Well, that was totally unsurprising. I fully expected the letdown part, but did not expect that the Texans wouldn’t respond in the second half. That part was a surprise.
Houston was faced with a brutal truth on Sunday. A truth that we were all expecting to be told at some point. TJ Yates played like a rookie. He completely overlooked receivers as they ran free through the secondary, he turned the ball over, and he made some bad decisions. Yates had done all these things in previous games, but this time the end result was only 13 points.
Today, clearly the biggest problem was the defense. Cam Newton had an excellent game, and the Texans rarely had an answer for him. As is human nature, Texans fans this week will be looking for someone to blame. You’ll hear that Yates had a bad game. Foster had the early turnover. The defense couldn’t stop Newton. The Texans missed Wade Phillips. The Texans got a bit full of themselves as the division champions, and thought they’d coast to victory, etc. Some of those are true, and some played a part in the loss.
I see it like this – the Texans have been playing with house money since Matt Schaub got hurt. This seven game winning streak has been pretty extraordinary, culminating in the franchise’s first ever division title. Now, it’s done and the Texans showed (again) that they are a much, much less dynamic offense without Matt Schaub at the helm. To simplify things further – if the Texans’ defense doesn’t hold an opponent to under 20 points, they are going to have a really hard time winning games. That will hold especially true when the playoffs begin.
This was certainly a disheartening loss, but I don’t think we’ll be jumping off any cliffs this week. Some will, of course. I’ve already seen people asking if we are going to go with another quarterback (come on guys, really??)
It would have said a hell of a lot about the Texans if they would have come out and smashed the hell out of Carolina. The loss did say a lot about the Texans, but not what we want to hear. They’re very young. They don’t have any sort of history of how to deal with success. They may have thought a bit too highly of themselves after their division-clinching win in Cincinnati. The offense may have been expecting the defense to continue their dominant run and bail them out. I’m sure it was bits and pieces of all these things.
Let’s also not leave out the possibility that the Texans just had a bad game. They hadn’t lost since October. Hell, even the Packers lost on Sunday. The COLTS won a game. The COLTS! It just happens. Better now than in the first playoff game.
Cam Newton sure looks like the real deal. I have to admit, I did not think he would be a great pro. I thought he would be okay – but I didn’t expect him to do it right away. Turns out, he’s pretty great right away – and he didn’t make the mistakes in this game that he’d been making previously.
The Texans should beat the Colts on Thursday night, but until they get that running game revved up again, I’ll never say they should beat anyone easily. Though you’d always like more time to heal up and gameplan, I’m sure a lot of the players are glad they will have a chance at redemption a bit earlier. With this kind of loss, really all you can do is get back on the field, kick someone around, and get that bad taste out of your mouth.