Possible that we held back on NE?

[Playoffs]

Watt was playing with one racquetball racquet tied behind his back.

[sandman]

From San Antonio, so I'm a Spurs fan. Pop is widely respected and considered the greatest coach over the last 15 years not named Phil.

And when the Spurs are getting it handed to them in a game and he senses that things simply are not going to magically click that night, he goes to his bench.

Yes, yes... the NBA has 82 games and the NFL only has 16. I get that. The point is that coaches can and do see the writing on the wall at times and act accordingly.

Fans went into this game wanting the Texans to win, but knowing that with even a loss, they were still in first place in the AFC and controlled their own destiny. So they lose a road game, in December, in Foxboro against Tom Terrific and the Hoodie who have been to FIVE Super Bowls. If there is any loss on the schedule that we were willing to accept before the season started, isn't this one it?

12-2 and in complete control of the playoff seeding. You'd think we were Giants fans or something...

[Double Barrel]

Y'all are funny raggin' on Brady.

Most red blooded American males would dress in drag if this woman asked you to...

[GP]

Originally Posted by sandman

From San Antonio, so I'm a Spurs fan. Pop is widely respected and considered the greatest coach over the last 15 years not named Phil.

And when the Spurs are getting it handed to them in a game and he senses that things simply are not going to magically click that night, he goes to his bench.

Yes, yes... the NBA has 82 games and the NFL only has 16. I get that. The point is that coaches can and do see the writing on the wall at times and act accordingly.

Fans went into this game wanting the Texans to win, but knowing that with even a loss, they were still in first place in the AFC and controlled their own destiny. So they lose a road game, in December, in Foxboro against Tom Terrific and the Hoodie who have been to FIVE Super Bowls. If there is any loss on the schedule that we were willing to accept before the season started, isn't this one it?

12-2 and in complete control of the playoff seeding. You'd think we were Giants fans or something...

That's just almost saying that the Texans held back a little...very interesting.

If the fans shouldn't be worried by that loss, maybe the Texans also sort of glossed it over before the kickoff?

The more I dwell in this, the more I think we're playing chess. This team was flat out SMOKING teams out of the gate.

What we did to the Ravens, I think it can be done to anybody we play. But maybe Kubiak isn't sharing his best bottle of wine with Tier 5 house guests.

[ChampionTexan]

Originally Posted by GP

That's just almost saying that the Texans held back a little...very interesting.

Well I don't think it's really the type of holding back that this thread title is referring to, but if you're using Sandman's post to define holding back - yeah, the first clue was taking a bunch of the starters (including Schaub) out of the game.

But Sandman does make an interesting point. Anybody who listens regularly or semi-regularly to N.D. Kalu and Greg Koch on 790 will know that Koch (former O-Lineman with the Packers) has maintained for awhile now that the "almost" 3.5 games we played in 11 days (Chicago, Jacksonville, and Detroit) may be something the Texans are still recovering from in terms of physical wear and tear. When you take the points Sandman brought up in terms of not needing the win, and coupling it with the physical and emotional toll a comeback like that could take, Kubiak may have just made a risk/reward decision that it wasn't worth it.

I will admit that if there is any worth to that theory, it will be interesting to see how things go for the Patriots from this point forward, because you know there was an immense amount of physical and emotional energy involved in turning a 31-3 game into a 31-31 game. One difference was it was a more important game to the Patriots than the Patriots game was to the Texans (in terms of playoff seedings - not the whole biggest game in franchise history thing).

[IBleedTexans]

Originally Posted by Double Barrel

Y'all are funny raggin' on Brady.

Most red blooded American males would dress in drag if this woman asked you to...

Call me what you want but that's not really attractive to me . I like me a girl with some meat on them bones! Thick in all the right places, thats kinda ..... Not my type .

[Rey]

I like women with some thickness to, but if you are single and she says come do me, what are you going to say? No?

Thick or not thick, that is a sexy woman.

[thunderkyss]

Originally Posted by Rey

I like women with some thickness to, but if you are single and she says come do me, what are you going to say? No?

Thick or not thick, that is a sexy woman.

I'm not going to dress in drag for it.



Now if that woman asked me to dress in drag & drink her bath water for a month...

[Texan_Bill]

Originally Posted by Double Barrel

Y'all are funny raggin' on Brady.

Most red blooded American males would dress in drag if this woman asked you to...

Damnit DB... I'll be back in about 10-15 minutes!!

[Rey]

Originally Posted by Fiddler

I'm not going to dress in drag for it.




Now if that woman asked me to dress in drag & drink her bath water for a month...

Dude, that's been my pretend wife since I was a teenager.

The earlier parts of the botd thread are littered with me posting pictures of her.

But I wouldn't dress in drag for either one of them...lol...

[thunderkyss]

Originally Posted by Texan_Bill

Damnit DB... I'll be back in about 10-15 minutes!!

Why?


Forget where you put the blue pill?

[sandman]

Originally Posted by GP

That's just almost saying that the Texans held back a little...very interesting.

If the fans shouldn't be worried by that loss, maybe the Texans also sort of glossed it over before the kickoff?

The more I dwell in this, the more I think we're playing chess. This team was flat out SMOKING teams out of the gate.

What we did to the Ravens, I think it can be done to anybody we play. But maybe Kubiak isn't sharing his best bottle of wine with Tier 5 house guests.

Well, I don't think they glossed it over. I think they had every intention of trying to win that game. BUT, when the wheels fell of early, they could have taken a good hard look around and decided that the risks they would have to take to get themselves improbably back into a game that they didn't need to win to still control their own destiny were simply not worth it at that point.

What would our reactions be if they came out of the game with some serious injuries because they threw caution to the wind in their play calling.

Losing Matt last year when the expectations were winning season and just make the playoffs is one thing, and within TJ's abilities. Losing Matt in a game that wasn't needed when the Super Bowl are the expectations? We would be fools to think TJ has the ability to step into that.

[HJam72]

No, they didn't hold back--not from the start, anyway.

They just got their butts kicked.

It happens.

Can we get this thread title off the front page now?????

[Cerberus]

Originally Posted by DBCooper

I've been thinking about this and I don't know if its been mentioned in other conversations, but thought it deserved its own thread.

Does anyone else get the feeling that we have gone vanilla on our playcalling to save the good stuff for the playoffs?

It just seems that Kubiak and Wade are holding back. I'm not saying throwing the game, but just that they are keeping a lot of the playbook off the tapes.

You mean like this:

Wade may not have wanted to show his full defense to the Patriots and Tom Brady since they are likely to meet again real soon. Not saying that Wade and the Texans weren't trying, just that Wade may not have been pulling out all the stops. . . . http://www.texanstalk.com/forums/sho...postcount=1064

Of course, what I stated also could hold true for Kubiak and the offense as well.

[GP]

It would be a "Top Down" strategy.

Kubiak, as HC, would most likely bring Wade Phillips into the mix, if Kubiak wanted to maybe go pretty basic/vanilla vs. the Patriots.

He'd want to get Wade aboard that sort of strategy because Kubiak would never want to do that as the leader of our offense....only to have Wade out there getting his guys to bust their asses while he was unaware that Kubiak was mailing it in.

Therefore, the idea must also be communicated (maybe in a veiled sense) to the players, because you wouldn't want your players out there busting their asses and then figuring out (on their own, after some time had passed) that the coaches had never put them in position to "really" have a real shot at winning.

Therefore, the theory of us holding back on N.E. is not likely....it's possible, but it would be a really stealthy thing to pull off. It would require ultimate secrecy, and ya' know what? This team has been known for secrecy and not revealing much unless they really want to. I think that it would be dangerous to do that sort of thing because as we've seen from Stern in the NBA...a league's commissioner doesn't like the concept of franchises holding out their best stuff when paying customers and TV viewers are expecting the best.

So once more: IF Kubiak ordered a sandbag act on the Patriots, he would have to ensure that most of the key coaches and players knew, he'd have to assume that those who DIDN'T know would eventually figure it out or be told by someone who did know beforehand, and then he'd face disciplinary action if it ever leaked. That's a scandal that Bob McNair would NEVER want to see on all the tv shows and on the Internet media sites.

Kubiak doesn't strike me as THAT big of a risk taker. Right?