where do you stand?

The improvement on "D" was very encourging and the overall play of the offense in the 2nd half was good to see. If we can ever get a running game going I see 10-6 still possible but 9-7 more realistic. Winning two or the next three is possible and honestly a must...

This one doesn't hurt to much but a win in Cincinnati would make things right in the world again!

 

A win against Cincy gets us back to being one game off my pre-season predicted pace. Would have loved to be 4-2 after four weeks, but now we need to beat the suddenly hot Bengals and then steal a win somewhere on the road...

I'm riding this thing out. I just have a feeling that this team has a run in them - getting hot at the right time can lead to a surge to the post-season (especially if we can knock off some division/conference teams in the process).

I'm encouraged that the team didn't give up on Kubiak yesterday. I called out the team for "mailing it in" in the first half, but they came back and made a real game out of it (on all three sides of the game) in the second half. This team needs to rally around itself, pick themselves up, and play as a team. That could be the biggest thing that came out of yesterday's heartbreak.

Run off three wins in a row here, and the season gets a whole lot more interesting going forward.

 

I'm still optimistic that the season will ultimately be positive, although I now think they will fall short of making the playoffs.

I'm also losing my faith in kubiak each week. This team isn't ready to play and makes some terrible calls.

They need better players at so many positions (o-line, RB, secondary, and unfortunately still on the dline).

Hopefully this offseason will be another productive one and they will finally be a strong team.I hate to see a regime change and rebuilding, but it will depend on how they finish out. I don't think its playoffs or bust

 

Can't run the ball; can't stop the run.
I predicted 8-8 before the season started. I'll stand by that prediction, but it's looking further out of reach every week.

I've said it on this board before, but it bears repeating: My biggest fear is that McNair will call for a regime change and clean house...and bring in a 3-4 defensive guy. That would be CATASTROPHIC on so many levels and send this team back to 2002 in terms of (re)building.

 

Well I am sick and tired of looking at the same mistakes...over...and over...and over again.

If Kubes is telling them the right way of doing things then they have tuned him out because they are not doing them.

I shudder to think about the thought of another 2-3 years of rebuilding. I really am tired of waiting for a winner here. So we as fans wait all season and this is the product we are given?

The Cowgirls played a horrible game and guess what? They found a way to win. The Texans are in the opposite end of the spectrum ...we found a way to lose.

I am beginning to lose faith in this regime. They can build a talented team but they just don't seem to know how to get it all together. I realize the players play the game but the coaches need to shoulder the blame as well.

BOTTOM LINE IS...

They simply must win the next 2 games or a successful season is out of reach.

At this point, 9-7 would look good...and that's pathetic. We are a 10-6 talented team that plays at 8-8. The poster-child for mediocre.

 

I think the best case scenario of 10-6 is still possible. 4 games until the bye, I think 2-2 is realistic, with wins over Buffalo and SF, and losses to Indy and Cincy. SF and Cinci could each go the other way, so I'm going with 2-2 as the most likely outcome there. That would put them at 4-5.

After that, they have a great stretch - potentially winning 5 of the next 6. Miami and STL should be wins. Indy is probably a loss. The other three games are Tennessee, @Jacksonville, and Seattle. All three are definitely winnable (keep in mind, this is a "realistic best-case" scenario). That would put the team at 9-6.

The finale is New England - this could depend a lot on if NE has clinched their spot/seed or what's going on there. If the game matters to NE, I don't see this going well for the Texans. If it doesn't, that could put the Texans at 10-6.

 

I was really disappointed in the Texans inability to get short yardage first downs. Faith in Kubiak is slipping, but I don't want a totally new defense either. Faith in zone blocking is at an all time low.

Faith in Jacoby Jones is at an alltime high after he made some very clean catches of punts yesterday as well as he is takiong time after catch to survey field. Dre is the man at WR.

The team still has too many holes unless you count in the running game.

I think the Texans are an inconsistent team that will finish from 6-10 to 9-7.

 

I think we are destined for another 8-8 season, or 9-7 maybe. It's been the same story every year under Kubes- consistently inconsistent. It's not like we made drastic changes in the offseason...this team shouldn't be taking this long to put it together.

You can't even go through the schedule and mark off sure wins or losses for this team, just because we never know what we're going to get. I think we're going to get handled by Cincy next week with their ground game, then hopefully limp into the bye week at 4-5 with wins over SF and Buffalo, neither of which are sure things. I can see us getting hot in December again just like the last two years, but those Miami & New England games are going to be tough.

I just don't see 10 wins happening anymore.

 

Exactly what I wanted to say. It's the same crap game after game...year after year. I'm still a fan that's going to watch every game and live or die with this team every Sunday. I'm just not going to harbor any illusions of the playoffs again this season.

Question is...when does it improve? 8-8 again probably costs Kubiak his job (as well it should...IMO, he's taken them as far as he can).

 

I’m still on the bandwagon, but it sure as hell ain’t easy. I agree that the J-ville loss will come back and haunt us big time.

The thing is everyone is assuming that 9-7 will be good enough to get a Wild Card berth. I don’t think so. With teams like the Jets, Broncos and Bengals playing better than everyone expected, along with the fact that the Steelers, Ravens and Patriots will be in the mix as well, I don’t see us making the playoffs unless we win the division. And obviously that ain’t happening…..

I’m starting to lose my faith in this whole zone blocking scheme, though. And it’s NOT just because of the last minute of the game yesterday. Our running game has been totally non-existent all year long.

Someone made a post in the titans game thread about what teams are doing to stop it. Something about beating the o-lineman to his spot. Our lack of success this year makes me wonder if the league has caught up with this scheme. Are there any other teams that are running it?

 

Losers are the ones every year pointing to how close they were to winning.

The Bills *almost* beat the Pats in their opener. The Browns *almost* beat Cincy. The Chiefs *almost* upset Dallas and *almost* beat the Radiers. Jax *almost* beat the Colts. Oakland *almost* came back on the Chargers. Dallas *almost* beat the Giants. You could go on all day with that.

End of story, contenders find a way to win. Pretenders don't. Sometimes luck plays a good part in it. Sometimes you make your own luck.

We twice came close to tying a game we lost. We came close to losing the Titans game. We got blown out of our own building by the Jets. We are very nearly the worst in the league at running the football. We very well could be 3-6 at the bye and are at least in danger of a 6-win season.

Is this team out of it? I'm not ready to close the book on such a prolific passing attack and a defense that has improved each week (from laughingstock to somewhat respectable). But the piss poor running game is a killer.

All this, and we only played a single team above 0.500 in our 2-3 start. Cincy and the 49ers aren't the easy games we thought they'd be before the season.

I'm not going to sit here at a desk and define who the Texans are and what they will do. The Texans are going to do that. But right now, 10 wins looks more and more like a pipedream.

Evan

 

Exactly! We'll need to steal a game somewhere along the way to get to 10 wins (@CIN, SF, @BUF, IND).

@CIN, SF, @BUF, @IND, bye, TEN, IND, @JAX, SEA, @STL, @MIA, NE

Must wins: @BUF, TEN, @JAX, SEA, @STL, @MIA (gets us to 8 wins)
Nice to win: @CIN, SF
Would love to steal: @IND, IND, NE

If we win all my designated "must" games and either sweep the nice to win or split those two and steal a game, we'd be at 10 wins.

The pieces are there - can the execute?

 

Simply put: "They are who I thought they were". I had them at 8-8 or possibly 7-9 and I still see that I just don't see them dropping to 6-10 or worse but I also don't see them as a playoff team even thought it now looks like they'll finish 2nd in the division. I see them for what they are - an average team. This spin of "they are 2 yards away from turning 2 of those L's into coin flips" or "they are only 3 defensive breakdowns from being 4-1" is less than meaningless as far as I'm concerned.

And I tried to warn you about this. You were pencilling in W's based on what you saw on paper while I kept saying to look at what was happening on the field. Just saw another winnable game go by the wayside because the team came out flat, was unprepared and unable to run the football (again) which rendered them one-dimensional (again). Schaub is good but asking him to throw 30-40 times a game because your vaunted ZBS is not working is not my recipe for winning football. Of the 3 upcoming games, I only see them having a true advantage in the Buffalo game. The other two will be tough hard-fought games.

No, they were clearly beaten by Jax - that was not a fluke. Jax may be terrible but their win over the Texans was legit.

 

I think the Texans should adopt an offensive style like the pats and eagles and throw the ball more. I'd like to see Schaub throw about 50 times per game and run from the no huddle the majority of the time. We have the offensive tools to make this happen. Kubiak is stubborn when it comes to the run. Putting in Chris Brown when you need a yard has been a recipe for disaster this season so far.

 

The one thing that keeps me a little upbeat today is that if we play football the way that we did in the SECOND HALF yesterday, there are VERY few teams that can beat us. The problem is that we have to be able to sustain that level of play for 4 quarters, and 11 more games. The biggest problem I have with Kubiak is that this team has been LETHARGIC coming out of the gates ever since he's been here, and I'm done listening to his coachspeak about "it's on this guy right here." Put up or shut up. I want to see us go out in Cincy and start FAST. Let's see us put 10 or 14 pts on the board before Cincy even knows the game has started. These next three games are WINNABLE, but so were the last 3, and we're 1-2 in those. If we go anything less than 2-1, I would say that 10-6 is a busted pipedream, and with that goes the playoffs. This team is capable of winning all THREE of these games coming up.....now let's see the play on the field to prove it.

 

I will never go Awol on this team, but it's depressing sometimes. You'd think that after 3 years under kubiak, that the team would've learned a couple of things on how to avoid making the same mistakes twice, or in our case a hundred times.

We have to embrace who we are, and the texans are a passing team, use the screens as the running game or let the pass set up the run.

 

I am all in as always.

I think we are much closer to getting over the hump and being a very good team than we are to having to rebuild.

 

I was a 9-7 guy but the fan in me wanted to see 10. I think 10 is lost, but they still have a chance for 9. 8 is probably the safe bet, though.

I don't think they would go with a 3-4 scheme. Why? Mario.

 

Going with the 3-4 wouldn't be rebuilding since every successful defensive formation requires an awesome fat DT. We don't have one now in the 4-3. We do have a great linebacking core and you could always move barwin to the outside. D-magic is right about mario williams.

I'm not sure but I think yesterday I saw 3 linemen in their stances and one standing up, had not seen that since 2007 or maybe I was just seeing things.