Collins, Colts crushed by Texans

Kerry Collins' beard is gray, which in almost any other context would not be significant. In most contexts, Kerry Collins would be considered a phenomenal athlete. I am sure that when the Collins clan gets together for a sand volleyball game on the Fourth of July, he is an athletic marvel, both able to spike and dig at a level that to everyone else in attendance seems incomprehensible for someone who does not play volleyball. I assume the same is true when Collins goes skiing or steps into a batting cage or whatever it is retired NFL quarterbacks do for recreation. The trouble is, Kerry Collins wasn't being asked to set uncle Dave for a spike, he was being asked to quarterback an actual professional football team on opening day. In a He fumbled on a sack, he fumbled on a snap, he tripped over an offensive lineman, he threw passes that sailed out of bounds, and after all of it he would unstrap his helmet, having taken one on his silver chin. "Every time we hit him," Texans defensive end Antonio Smith said, "we tried to make him feel it." "We all wish that Peyton gets healthy," Collins said. Collins might be a good athlete for a 38-year-old man, and he might have a lot of NFL experience, and he might even be capable of leading a team again, but he had no business starting a game for an NFL team on Sunday, and he doesn't even deserve the blame for his own bad performance, or that of the Colts. The Colts front office somehow allowed its team to begin a season with a guy at quarterback who was hanging out at home with his kids three weeks ago, and the result should be more humiliating for vice chairman Bill Polian than for anybody on the field Sunday. That all said, hooray for the Texans. I would hate to underestimate the absence of one of the best quarterbacks ever to play the position, because it did seem that three of the Texans' first-half touchdowns two that came after fumbles, plus Jacoby Jones' late punt return -- resulted directly from opportunities that would not have existed with Peyton Manning at quarterback. We can't be certain this would not have been an entirely different game with a healthy Manning under center instead of Collins. But, man, the Texans looked good, didn't they? Like, division title good. An offense that hit the brakes in the fourth quarter had 384 yards, Mario Williams had two sacks from a new position, and the Texans' biggest mistakes came from a pair of guys (quarterback Matt Schaub and receiver Andre Johnson) who won't make many this year. Somebody told Smith a lot of people in Houston were going to be buying Super Bowl tickets Monday morning. Other players dismissed the idea, but Smith embraced it, saying the Texans would take all the good vibes they could get. "If that's what you feel and you believe in us, buy away," he said. It's far too early for that, but that game doesn't deserve an asterisk. Everybody believed the Texans would be good on offense again, and they were. But that good? They outgained the Colts 259-72 in the first half, and it didn't even look that complicated. Schaub would fake a handoff, Johnson would run over the middle, and that would be worth 20 yards. They did that for a while, then, oh, sometime around the 24-0 mark of the first half, started handing it off to Ben Tate, who averaged 6.1 yards per carry in the first half. The Texans averaged 6.8 yards per snap. And that was pretty much that. "We went against their No. 1 defense," receiver Andre Johnson pointed out. The Texans got a big lead, and the other team had to throw and then came the pass rush. It was what the Colts do, or at least what they used to do. "It kinda felt like that," Smith said. Folks in Houston have been waiting a long time to feel this way. Even when the Texans beat the Colts last season, Smith said, Manning was still back there and they still gave up a bunch of yards. It was a win, but nothing had really changed. Sunday, it was hard to shake the feeling something had. And not just the color of Kerry Collins' whiskers. "This," Texans safety Glover Quin said, "is what we expected to happen."