Thoughts on the Texans-Jaguars Game

I'm still not sure why we always get fired up for the Jaguars, but we do. Apparently we still didn't get fired up enough. The good news about this game is that there is some good news. The bad news is that despite doing some things well, we still lost. First things first, we'll start with what we did well -

• We threw the ball well. Schaub started out with short passes that were eerily reminiscent of David Carr's tenure as Texans QB. Schaub distinguished himself by throwing the deep ball a few times. Schaub's performance this week should put a stop to all of the QB controversy talk for a while.
• Kevin Walter seems to have great chemistry with Matt Schaub. Schaub knows where Walter will be and trusts him to catch the ball.
• Our offensive line is capable of providing decent, if not good, pass protection. There were times that Jacksonville defenders hit Schaub, but they were relatively few and far between.
• Steve Slaton is not only able to pass block, but he is willing. This is a very good thing. (I'm looking at you Chris Taylor)
• When they put their minds to it, our defense is capable of stopping a very good running game. It's been mentioned earlier, but Jones -Drew and Taylor were limited to a combined 13 yards in the first half. That is outstanding run defense.
• Kris Brown is still Mr. Automatic.
• Finally, we were in the game until the bitter end.

Now, all of that is great, and if we had won the game, everything else in the game might not have left such a bad taste in my mouth. On to the bad things -

• We did not run the ball well. We had 89 yards of total rushing, 24 of which came from Schaub. 55 yards rushing between Chris Taylor and Super Steve Slaton. I guess one game was not a large enough sample size. Then again, keeping that lesson in mind, this game was not a large enough sample size to declare him a poor running back.
• Andre Johnson was M.I.A. thoughout the whole game. Walter had a great game, but Kevin Walter is no Andre Johnson. If we're going to make any amount of noise in the NFL this season, Andre Johnson is going to have to play a much larger role.
• Our secondary isn't just a sieve, it's a gaping hole. We dared the Jaguars to beat us by throwing the ball, and they were more than happy. We made the Jaguars receivers look like legitimate NFL receivers. Thinking back on the game, without the benefit of Tivo, I can think of one play where a Texan defender got a hand/arm in between the receiver and the ball. It was DeMeco Ryans. As great as he is, DeMeco is not a part of the secondary.
• C.C. Brown got injured. My hope is that this can turn into a positive for us. I still don't know why the Texans refuse to play a true FS; Maybe Eugene Wilson has some nagging injury, or maybe he can't figure out our defensive playbook (I'm assuming that we have one, but I could easily be wrong on this). If Wilson can play like he did in New England, then he has the potential to make our secondary better. We can move Will Demps to his more natural position of SS, and improve all around.
• There is absolutely no way that a timeout shouldn't have been called by either the punt return team or by a coach on the sideline when the punter lined up as a tight end.

Ok, it's very easy to play the what if game, and say that we would have won this game if Jacksonville had gotten stopped on that fake punt. I don't buy that personally, because we still had a chance to win the game at the end, but we couldn't manage it. I don't care what happens on a teams first drive. If you have a chance to win at the end of the game, that play becomes moot, except to later show the ineptitude of the coaches. Overall, I think the team played well, but obviously not well enough. I'm encouraged by the positives to be taken from this game, and I think that they can be built on, but the ultimate measure of a team is it's win-loss record, not how hard they played. Still, it's early in the season, and the Texans were expected to come out of their first games at 2-3, maybe even 1-4. We've played 3 games so far, and we didn't look competetive against two of the best defenses in the NFL. It's a long season, and we still have time to get our act together. Indy will be a good indicator for the rest of our season. If we win that game, we start a streak of winnable games with some confidence. If we are competitive against the Colts, I still think that we go into the next few games with some confidence, and a legitimate chance to get some swagger. If we get dominated, it could be the beginning of a very long season.