We all saw the debacle Sunday. This team is in trouble going in to the playoffs, and while the sky is not falling – there are legitimate, reasonable reasons to think the Texans are headed for disappointment come January. Rather than go over that embarrassing loss from Sunday (which I witnessed in person) I’m just going to get to the heart of what the problem with this team is. Though the defense shares plenty of blame in this, for the purposes of this entry I am going to focus on the offensive problems. I may hit on defensive woes later in the week, but that doesn’t do much for my Christmas joy.
The Texans have positioned themselves nicely all season to force the AFC playoff field to go through Houston to get to the Super Bowl. That home-field advantage is something every team strives for, but in recent history it hasn’t been an indicator of who makes it through to the title game.
Whether the Texans secure the home field advantage with a win in Indianapolis next week is becoming less and less relevant with every passing week. I’ll take a team playing their best ball of the season over playing at home in the playoffs every day, and so would everyone else.
So yes, I’d love to see the Texans win Sunday and have the potential to host two playoff games on the way to the Super Bowl, but I’m not nearly as concerned with that as I am concerned with, you know, how badly this team is playing right now. Do you really think it matters if the team we saw against Minnesota (or anytime in the last month or so) plays the Broncos or the Patriots in Houston, Denver, New England, or on Jupiter? The result will be the same no matter what – a serious beatdown.
There’s a lot of talk that places the blame squarely on Matt Schaub’s shoulders for the awful game Sunday, and while he certainly shares in that – he’s not the biggest problem. The biggest problem, as it has been most of the season – is the offensive line. The run-blocking is good once in a while, it’s below average most of the time, and it’s absolutely TERRIBLE once in a while – and a LOT more lately.
RT Derek Newton hasn’t been what the Texans had hoped. It doesn’t really matter that he was never supposed to be the starter. Rashad Butler was hurt in the preseason, but by then Newton had already taken the starting job away from Butler. Newton is clearly, at BEST, a swing tackle who just isn’t starting caliber. He’s young and still raw, and sure he can get better – but this team is in win-now mode and can’t wait around for him to become a starting-caliber player. Antoine Caldwell has been awful at right guard, and eventually lost his job to rookie Ben Jones, who has now been splitting time with fellow rookie Brandon Brooks. Left guard Wade Smith is inconsistent, and having his worst season as a Texan. Right now the Texans can only count on two guys on the offensive line with Chris Myers and Duane Brown. After that, it’s just bad. To me it really is that simple.
As far as Schaub goes, he’s certainly not playing well. But he’s not (and never was) the kind of QB who can make plays on his own. He needs the run game to be clicking. He needs to have the legitimate threat of a running game. He needs to have a nice, comfortable pocket from which to throw the ball (which he has had all season). A lot of fans seem to think because he’s a quarterback, that once in a while he should be able to “call up” the abilities of any “style” of quarterback. No, he can’t run. No, he can’t be elusive in the pocket and save a broken play. No, he can’t throw the deep ball well. What he can do, when matched with a coach like Gary Kubiak, is be DEADLY in the intermediate passing game, and KILL teams with in the play action game. He excels at both of those elements, but every game has its own context, and when there is no run game – he won’t be at his best.
The Texans can win with Matt Schaub. But they can’t win with him if there is no running game. When the running game isn’t working, he can’t just suddenly transform himself into a different type of quarterback. That’s why the Texans were able to sign him for what is a fairly reasonable amount of money for a plus NFL quarterback. If he could do all those other things that fans inexplicably expect him to be half the time, he’d be making Drew Brees money.
So yes, he’s got some share of the blame. He’s missed an alarming amount of open guys in the last third of the season, even with an occasional running threat. Sunday he looked so bad at times that I was convinced the receivers were running the wrong routes. My biggest fear about Schaub is that this problem will eat itself. Meaning, Gary Kubiak is already calling games as thought he doesn’t completely trust Schaub as much as he had in the past. If he continues to not make plays, Kubiak may tighten the reins even more. That kind of strategy might work in the regular season, but in the playoffs it will be a disaster.
All of that leads to this. Can the Texans fix this issue now, right before the playoffs start? Of course not. There isn’t an in-season fix for something like this. They are who they are, but that doesn’t mean they can’t win. It doesn’t even mean they can’t win the Super Bowl. But if that’s going to happen, the ONLY way it’s going to happen is with home-field advantage, for other guys on defense not named JJ Watt to start being consistent playmakers, and for the offensive line to at least, improve. They cannot be the dominant running team they were in their current state, but they can be better than what they were against the Vikings. The Texans obviously aren’t as bad as they were against Minnesota, but they’re not as good as they were when they were reeling off big wins early in the season either.
At 12-3, all is certainly not lost. There’s still plenty of reason for excitement, hope, etc. It sound silly to even say that with the record this team has, but there is NO WAY you can ignore how well other teams in the AFC field are playing right now. I’ll take “hot” over “home” every single day… but if the Texans can’t get it together and win in Indianapolis on Sunday, they’ll have neither.
Dec 24, 2012 at 13:22:37
Well, what just gets me is how there is no energy on this team right now. NONE! It is like everything is in slow motion and monotone. I watched these other teams and they support each other when they do make big plays and the coaches slap their players on the backs and show excitement for the good events the players do. Our bench and coaches are so dull and boring and call the same ole plays over and over. Even we couch players have gotten the plays figured out! Our players look so bored–no competitive spirit. It was a lousy, boring, uneventful, non-competitive game. It makes me think something else is going on within the team even though your analysis of the game seems so reasonable and clear. The players just seem to me to have a bah-humbug play disposition.
Dec 24, 2012 at 14:23:27
Stay calm, people. This is still the team labeled “matchup-proof” by Grantland (Barnwell did an article attaching a worst-possible playoff opponent for all of the top teams; NE had CIN, DEN had PIT, and HOU had no one, citing the blowout to the Pats as something that no team lacking a Hall of Fame QB can consistently overcome)
Looking further at our opponents:
Denver – F. Peyton has been here before. Great stats with B-team receivers and an okay O-line (Clady & Beadles are good, the rest? Meh.) and a defense that plays the pass well since few teams have the ability to keep up without abandoning the run.
How has he done? During that 11-year streak of 10+-win seasons in Indy? 9-10 in the playoffs, 7 0-1 playoff seasons, only 2 appearances in the Super Bowl. Compare him to his “best QB” peers: Brady – 16-6, 2 one&dones, 5 conference titles, and Eli – 8-3, 3 one&dones, 2-0 Super Bowl record
All those stats reflect 1 inconvenient truth: F. Peyton is not nearly as good in the postseason. I’m not worried.
New England: Tom Brady is getting old. Since getting Pollard’d, Brady is 2-3 in the playoffs, those wins being a blowout of the TeBroncos and a gifted win thanks to the sudden decline of Billy Cundiff. Against 3 good teams against whom Brady lacked personal baggage, he lost every time.
Look, Brady is filthy rich and his legacy is stamped regardless. What else does he have to play for that will really get him up to beating another good team? Plus, that matchup nightmare vs CIN looks to be coming true.
BAL: the idea of the Ravens threatening anyone deserves the Yao Ming rage face.
IND: according to Football Outsiders, the Colts are one of the 10 worst nfl teams. Getting to the playoffs so Chuck could coach one game is a Super Bowl win enough for this team.
CIN: As good as they are, we have seen this before. Tell me they are not a 4-3 version of the 7-9 Texans from 2004, to include a sneaky good defense full of good players and an offense that revolves around mediocre running and a mediocre QB playing “heave-and-go-get-it” with an elite young wide receiver. Just like last year, if it comes down to it, we can take them.
All in all, we WILL beat the Colts next week and all will be forgiven as the playoffs go through Reliant. We welcome the winner of IND vs BAL, and will be expected to crush either one. F. Peyton will choke, and we will face Cinderella Cincinnati in the Conference Championship (after they matchup-whip an indifferent Brady) and will win to play the No-Name Defense + Best non-first-day-draft QB since Brady combo that is the Seahawks, and we’ll win because the New Orleans crowd will practically be a home game.
And then we’ll all look back at our premature panic and laugh.
Dec 24, 2012 at 16:01:21
It seems like we went downhill fast starting in week 11. At that time, the Texans were 8-1 coming off a 13-6 victory in the rain in primetime in Chicago. From that time, we won two overtime games against the Jags (ew) and the lions (slightly less ew), beat the Titans and Colts pretty comfortably, got destroyed by the Pats in Foxboro and inexplicably failed to show up against the Vikings in Houston. Are there any theories for what happened in week 10 that derailed the train?
Dec 24, 2012 at 21:46:44
One Theory would be the so-called rookie wall. It’s been said that when you get to about week 11 or 12 of the NFL season, rookies tend to tail off. It doesn’t always happen, but I think that might be the situation here. Chris made it very clear that he believes the biggest problem right now is the offensive line. Well, right now the offensive line has two rookies on the right side, and if anyone was going to be a risk of having conditioning issues lately season, it would be a 300 pound rookie.
Dec 25, 2012 at 18:10:53
Kubes needs to come up with a “B” plan when the running game isn’t working. Maybe even a trick play or two just to loosen up defenses.
Dec 26, 2012 at 12:43:28
Not to get ahead of ourselves but this is why our first round pick HAS to be a new wide receiver with deep-threat capabilities. We used to be able to use AJ to stretch the defense, but he’s just not up to that anymore. He’s an outstanding possession receiver, but he can’t keep defenses from selling out on the run anymore.
Dec 27, 2012 at 14:02:33
Its not Andre that isnt keeping defenses honest with the deep threat, defenses know that Schaub cant throw it more than 40 yards.
It almost looks to me like Schaub hurt his arm, and Kubiak and him are trying to cover it up, but defenses are starting to figure it out….
Anybody heard of arm problems from Schaub?
Dec 28, 2012 at 09:12:36
If Cincinnati wins against New England, Texans would play them and not the Colts in the divisional round, because Cinci is the lower seed. Needed to put that out there.
Dec 28, 2012 at 12:50:56
Matchup proof? What a joke at this moment.
Anyone who can pass protect and throw deep can score points on us. Then, our plodding offense has no chance to keep up. We can only run left if at all and Schaub is not going to light up anyone with no run game and no pass blocking. The problem is that Andre is always the first read in the pass plan and he throws the ball instead of a second read that may be a much better option. Some of that is on the o-line and some is not. If he doesn’t believe he will get time (mostly) the first read gets the ball.