Just when the Texans seemed to be garnering some national attention and respect around the league, they gave it all back Sunday against the Colts, rolling over for a 38-15 loss. After an encouraging start, the Texans went limp on offense, and got slapped around like children on defense. Peyton Manning easily picked apart the Houston secondary, and the Colts ran the ball with ease. Sure, the Texans faced much stiffer competition this week, but Houston has certainly improved enough to at least make a game of it. Instead, it wasn’t even as close as the blowout score indicated.

The Texans reverted back to their old ways.
In all phases of the game, the Texans inexplicably did all the things that have haunted them all season long. Sage Rosenfels faced his toughest competition yet, and instead of vindicating the “give Sage the starting job” crowd, he showed why he’s been a career back-up. Simply put: inconsistency. Sage threw three interceptions, and was not able to lead the Texans on offense save for the impressive opening drive and a garbage time touchdown pass to Andre Johnson.

On defense, it was ugly. Very ugly. In a game that was totally meaningless to the Colts, Peyton Manning absolutely owned the Texans, throwing for 311 yards and three touchdowns, while completing a fantastic 28 of his 35 pass attempts. Peyton made it look easy against what we thought was the best Texans team that has ever played in Indianapolis.

Bad play-calling also made an unwelcome return.
Late in the first half, with two time outs at their disposal, the Texans had the ball near mid-field down 24-7. Clearly, they needed to get at least a field goal to get some positive momentum going for the second half. Instead, they played scared. Fearful of Manning getting the ball back, the Texans ran the ball three straight times, then Rosenfels threw an incompletion to end the drive. Afterwards, the Texans were lucky enough to recover a Reggie Wayne fumble and still had the opportunity to get a field goal before the half, but Kris Brown missed it wide right.

In the second half, while way behind - the Texans continued to go to the running game. Of course, a strong running game is probably the thing that all teams believe is the cornerstone of an effective offense - but at some point you have to look at the scoreboard and try to score as quickly as you can. The Colts not only scored at will, but they also ate up huge chunks of clock… so even if the Texans would have been able to run the ball well in the second half and score as a result of it, the Colts would have dominated the clock. The Colts won the clock battle handily, 35:45 to the Texans’ 24:15.

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Something about the color red usually brings out the best in the Houston Texans. Thursday night was perhaps the best ever example of that bizarre phenomenon. Mario Williams, clearly sick and tired of all the talk surrounding his draft position, went absolutely ballistic and obliterated the Broncos offensive line for 3.5 sacks. Broncos quarterback Jay Cutler will be waking up in a cold sweat with the Super Mario Brothers theme bouncing around in his head for weeks. (It was either that, or some bad ‘Broncos sent to the glue factory’ line, but I thought that was in bad taste.) The Texans rolled to a 31-13 win on a (sort of) national stage, and technically remain alive in the playoff chase.

It’s mid-December, and the Texans are still in the hunt.
Let’s get this out of the way. The Texans aren’t going to the playoffs this season. Not because they can’t win their last two games, but because there’s just no way all the other contenders are going to lose the rest of their games. Unfortunately, that’s what needs to happen for Houston to make the playoffs, in addition to them winning out over the Colts and Jaguars. The scenario is so ridiculous, I’m not even going to lay it out. Plus, this isn’t a math blog. It’s just not going to happen. What can happen, is that the Texans could finish with their best-ever record if they can at least split the last two games against Indianapolis and Jacksonville, respectively.

Super Phenomenal Mario!
Jay Cutler had only been sacked 17 times this season, but Mario Williams and the Texans’ defense brought him down five times on Thursday. Mario had 3.5 sacks and now leads the AFC with 13. He’s only a half sack behind the NFL leader, Seattle’s Patrick Kerney. As great as Mario was, he was within an eyelash of piling on two or three more sacks in the same game. He was a constant terror Thursday night, and was every bit the #1 pick that everyone hoped he would be. Multiple times during the game, the Houston fans were chanting his name, which in my opinion is the highlight of the 2007 season. Williams clearly was feeding off the energy of the fans, and that performance may have punched his ticket to the Pro Bowl.

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