duh. (that's a joke) i did. if you're going to be the team we all want the texans to be, you take care of a team like the jets. and i thought they should. but i didn't think the jets were a pushover by *any* means, so when i say i'm not shocked, it's a hindsight confirmation of my initial fears, all posted last week: great OL, very good running game, a new defense designed by a guy who thoroughly cleaned our clocks last year..... i'm disappointed. but not shocked. it's not like... the chiefs came to town and blew our doors off.
not me. slaton ran effectively against them last year (twice) and the game in tennessee, the post-ike game, we moved the ball up and down the field that day. but johnson dropped two (iirc) TD passes and schaub continually imploded in the red zone - i said then i thought they played like a team out of synch and off their rhythm... you know, like a team that didn't practice well and spent most of the week distracted. and then they moved the ball up and down the field on them again in the win late last season. scoring is their issue - if they can score TDs and not FGs, i think they'll be competitive.
normally i don't. but they were so unprepared in a game they should have been absolutely prepared for. they were so thoroughly beaten. one game is nearly 10% of the season in NFL football. one game is usually the difference between a playoff team and an also-ran. for the texans, one game has meant the difference in never having a winning season in franchise history. i'm not about lining up replacements if i'm bob mcnair. but i can certainly imagine the fans speculating on it....wondering how long this will last.
Is it too much to ask to want just one Houston team to come out of the gate strong? This is *not* to defend any knee-jerkers (it's silly to call for Kub's head or bench Shaub). But I am so sick and freaking tired of hearing "it's early" or "it's only one game". The Astros have made a habit of limping out of the gate. The Rox were absolutely pedestrian the first month or so last year. The Texans are always making their late-season charge to mediocrity. Dammit, when is someone from Houston gonna stand up and kick ass all year long????
“What we want to do is get hands on them and be physical,” linebacker Bart Scott said. “That's how you beat a finesse team.” pretty much sums it up (from the chronicle)
i'm with you on this team. they're a good team. not a great team. i hoped the texans would be at least a good team. i'm not so sure that is well-founded hope anymore. we'll see.
i'm not making excuses - the jets, like the steelers a year ago, were a terrible week 1 match-up. for whatever reason, this team/philosophy/scheme - whatever - struggles with the 3-4; not good considering 9 teams in the afc now run it. in the kubiak era, they've played against the 3-4 10 times: they're 3-7 and have been outscored 279-136. that's a paltry 13.6 points a game. if you want to just focus on the schaub era (ie not the lone carr season), they're 2-5 with an average score of 15.5. of course, it could very well be the better teams incoporate the 3-4 and its a measure of how far the texans are from being a good team. but i think at least some of it has to do with this system being ill-equipped to deal with it for whatever reason.
i'm sure he gets off on ticking off the Texans fans with his posts. all you have to do is stop responding to his posts.
then it's probably well past time to find a more flexible system. knowing you're going to get your ass handed to you by a scheme that a 1/3rd of the league runs...and doing nothing about it? you're pushing me closer to the camp that wants to sign Cowher yesterday!
2-9 in September, with six straight losses. imo, these are the types of games that reflect the most on coaching staffs because of the excess preparation... and we're continually overwhelmed.
as i recall..our record in the 3rd quarter of games last season was pretty sucky as well...when you might expect adjustments. am i recalling correctly???
Should we be concerned about Chris Myers? I mean, I know Jenkins is a damn good nose-tackle...but come on. He was flat out embarassed all game long out there.
yes, we should. I've cannot remember a time when i've seen a lineman get swatted like that. The closest thing i can think of is Reggie White's "hump move", but at least he got the lineman's momentum going and then did the move.
I don't have any hard numbers, but that's what I remember as well. It really blew my mind yesterday at the lack of in-game adjustments. For whatever reason, the Texans haven’t run the ball well all season, starting with the first preseason game. After the first drive, when the OL was physically overwhelmed, did Kubiak really think they would figure it out during the game? In a case like yesterday, that's probably not something you can fix until you have a week of preparation and adjustments. But the Texans still ran on first down on six of the first nine times, and constantly put themselves in obvious passing downs where the Jets just teed off on Schaub. I’m not saying abandon the run – I know that’s not a successful strategy. But sometimes, you need to pass to set up the run. Will that work all season long? Of course not, the Texans have to figure out how to run block. But given the preseason and how yesterday started, it was obvious to anyone with a pulse that it wasn’t happening against the Jets, at least in situations where they were expecting it. Even so, the Texans still chose to force-feed it, instead of trying to make the best of a bad situation. Also, while a lot of folks praised the OL in the offseason, my biggest concern with the group was that they still looked shaky a year ago in those obvious passing downs. They increasingly became more comfortable with the ZBS and it worked when the Texans kept opponents off-balance, but in second- and third-and-longs, they gave up far too much pressure too quickly. And the Texans gameplan yesterday routinely put them in those spots. So disappointing on so many levels.
The Texans have a center that is well suited to block the Texans defensive interior. Problem with that is, the Texans defensive interior is undersized and weak,
