Jeremy Rice has an excellent article in today's Chronicle about the Texans' game against the Titans and how they were able to succeed against their defense. Like myself, JLR is not a fan of the ZBS and his analysis of what's happened to the running game is spot on. I know that Kubiak and folks here want to blame the running back(s) but I'm with him in that the problem lies not so much with them but with the ZBS system (or the way Kubiak is running it). Here's the link: Which Texans Will Show Up Sunday? And the article: Texans big win leave fans wondering which Texans will show up this Sunday? I'm not sure either, but experience with this team has taught to be very reluctant in assuming they have turned the corner. The Texans can throw the ball when they have time, and the Titans just do not rush the passer nearly as well as they did when Albert Haynesworth was forcing QBs to eject from the pocket, and into the waiting arms of KVB, and Jevon Kearse. The Titans do not have faith in their secondary to blitz, and the result was obvious. The Houston Texans were receivers were running wide open. So which team will show up against Jacksonville? Well, probably not the team we saw beat the Titans, they haven't proven to be that consistent. The Jets then? I hope not! Somewhere in between is more likely. So lets take a peek at some of the lessons learned from the first two games. Offense, The Texans flat out have to pass block to have success. The zone blocking experiment is FAILING, in week one it was shut down by stacking gaps and lining up the OSLB's wide, this made blocking angles extremely difficult, getting to the second level on the interior an almost impossibility, and they were flat out manhandled on the inside of the line. Flash forward to week two, the Titans stack the gaps (see a pattern), but they were not able to dominate the interior of the line as the Jets did, so the Titans were fast flowing against the run. You heard me talk about this in the past, as the defensive lineman and linebackers read the Texans "zone step" and slant hard in that direction. The zone step is a step the offensive line will make play side in unison to help get the proper angles required to execute the inside or outside zone plays. The type of step will vary whether you are covered (defensive lineman head up) or un-covered (no defensive lineman in front of the lineman). The key to stopping the zone play, is reading that step and beating the offensive lineman to the area (zone) which is his responsibility. If you can not beat him there, you have to use your hands to defeat the cut blocks on the back side by keeping the lineman off your legs. So when I say the Titans were fast flowing, they were beating the Texans offensive lineman to the lanes and filling them. The Titans also stacked the box with 8 several times, and overloaded the strong side of the formation. The result from this style of defense is you cant run the football, and everyone knows the Texans need to run the football to be successful. The Texans were able to use play action to blow the Titans coverage schemes all to heck. This seems like a great counter against a team that is fast flowing, but why didn't the Titans stop and adjust? In other words quit taking such aggressive angles when the Texans showed run. The reason is the Titans were very undisciplined in their coverage's (blowing coverage assignments), and I'm sure they felt they would stop making the mistakes and get the Texans offense off the field, or to force the ball and turn it over. Its tough to say, because this is our team, but that's the book on them and teams will take their chances having Matt Schaub throw for 40 or so attempts against them if they are stopping the run and dictating terms to the offense. The key to this offense is the run, if the Texans can execute in the running game then this team is a playoff team. If they are going to rely on Matt to carry the offense with 300 yard passing games and 55 yard rushing days then this team will be turnover prone and the likely hood of your quarterback making the season goes down significantly. So what have the Texans done in two games, two separate defenses, two separate styles, two sets of personnel to adjust when both defenses have been able to dominate the Texans rushing attack? If you answered nothing, you win nothing but your still right. I was at least encouraged to see a draw play against the aggressive pass rush. This is progress ladies and gents! The Titans game is a great example of how out of position teams can get if they fast flow, one of the long touchdowns the Titans Line, backers, and secondary all got out of position simply due to reading the zone step and playing aggressive. You can take advantage of the same angles in the run game as well, the Texans simply do not try and this is a problem. It allows teams to dictate to this offense how they will be forced to attack, if you can limit the attack, you control the situations, and Sunday was a game in which the Texans overcame those situations to win. The problem is they wont always be able to overcome and inconsistency and turnovers are an understandable side effect. Defense Fred Bennett is the fans choice for whipping boy this season. The touchdown he gave up to Washington was just really good execution. The ball had to be thrown just perfectly and it was, if the receiver would have had to turn and slow for the ball Bennett was in position to challenge the catch. Yes, he has been inconsonant in man coverage, but against the Jets the DBs were in coverage a year on the third and longs. They looked much better against the Titans, with of course the obvious mental breakdowns. The long pass play to Johnson where he was left uncovered looked to be a blitz they were trying to adjust to formation wise, when Johnson went into motion. Due to the confusion in the new defense, one of the safeties didn't adjust and "boom goes the dynamite". We knew adding Brian Cushing wasn't going to solve this teams defensive woes from last season. We hoped the Bush defense would confuse the offense's, and allow the Texans to challenge the offense more than just trying not to give up big plays. What I have seen so far isn't very much of the defense trying to disguise its intentions, but as I was reminded by a coaching buddy, they are still trying to get those kids to line up right (and this was before the game). He made a great point, so I'm going to be much easier on grading the defense than I am the offense. The long touchdowns on the draw plays were in part were inexperience, Connor Barwin wide eyed rushing the passer got way out of his lane and Roos whipped him on by, then picked up a key block. Our corner got pinned on the play, and decided the best course of action was to get into a strength battle with a WR that outweighed him by 30 pounds, and was five inches taller. Sometimes you have to disengage, retreat, and try and force the guy to help if you can not make the play. Just because its 3rd and long doesn't mean you can be undisciplined. I expect the Texans to start the climb up from 32nd on defense pretty soon, but my hopes of 18-15 for this defense in the preseason were based on a ton of young guys meshing right into a new scheme, and I knew that the odds of that happening were low. What I'm surprised by is why more people are not jumping off of Bennett, and jumping on Antonio Smith. This guy is really off to an outstanding start here in Houston. First he blows up at his Dline coach in camp, was a non factor in the pre-season, has done little in the regular season managing just 6 tackles (one assisted) and zero sacks (as compared to part time player Busing who as a DB has 6 tackles (all solo) and a pick). Now he didn't start the Titans games due to some violation to team rules? Really? Man I hope thats wrong. I thought the Texans overpaid for him when they signed him, because I thought he was just a run stopping end, very similar to Anthony Weaver with a spin move. Now I think the Texans over paid for a run stopping end, very similar to Anthony Weaver with a spin move, who is also trying to prove he is a jack hole. I guess buyer beware. Well, I write up all this football junk because I love to talk football, and I also love to here your take on the Texans as well. I'd like to thank all of you for stopping by and contributing to this blog. Texans Jags preview out Thursday! Thanks JLR
I'm watching ESPN first take this morning, and they have Larry King on the show. They showed a bunch of NFL and College Football clips of great catches, and then the last one they showed was Andre Johnson's catch where he tipped it to himself last week in the inzone. No one had gotten higher than a 5 out of 10 in the other clips and King opened it up with an 8, then the other hosts gave it 9's. (out of 10). And one of the hosts then said "this play by the NFL's best reciever, is a personification of the re balance of power in the AFC south." They all voted the play as the play of the week. Hell, even Skip Bayless voted it the best play..... Andre won a signed copy of Larry's book lol.
The last time the Texans won back to back division games was Oct. 17, 2004 at Tennessee - W (20-10) and Oct. 31, 2004 vs. Jacksonville - W (20-6). We're due for another AFC south winning streak.
Hell yeah...and living in Nashville adds to the fun...O, suddenly where was everyone wearing Titans Jerseys on Monday?...Suddenly I didn't see that like usual...Maybe Friday will now be officially "Titans Jersey Day" in town here?...
Texans win 27-13. Slaton will improve his running but only slightly at 3.2 ypc. AJ goes for 140 yards and 1 TD. OD will have 2 TDs.
I have to say I'm concerned about this game because this is exactly the type of game the Texans always seem to let us down in, the ones they are expected to win. It reminds me a lot of two years ago when we came back on the road to beat Carolina in week 2. Everyone was high on the team and felt that they had finally turned the corner in becoming a playoff caliber team only to get smacked down the following weeks. Fortunately, we get a much easier task this time than we did last time in the Colts, plus we'll actually have Andre Johnson this time around. However, Jacksonville isn't just going to roll over like a lot of people believe, and I expect this to be a hard fought game similar to last week, though probably not as high scoring.. 24-21 Texans
Texans win 20 -13. Chris Brown comes in and has a big game after another sluggish performance by the overbulked Slaton.
That was an excellent read, especially the part about the blocking scheme. I admit I don't know enough about how it works to really have an opinion of it. All I know about it is that it was used in Denver when they were plugging anyone in at RB and having him gain 1,500 yards a season. I'm old school in that, when I think of run blocking, I think of an O linemen CORKSCREWING his man into the turf. The part about Smith was pretty good too. Like he said, so far he has basically been Weaver with a crappy attitude. And a much bigger contract. Not good.
i love how two weeks against two of the nfl's best run defenses is suddenly more pertinent than all 16 weeks last year and, like, 950,000 weeks in denver. it *is* failing; but it's not yet a failure.
It's failing, but it's still a success. I don't think schemes succeed or fail; I think people do. And like Ric said (and I poked fun at), they've failed for two weeks, but we shall see going forward.
This is the big test guys. As we know the Texans in thier history have always had HUGE letdowns after big wins. But I really do love the present and future for this team. If we replace dunta with a draft pick, sign casey hampton, and draft a run stuffing safety in the mold of a younger Roy Williams this defense will be ready for the next step, and in turn the Texans will be ready for contention. I wanna see an absolute execution of the Jags secondary on Sunday.
The problem is we played two great run defenses and Slaton isn't quite the same guy so far as he was last year. Zone-blocking is fine, especially with Alex Gibbs running it. That's why we had such a great running game last year- not to take anything away from Slaton, but the scheme was huge.
These next 2 games are MUST WINS. You beat the teams you are supposed to. So by week 5, we go to Arizona 3-1 and can at least afford a loss to stay over .500 So the Jags...at home, 0-2 game...they were deestroyed by a passing attack so I think this should be pretty easy. Two rookie OTs, no real WRs, only threat is RB and a QB that will run. On defense not too many playmakers. This is a rebuilding team. BUT...it's a rival game so anything can happen.
Ronnie Brown killed me in week 1 and rebounded with an excellent effort. Hopefully, Slaton is due for some touchdown love.
