Our Houston Texans defeated the Indianapolis Colts Sunday by a final score of 27-24. Our record improve to 5-10 on the year as a result. Obviously a major upset. Nobody gave us a chance to really even play these guys tight, and look what happend. This certainly ranks up their in biggest wins for our football team all time. I mean, our Houston Texans pulled off the biggest upset in the NFL this season. The best game we've played all year in my mind, and I think in the future we may look back at this game as the one that got us going. That remains to be seen however, we still have another big game ahead. I would like to talk a little more about Sunday's game, just sorta building on what I said in my post-game post on Sunday. I usually post these on Monday, but with it being Christmas, did not find time obviously. Really the key was obviously the running game. I mean Ron Dayne stepped up for us once again, big time. He's played great for our squad ever since he has been activated these past few games or so. He's a big, physical player, doesnt taunt, thats not his style, he just goes in, runs people over and gets the job done. He played a significant factor is Sunday's win, he rushed for 153yards with 2 TDs. Just amazing, and he just adds to our strength at the back position. Rookie RB Chris Taylor came in against the Colts and he did some very nice things. He's fast. He may have gotten a little anxious at times, but thats natural for a rookie like that. He also caught a couple balls, and his future looks bright. Think about this for a second. We have aton of good running backs on this team. I always said we have 3 good ones with Lundy, Dayne and Gado, and when I said that earlier in the year some people laughed at me. Now, add to that mix Chris Taylor who again, looked good and Domanick Davis. That's almost like having to much talent to know what to do with it, and it's like the Denver Broncos were when Kubiak was there. No matter who they put at running back, with that system and their o-line, (which was much better than ours currently is) the back could have a monster game. I think that's what we are building towards here and it's just very exciting for the future. David Carr played well Sunday. He did some nice things. I have stuck with him through the bad and I will always. As long as he's our QB, I support him. I think he's our man to take us to the promise land still. He's got alot of work to do still, and him Kubiak will work together and hopefully get better. Again, back to Sunday, Carr had a nice performance. It just goes to show how much the run game is crutial with our offensive scheme, it opens it up a ton for the play-action passes and bootlegs, and really allows the QB oppurtunites to make plays and we seen Carr make some Suday. He also made a few nice runs with his legs, which he is capable off, so just a good performance overall. Consistency is the key with him now. Defensively, they played descent Sunday. I said coming in and you guys obviously know, that you can't stop that great Colts offense. You can't stop them with all that amazing talent they have, you just have to try and contain them and thats what I think we tried to do Sunday, and had some success with it. They did give up a few big plays which you don't want to see, but sorta expected. What our defense did more of however was contain and the Colts kinda played into it, picking up 7-10 yards per play on alot of drive, nothing huge, and our defense made a couple huge stops as was kind of our style all year, bend but dont break. On 3rd and 1 on our 15 late in the 3rd quarter I believe it was, our defense stepped up forced an incompletion by Manning and held them to a FG which turned out to be huge. You just have to admire how far the defensive unit for us has come all year. Switching to the 4-3, new players, young players, new coaching and schemes, and they really did struggle the first few games. However, sicne that Miami game they have played pretty damn well for us. They have had their learning mistakes since then which is expected, but overall have really, really improved and they should only continue to. Richard Smith has really worked wonders with this group as I have said before, and I tip my hat to him. Finally, Kris Brown. He's had his rough times this year also, but we kept our patience in him (most of us I think) and I always knew he had a good attitude and hew would keep going and get better, and he's played solid for us these past few games as well. His biggest game obviously came Sunday, he had 2 big FG's, espically the last one. From 49 yards out, ballgame on the line, it's good. Give him a ton of credit, he worked through his problems and look at that reward. Nice job. Overall, again I think it was the best game we played all season. We have a tremendous game plan, credit Coach Gary Kubiak. The players went out and really exceuted, the fans did a tremendous job at that stadium and at home so my hat goes off to my fellow fans, and just a bigtime win for this city and football team. We are going to have another big test Sunday. We've had various tests with this football team all year, some we did great on, other's not so great yet, but another one comes Sunday. How do we respond to possibly our franchise's biggest win one week later in a game many may predict us to win, against the Cleveland Browns. We came back greatly from a horrible loss against New England, now how do we come back against a huge win over Indy. The Browns have had thier struggles this year, no dobut. However, they can certainly make plays, they do have a fairly solid defense, and they will be hungry for a win Sunday. We can accomplish alot with a win sunday in a tough contest with the Browns. We could win two straight for the first time in two years, have alot of momentum and postive going into the offseason and next season, we could quadrupol our win total from last year with 6, so as you know its a fairly big game for our Texans. My Preview of the Cleveland Browns will be typed Wednesday and should be ready to go then. My ''Keys to the Success'' post will be posted on Thursday as usual. We still have one game left, and the Browns are hungry and they can certainly make plays, so we'll see what we can do. GO TEXANS !
I found it refreshing that almost every aspect of our game was good. We never have that, EVER. Our kicking game was dead center, our QB didn't make any mistakes, our offensive line both pass protected AND did a phenominal job in the running game. Our RB finally needed respect from the other team. AJ caught a ball in a crucial situation (he still let it hit his body however). Our defense made many many good plays when we needed to. Coaching ran the clock out to not allow one of the best offenses in the league time to do anything on the field. All in all, it's one of the best games I've seen from the Texans since I've been a fan. It's something to work on. we are 1 win away from a 6-10 season after going 2-14, and there were a few games that we should have won. If we get 6-10 I say keep Carr and let us continue the maturation of this team when going through the process of having a new coach, new scheme, new GM, new personnel, etc. Don't give Carr a pass and bring in a solid backup (Jeff Garcia or Jake Plummer) just in case. Rosenfels and Van Pelt are not going to do it. We need a QB that can legitimately challenge Carr and be a starter on this team when time is needed.
I think I'd like to quote, or at least paraphrase, Kubiak's post game comments. "Thursday was maybe the worst practice we've had." "Friday was probably the best practice we've had." "Thursday, somebody messed up and some of the guys started the usual, 'Hey, that's OK' stuff, and I said, 'No!!! No, that's just it, guys. It's NOT OK anymore. Not anymore." "Something happened between Thursday after practice and Friday's practice. Something happened to this team Thursday night." At some point, professional athletes have to realize that it's perform or go home. That goes for individual players and whole teams, in a matter of speaking. Now, I know somebody's gonna scream, "David Carr, why doesn't he go home?" Maybe it's the whole offense, or maybe it's a lot of him--I don't really know at this point. We'll let Kubiak decide that, but I just think the whole team needed to hear that IT'S NOT OK ANYMORE. Hopefully, that was one of our answers.
"The Emperor Wears No Clothes" You really need to read this story and lay-off the Special Kool-Aid Bob sells you guys...
