completely and entirely agreed. their lack or urgency to score points looked dumb then and dumber in the second half when they were fighting to maintain a shrinking lead.
i don't get the animosity for the end of the 1st half play. Walking up to the line casually is a bad thing? Did they sprint to the line during their other scoring drives? They had to take time off the clock so not to give SF a chance to get the ball back so i understand the 1st down run...plus, like someone else said, you can catch a defense off guard by a run in that situation. And really, if the texans didn't give up the sack on second down, who knows what they were going to do. Hell, they were passing on 2nd down...that tells you something. You don't pass in that position if you are intending to sit on the ball. That sack forces you to kill the clock...you don't go crazy on a 3rd and 19 when you are that deep in your own territory.
By running on first down, then taking your time to get to the 2nd down play, it sends a message to your team. That message is one of passiveness and satisfaction. It rubs off on the rest of the players. I guarantee you that the defensive players were watching and they started to get that complacent feeling too. It sure showed in the 2nd half. Oh look, there goes Vernon Davis to the skinny post again. We also had good field position to start that drive. Doing what we did from our own 5-10 yard line is one thing, but when you only need 30-40 yards to tack on a field goal it doesnt make sense.
Of course walking up to the line casually is a bad thing...a team looking to score with a minute left usually hustles and shows a sense of urgency. We did not do that at all, regardless of the plays we ran. Its not like there was 4 minutes left. Seriously, watch a Colts game at the end of a half when they have a big lead...the play finishes and the players get the play call and are in position within seconds for Manning to hike the ball. It was obvious that scoring was not a priority for us at all.
no, because the clock wasn't running out on a potential scoring opportunity. typically teams that want to score with less than 2 minutes on the clock come up to the line with some urgency and don't let the play clock run down so low. i actually thought them passing on 2nd down was nonsensical given the fact they ran on 1st down and then wasted so much time between plays. i'd think they were taking ric's line of thinking, which is fine, that they didn't want to make a mistake....but when you couple it with passing downfield on 2nd down, i don't get it.
also, 1:30 left with timeouts ( i think they had 2) is a long time. after the sack on 2nd down, it was obvious. If he hadn't been sacked and got a 15 yard completion, you have no idea what they were going to do. You may think you do, but in reality, you are just guessing. Complain about the zone bad coverage in the 2nd half. Complain about the lack of pass rush. Complain about slaton's fumble in scoring range. But to complain about how they get to the line of scrimmage and try to correlate that to some big "message" it sends the team is just a stretch.
i think you're being overly sensitive to halves as if when they score matters, and much too focused on scores - they left 14 points on the field against jax and ari from a combined two yards out - meaning, they moved the football to do what they needed to do. that's encouraging; it's not like they're stacking 3-and-outs on top of one another and passively letting teams run over them. when they've needed to score points, they've put themselves in position to do so. now they need to get more consistent at paying them off. they're averaging 21.5 points/game - throw out the jet game (only because it was such a wild outlier) and it's 25/game. and they've won 4 of 6 and should make it 5 of 7 this weekend. i just wouldn't get too caught up in when they score; be happy they're scoring. it's a progression; learning to walk and all - last year, they didn't score near at this clip and their red zone issues were often cataclysmic. they've greatly improved in both areas this year (though they obviously have some kinks to still work out). i think the primary culprit is youth and inexperience.
They had been getting no where with first down runs most, if not all game. Leaving themsleves with a 2nd and long then meant a second down pass was likely and the Niner DL pinned back the ears and put on the big rush... leading up to that sack you believe killed the drive. Unfortunately, their overly conservative playcalling often puts them in more dangerous situations than if they simply go with what was effective; in this case, using the pass to move the ball and set up the running game. They survived this game... against better teams, these would be the situations that lead to losses.
again, im not saying the offense is bad. just that it's inconsistent from one half to the next...and i'd like to see them put 2 halves together more frequently.
Ric, they got hammered 21-3 in the second half. On several occasions, one half has been wildly different from the other of a Texans game. I realize there are lots of things that factor into it--especially halftime coaching adjustments--but I'm ready to see the Texans beat a team from Q1-12:00 all the way to Q4-0:00. And I don't mean just leading in the score, either. The second half was clearly a poor effort by *both* halves of the ball. If you argue that, all I have to say is "21-3".
yeah... after building a 21-point lead. why are we isolating 30 minutes of football and pretending there's an issue? you're going to win your fair share of games scoring 24 points. sure; but with the exception of a few teams on either end of the spectrum, the nfl is made up of largely interchangeable teams. they're currently 13 teams with 3 or 4 wins right now. so unless you're playing st. louis or someone of their ilk, i think expecting some start-to-finish beatdown of a team of equal skill is probably not entirely realistic. the texans aren't 21 points better than SF nor is SF 18 points better than the texans. but houston did enough to win and worrying about when they did those things seems kind of silly to me. (btw - psst: this isn't the nba - they play 15 minute Qs)
LOL @ at the 15-minute thing--good catch. I see where you're coming from; I'm just not buying it. I've watched Houston football teams blow too many large leads to think it's OK to surrender 21 points in the second half while only scoring 3. And, I did not suggest that the Texans should "beat down" another team for 60 minutes--but how about scoring at *least* 10 points in each half? Or a couple of good 6-8 minute drives, even if they end in FG? Or how about adjusting to that one play after the first time they were burned for a TD, rather than giving up two more on the same play???? That's all I'm saying.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/fb/texansfront/6687016.html Looks like Dre is ok. Sure could have been worse.... Buffalo next week, Indy then Bye. Do we hold him out next week if he's not 100%?
I believe Ric is suggesting that half-to-half comparisons are irrelevant, silly, and useless. I don't concur.
the 1st two drives in the second half were crap for the texans. the 3rd was the fumble. The other final 2 drives were about 50 yards each...one was a FG and one was a punt, but could have been a FG (chris has the leg).
1. because a 21 point lead wasn't enough yesterday. because scoring 21 in one half against the Cardinals wasn't enough, because we did zilch in the first half. 2. i'm not suggesting they should score 42 points a game by scoring 21 in one half and 21 the next...i'm suggesting that they shouldn't be so feast or famine. The offense literally dies for halves at a time. That's how we lost to AZ. That's how we lost to Jacksonville. 3. I said in my post yesterday, I'll take the win...and I will. Because you're right, they're not 21 points better than SF. But I'm not JUST talking about yesterday's game. We wouldn't be discussing this at all if it were JUST that one game. I'm talking about a season-wide trend for this team that causes me some concern.
I would agree, but he started out the discussion with MadMax trying to point out stats that try to argue that the offense isn't inconsistent. It did migrate more to the idea that the inconsistency doesn't matter though.
