Agreed - there is this attitude with some front offices and even head coaches, that they can plug any lower level assistant in to run the offense and it will work. It’s baffling to me because these organizations will spend hundreds of millions of dollars on players and head coaches will work 16 hour days — but then plug in a 30 year old assistant with limited experience and say “We good.” You would think the Texans would have especially learned this with their experience last season. It starts to feel like an ego issue. I watched it happen with Kubiak, Lovie Smith in Chicago and countless other organizations.
I'm not going to give the defense a pass for yesterday. McVay outcoached/outmaneuvered Ryans; specifically, he neutralized the pass rush with short, quick passes, and Ryans had no answer, and then he looked for and exploited Pitre in coverage, which was an issue last year that Ryans didn't bother to upgrade or scheme around. Ryans not anticipating a pass on the 3rd down game-clincher was frustrating, too. I'll also note Puka missed a chunk of the game and that guy... he's so good. He was open all day. Ryans had no answer. We're going to (rightly) spend a lot of energy upset the Texans didn't properly address their OL personnel. But their lack of CB depth is also a big miss by Caserio and Ryans.
At least Kubiak could run that side of the ball and had called plays before... same for Lovie Smith from his side of the ball. Now everybody just trying to find the next McVay.... by hiring McVay's assistants... and meanwhile McVay is still doing McVay better than anybody since Andy Reid (who is still doing his own thing... while all his assistants have come/gone and some failed and went back to him). Even those young guys that do have initial success (Mike McDaniel for instance) will still have to go back and get an advanced graduate degree once they fail the first time.
Caley may eventually be a great hire - but your clock is starting to really tick on Stroud, and not just financially. You wasted year 2, and yesterday, he did not look at all comfortable as the pounding of last season is very obviously still rattling in his head. Creating an environment is which your promising young QB develops bad habits because you can't build an infrastructure around him is football maleficence. The Texans should have thrown a Brinks truck at Chip Kelly. Also, sitting out free agency and, essentially, the draft to try and find offensive linemen.... you don't do that with a first-year OC. I'm trying REALLY hard not to overreact to one week. But for it to look *exactly* the same.......
it’s been 2-3 more than serviceable CBs that everyone wanted the Texans to go after for these games - and we just never pull the trigger … Pitre should never be in coverage of any slot receiver
I almost posted very nearly this exact response. I think it has to do with Kubiak/Ryans thinking... we're first-time head coaches and succeeding... forgetting that their years of coordinating experience is why their side of the ball is well-establish and working. I was fine with Slowick in year 1 because the expectations were we'd be years away. Once 2023 happened, the Texans should have moved with the utmost urgency. It's inexplicable they let Slowick stick around for 17 weeks, and to double-down by hiring another learn-on-the-job coordinator when you have to be throwing EVERY resource at Stroud in a critical year-3.... It makes no sense. Hopefully, in five weeks, these posts look silly.
I'm disappointed but not surprised with the outcome. I said before the game that our D will keep us in games, until they become tired. We had time of possession in our favor at the half but again failed to make any adjustments to the offense in the 2nd half. It was always going to be a tall order beating one of the NFC's better teams on the road opening week. Crummy thing is Jags and the Colts looked better yesterday than I gave them credit for even though the Jags were playing the Panthers, which is playing the equivalent of the Sugarland Space Cowboys. I'm a glass half full kind of guy so I think the O line will age better in a few weeks. It's tough to remake basically the entire line and expect them to gel by week 1. We had a chance to win this game, but the Landman came and literally punched the game away from us. The Buck's are more in our stratosphere as far as overall team talent. Let's see what happens. Took me a while to wash the stink of the Astros and Texans games out of my mouth. Today is a new day and all we can do is hope things get better. I would feel worse if we lost to the Colts or Jags yesterday.
I was adamant that they hire a former head coach as OC, somebody like Frank Reich who is a former QB himself. They did not, and the early returns don't look so good. It's Week 1 though, so I won't jump off a cliff yet, but seeing the very first game look exactly like how we looked last season on offense was just so disappointing. All the zest for Week 1 just disappeared after the first couple of drives. We were fed dry chicken breast with no salt. Offense had a chance to redeem themselves for a very bad day on that final drive, then the fumble happened. Just awful.
I did not see any urgency from the Offense, except perhaps on the final drive. Then the screw up of not being set before the snap. Is that an accurate observation, or am I letting the results cloud my memory? (the relentless mindset, great energy on every single snap, playing as physically as possible)
Diving deeper with the sacks during play action. If every team, like last year, ignores Houston's play action, it should be abandoned until further notice. Or they should keep it only for designed rollouts to allow an easier scramble or throw away. Example 1 : Houston Max protects, sending only 2 receivers. The linebackers and safety just chilling but not freezing. It's a suicide mission for those 2 receivers if no one takes the bait. Meanwhile our backers and safeties fooled by any movement in the backfield.
On one defensive play, I don’t remember who it was, but before the snap he adamantly pointed for coverage on a deep pass and quickly ran back into position. The moment he did, the Rams snapped the ball and ran right through the spot he had just vacated for a good gain. I was hoping we were going to be seeing more stuff like this from the Texans with CJ having more 'control' now. Still early, though, but I was hoping for something.
Came in here to talk about this. I remember discussing in the Fire Slowik thread. Caley may end up being really good, who knows, but I hate that we don't have an experienced playcaller...again. The same thing that doomed Kubiak here, IMO, just flipped to defense instead of offense. He only had success when he brought in Wade Phillips. I have to think they took a big swing at Chip Kelly and missed. The timing of firing Slowik was just too weird to end up with another first-time playcaller. On the bright side, I'm hoping the o-line will have gelled in the next few weeks and start to have some stability there. If that happens and penalties are minimized, there may be some hope.
That kind of crap is absolutely ridiculous! Whoever threw the damn punch should be prosecuted for assault. It's a damn game! People need to act like humans and not rabid dogs.
Watching that crap in L.A. yesterday afternoon, then watching The Bills & Ravens Sunday night……..yeah, theseTexans are light years away from being contenders
