Kubiak has another year and then he and his precious "family" of coaches are gone. In his three years as "head" coach, Kubiak has accomplished the following: 1. Overhauled the offense Annd... end of list! Gary Kubiak is an offensive coordinator. He is absolutely terrible in every other facet of the game of football, and the Texans will never make the playoffs under his "leadership." I pray that Bob McNair has been studying the NFL somewhat since the last time he replaced a coach.
Far and away the most embarrassing thing about the Texans this year. I've been chirping all season about how we're unbelievable moving the ball between the 20s as a backhanded compliment. Every so often, certain posters get whipped up as team apologists and point to ESPN stats - "Hey! These guys are amazing this year, they're 3rd in overall offense!" Which is AWESOME. And true, sort of kind of in a way maybe. Texans are 3rd in yardage. They are #20 in scoring, which is all the more humiliating given that they are third in the league at moving the ball (between the 20s!). We're #28 in red zone scoring, which is pathetic. But hey, at least we're #30 in opponent's red zone scoring....oh wait, that's the bad kind of #30. I'll go on record saying that we lost no less than 2 or 3 games this year by the margin of red zone INTs-or-FGs-instead-of-TDs we had. Correcting the problem's going to be tough. Hopefully it goes down as a single year fluke, and not a case where both of our QBs have a Nick Anderson-esque/Brad Lidge-esque mental block. Evan
You're absolutely the most clueless and simplistic poster on this board — congratulations. I think the chron.com blogs would really be to your liking. Are the Texans a great offense overall? Of course not. The Texans all season long have been fairly pathetic in the red zone, and yesterday was no exception. However, you have to consider the context of specific situations. In the Tennessee game, the Texans wouldn't have needed a touchdown. They didn't need a complete drive. They would have needed to move the ball between the 20s and set up a FG. Seriously, how is it possible to be this dense? If you have an offense that's great in total yardage, but lags far behind in total points, nine times out of 10 it's because they move the ball great in the middle of the field but can't convert in the red zone. That's the story of the 2008 Texans. On the whole, it's a huge problem. But if you only need one field goal on one drive — the context of the debate we had last week — your ability to move the ball between the 20s is a much more reliable predictor of your likely success than your ability to punch it in for touchdowns. I'm honestly just baffled. How can anyone possibly look at yesterday's game and conclude the Texans have a problem getting into field-goal range?
Well, it was the highlight of my NFL week with the way the Cowboys played, that's for sure. I'm sure the UH and Rice guys who are Texans fans weren't too surprised...after all, it's not the first time JLH has made their team look foolish.
"The Carlton" was great. JLH is turning out to be quite a weapon. 3 Punt return TDs, thats tops in the NFL. The Texans should be embarrased that a punt returner and a 7th round pick from San Diego State were getting open against them. We had 4 WRs on IR and Ron Curry out with an injury.
That's the million dollar question: How DO we fix this problem? I mean, is it coaching? Is it execution? Play calling? Combination of all 3? What exactly is it and how do we fix it? The only thing we know FOR SURE is that it is NOT some kind of anomaly. This has been a major problem all year long. Almost every game, win or lose, this issue has come up. It's really become our very identity.
I wished I wouldn't have called you an NFL know-it-all in the first few posts of this thread. I am not all that proud to be wearing my TEXANS' gear today.
It was just karma. You badmouth your team all week and then put money down on them to lose, of course they'll play their best game of the season.
You've got to just evaluate things with an emphasis on what changes when we get into the red zone. The over-arcing issue is you have a compressed field, which takes away or reduces an offense's ability to stretch a defense. If you're dependent on that in your scheme, you're going to have headaches at the 20. -Receivers: need a big target isolated against a smaller corner. If we were the Skins with midget speedsters like Moss and Randle El, that would be a concern, but Johnson, Walter, and Daniels are all 6-3 and none of them rely solely on speed. All are fairly sure-handed and physical. Not the problem. -QBs: this is where they separate themselves. Compressed field and major stakes mean accuracy, quick decision making, ability to read defenses, poise, and ability to place the ball in tight spots all get magnified. This is an area of major concern, in my view. Are Schaub and Rosenfels just anxious in big moments? Are they getting away with shaky decisions/accuracy between the 20s that they can't get away with when there's compressed coverage? I'm not sure if it's both or combination or what. But they've made bad decisions and they've made bad throws. If the red zone freaks them out, that's going to be trouble - because you can't coach anyone through a mental block. If it's an issue where they rely on the passing schemes to leave them with wide-open targets to hit (and this offense is great at creating holes for the receivers), that's also a problem since that luxury melts away when there's 30 yards or less to use. -RBs: smashbacks make their money here. I'm not convinced that Slaton is a smashback (he is a great RB), and the coaching staff seem slow to use him in short-yardage situations. Not sure why Leach isn't an option here. Maybe the staff will bring in a situational back for this in the offseason. In a sense, I'm fine with them wanting someone else to be their powerback - short yardage dives add wear to a RB like nothing else. -Coaching: red zone rewards execution, red zone punishes attempts to live off of talent. There has to be a separate set of red zone plays and the team has to be able to execute them to a T. I don't know if there is a major problem here, but there's almost certainly improvement to be found. The lack of trust in the running game is either about Slaton or about the O-line. Given the high number of failures here with the passing game, something has to be going through their minds to keep on staying with it. Evan
In the past two Raiders' games, the Texans just ran the ball and took advantage of the Raiders weak defense against the run. In yesterday's game, the Texans looked to pass first and run second. The wet field conditions may have been a factor (but both teams had to deal). If the Texans had established the run early, their red zone problems would have gone away, at least yesterday. For the season (and Kubiak's tenure with the Texans), I am very disappointed with the Texans run game. Kubiak appears to have brought the Broncos's pass offense to Houston, but not the run offense, the very thing which gave the Broncos their rings. One could make the argument that a formidable run game can only help a team's red zone offense.
Yes. I know. It's not being a hypocrite. It's being somewhat ashamed we did poorly. Yes, we lost badly. I still wear my gear. I WILL ALWAYS wear my gear. Spoiler
They had a bad game. It happens. They're young and will learn from it. They got too high after the Titans win...and allowed themselves to become complacent. Winning games like the Tennessee game is new to them...they'll learn.
