Johnson, Yates emerge as Texans' new combo

HOUSTON T.J. Yates was just the guy that throws him the balls. That is the way Andre Johnson saw it two months ago. Well, Johnson knew who Yates was. They were teammates, after all. But Yates was the third-string quarterback, and Johnson was the injured wide receiver, so they found each other alone, in the same place, but coming from different directions Johnson from the top, Yates from the bottom. Rehabilitating from a hamstring injury, Johnson would work on breaking in and out of his routes, and Yates would work on delivering him the ball. Neither of them knew it at the time, when the Texans were getting ready to play the Baltimore Ravens on Oct. 16, but that practice was about to get real. "Maybe it was a blessing in disguise," Johnson said. The last time the Texans faced the Ravens, a 29-14 loss in Baltimore, Matt Schaub was Houston's starting quarterback, and neither Johnson nor Yates were in uniform. When they play the Ravens in the divisional round of the AFC playoffs on Sunday in Baltimore, Yates will be starting his seventh game in the NFL, and, barring a midweek setback, Johnson will be feeling as well as he has in three months. Johnson didn't play in the six games between Oct. 9 and Nov. 27, which was the day Yates made his NFL debut. Johnson played the next week, then hurt his other hamstring, missed the next three games, and returned briefly for the Texans' meaningless regular-season finale Jan. 1. Last week's win over Cincinnati in the wild card round was the second game in which Johnson and Yates both started. Because of this, the Texans are an ever-evolving amoeba of an offense. Johnson has been in and out and in again, meaning nobody really knows what the Texans are like with Yates at quarterback and Johnson at receiver. In the little time they have spent together, Yates has shown an eagerness to throw it deep to Johnson. Yates on Saturday found Johnson five times, including a 40-yard touchdown on a stop-and-go pattern. Yates found him for a 50-yarder earlier in the year. Johnson thinks those pass patterns from months ago have helped. "Maybe it's something that worked out," Johnson said. "I didn't know I was going to be playing with him." Everyone agrees that deep threat changes a lot of things about the way teams defend the Texans. It is good for Yates, who has a reliable weapon on the outside. "If there's a 50-50 ball, he's going to go up and get it, which is very comforting," Yates said. But it is good for running back Arian Foster and the offensive line, too. Tackle Duane Brown says the Texans don't see opponents put extra defenders near the line of scrimmage to stop the run when Johnson is in the game, because they're afraid of covering him with a single defensive back. It wasn't surprising, then, that when a Texans offense that hadn't scored more than 22 points in six games, suddenly popped for 31 when Johnson returned in his full role. Foster ran for 153 yards. "He changes how we roll offensively," Yates said. Yates is changing himself, from the guy who throws Andre Johnson the ball into the guy who throws everybody the ball. He admitted he was nervous playing in his first playoff game last week, and it showed on the field. He made no major mistakes, but completed 11 of 20 passes for 159 yards. With each passing day, he learns a new thing about being a quarterback, being a leader, being a professional, being a playoff quarterback. It is all new, but coach Gary Kubiak says he gets a little better every day. But one thing hasn't changed from the beginning. If there isn't anything else to do, throw Johnson the ball.