG. The edge rush doesn't usually get to Manning, it is the pressure when he steps up. The way the Texans were rushing (albeit with only 4 DL), it created room for Manning to step up in the pocket and make throws down the field. The defensive backs had good position for the most part but for whatever reason kept reaching out and touching/grabbing the WR which created costly Illegal Contact penalties that extended drives. I think Stokley absolutely baited/tricked/played McCain on one penalty in particular extending that drive for the Broncos.
Such an amazing game yesterday. Not enough time to talk about all the things that were good. JJ Watt has turned into a defensive superstar so quickly it is easy to forget the guy only has one season under his belt. Freaking amazing that we got that guy as late in the draft as we did. Schaub playing LIKE A MAN. The guy really is way tougher than people give him credit for. He's been beaten up pretty badly in games in prior seasons as well that he has finished, but people just remember the injuries. His pass to KW was absolutely perfect. The pass to Andre was almost perfect but AJ had enough separation it didn't matter if he had to slow up just slightly the last two steps or so. But he hit Walter in complete stride which allowed Kevin to keep his momentum enough to break that attempt to tackle him. Just outstanding. I second (watch what I do here) the love of the secondary in this game. There may have been some mistakes and they certainly had the opportunity at multiple interceptions that they didn't pull in, but coverage was very tight most of the game, even during the sequences when our pass rush wasn't really getting to Peyton. And I'd just like to say that despite some on this board that have used the Broncos almost-comeback as a reason to snipe at Kubiak for playcalling, this game was more encouraging for me from a coaching standpoint than any we have had so far in the Kubiak regime. And it is precisely for the reason that we DIDN'T go conservative. bobrek detailed out the playcalling in the last few possessions below, but the pass downfield on the 2nd to last possession was ballsy. The pass to Andre to covert the 3rd down on the next possession was ballsy, and he knew to go ahead and run 3 straight times following that to not allow Peyton any more time than he absolutely had to. Earlier in the game he called some great plays that were incredibly effective. We all know Kevin Walter isn't fast enough to get open deep on his own, that was by design of the play. Credit where credit is due. Kubiak is clearly learning to trust his stellar defense now, and it is showing in his play calling, even late in close games. That is a big deal to me.
I don't follow football, but is Denver like the Philly of crowds? What is their current team with Manning equivalent to in the NBA? Like Celtics?
Any thoughts on when Tate will see the field again? My guess is that he may not play for a game or two. Probably is going to go through endless "fumble prevention" drills. What do you think? His fumble literally turned a blow out into a nail biter, an amazing turnaround.
He'll play next week. He'll hear about it in practice for sure, but fumbles happen, and Kubes understands that. Arian has had his share of fumbling problems, but the only time he actually missed time was when he skipped out on team meetings.
there is no way Kubiak is going to sit his number 2 back a whole game because of one fumble. Foster isn't really mr. velcro hands himself. i'm sure Tate will be relieving Foster like he always has been.
I hope you guys are right, because I like Tate. I would use him more on pass plays. He is scary in the open field.
I wished the Broncos beat the Falcons, that way our win would look much better. Still a good win. Reminds me of the Falcons win last year.
I didn't notice him in on any defensive snaps in the Broncos game, but he was in for multiple plays during each of the first two games...he just didn't really do anything. I think he is being brought in slow for whatever reason.
All we can assume with Mercilus is that Wade/Herring haven't seen what they want from him. Their stated intention back in August was to have him rotating in with Reed/Barwin. On a similar note, we can draw simple conclusions from Jones rotating in for Caldwell and Brooks remaining in street clothes. Jones has impressed, Caldwell hasn't, and Brooks is far behind. Tate will get back in there - don't forget, there were only ~7 offensive plays after the fumble. No way he gets benched. I've only done a game there once (not yesterday, obviously), and Denver struck me as a very fairweather fanbase. Crap for tailgating, easy to get tickets to, and the crowd is easily silenced. You might have noticed the stadium went from graveyard (3Q) to going so bonkers the camera shook (4Q comeback). I think we're seeing DBs (and linemen) test the boundaries more each week with regards to the replacement officials. There's always some stuff going on, but if they get the sense that the replacements will miss or let go certain calls, they're going to try and get an edge.
