I'm still in disbelief that we lost but look at the bright side. We're still in position to win 11 games. I think we'll all take that considering the amount of devastating injuries that we've had. We need AJ back. We need Wade back. A message to Kubiak: You.Play.To.Win.The.Game He needs to stop being a vag. We were in a position to take some risks. Get the first down and finish the damn game.
Just watched the game on DVR. What the **** was that? Nothing has phased this team all year but Wade has surgery and the team falls to ****. Wade > Kubiak.
Kubiak was like that the whole night. If we fell behind schedule on first down, we usually just packed it in. 3rd and more than a little and you knew we were running or throwing a screen and settling for the FG or punting. Kubes is generally a good play caller but there are times when he goes into conservative mode and the offense always sucks when he does. With Yates at QB, Kubes has been in conservative mode 24/7. Kubes needs to figure out how to play call with Yates quickly or this team is going to get slaughtered in the playoffs regardless of who they face.
I questioned whether the Texans defense can hold up when they no longer have an offense that leads the NFL in time of possession. Against Jacksonville, Atlanta, and Cincy they showed they could. They showed they can hold the fort while offenses continue to be anemic for long stretches. I don't know if it's Wade or things catching up. But they now seem to be incapable of doing that. Time of possession for the Texans was 27 minutes. That's a full 6 minutes less than what the Texans consistently had before Schaub's injury. We have a great defense. But we don't have the 2000 Ravens or 2002 Bucs defense. They did a great job out there. Perhaps without the horrible officiating we could've won. But it's clear we can't win this year purely on D and a running game.
Some other things I just want to mention since I just watched the game, I'm sure others have mentioned them. Eric Winston, WTF? This sequence of events in the 2nd quarter kind of coast us the game. BS roughing the passer penalty on Watt, extends drive. Indy punts and Jacoby decides to return it from the 5 even though it would clearly have gone into the endzone. Illegal block in the back called. Texans start from their own 8 and as a result go ultra conservative and go 3 and out. Indy starts with good field position and gets a FG. I think that most definitely if that Watt penalty hadn't been called and maybe if Jacoby lets that punt go, that we win the game. Why in the hell to teams still run the prevent defense? The defense seemed to play well early in drives, but if the Colts converted a 3rd down, they seemed to go into hiding. 11 ****ing penalties. Yeah, some were BS, but a lot weren't. No discipline. We only had one 3rd down conversion and that was a fluke. We only had one TD and that was pretty much gifted to us after the turnover. This offense is BAAAAD!!!!! Haven't scored more than 20 since Schaub went out. Our 17.2 ppg without Schaub would rank us 27th if extrapolated over the whole season. This is the fewest points an Indy opponent has scored all season. Even Jacksonville managed 2 TD's.
I don't get what the hell Marciano is teaching Jacoby. While Jacoby has done a better job of starting off a return going forward, he's still braindead about fielding. Fair catching inside the 10 instead of letting it go is starting a drive dead in the water. He does this often and it's killing this team.
I was far too drunk and busy stuffing my face full of delicious om-noms to really know what happened during this train wreck of a game, but even I, in my half-minded, distracted stupor, knows that the officiating was horrendous.
Which is why he said the defense is great (though we are still talking about what was a 1 win team). But he's right. Offense has to give them some breathing room. They looked exhausted as hell on that last drive.
NFL parity and mounting injuries including a 5th round pick rookie, caught up to what had been an overachieving team that really had made their year on two drives, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. Indy's WR's outclass ours by a huge margin, their QB play was better so their play calling and ability to check off to man coverage made ours look like Pop Warner. We have a real good D and Andre Johnson coming back and TE's that should be much better when they can run. All is not lost. And... The Refs suck. The whole momentum of the game turned on the BS roughing the passer call on Watt's sack. It's a farging sack!
Kubiaks game plan works if we didn't have some of those penalties. People forget that Yates is still a 3rd string QB. Its very rare that you'll see a guy like Yates, is let loose. GK was trying to make it simple and manageable for Yates. I mean, it is the Colts. If we let Yates loose that game, I guarantee he throws at least two picks and we lose by an even bigger margin. Yates is doing all he can as a third string QB. Its up to the other guys to step it up. W had some bonehead penalties and questionable calls as well, that led to our dimise.
Kubiak's game plan did not work because we lost. We put up 16 points against a terrible defense. The offense was unable to sustain long drives and quite a few times gave the Colts great field position. Fact is Kubiak never gave Yates much of a chance to do anything, good or bad, this game. And that runs contrary to what he has been saying all along. If there were ever games to let Yates loose and see what he can do it's these last three, where the pressure to make the playoffs is off and you're playing inferior opponents. Let Yates work through his struggles and find his way. Shoot Yates seems to do his best when he doesn't have much time to think and is running the 2 minute drill. So I'd love to see Kubiak be a little unorthodox (for him) and try to run the offense in hurry up mode and see how that works. We're going 3 and out as is, try something different for a change! They better throw caution to the wind and open up the passing game, and give him and Andre chances to click, because the first round against most likely the Jets isn't the time.
There wasn't much they could have done differently, imo, with the lone exception being the 3rd-and-5 call with 2 minutes left. The problem with turning Yates loose was that Mathis treated Winston like a rag doll all game. That, coupled with no Andre, made passing almost impossible on anything other than 1st and 10 bootlegs and plays where the Colts had to respect the run. I really don't think last night's offense is appreciably different if Schaub were under center. They do likely win the game, because all they would've needed was one more play. But an awful pass-blocking offensive line combined with no Andre was a deadly combination. That's the problem with being so dependent on the run game. As good as we looked at times, all it takes is one play where you get stopped for no gain or a loss and the entire drive is stuffed, because there was no way we could convert in obvious passing situations, given those limitations. I'm still in a state of disbelief this morning. Just unreal. As bad as it was, all we needed was ONE MORE PLAY somewhere... one bounce... officiating that was only bad and not horrendous... and the No. 1 seed and homefield advantage would be very much in play. As it is, we need some luck to avoid the No. 4.
I've been saying for years that Marciano is possibly the worst ST Coordinator in the NFL. How he's still with the team is beyond me.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/dsx2vdn7gpY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> This was me after the game last night.
There was another punt he fair caught at the 8. I was cool with that because Indy was already down there and it looked like they'd be able to down it before it got to the endzone. This other one looked like a sure touchback though. Even if the block in the back hadn't been flagged, Jacoby only brought the ball out to the 17 or 18.
He has a good reputation. That's all I know. But I've never thought we had much more than average special teams.
