Right now, our Houston Texans football team stands at 3-6. We are coming off an impressive win against Jacksonville yesterday (Sunday), and I am feeling really good about what I am seeing from our guys. Offensively, we played pretty well against Jacksonville. We certainly made some mistakes here and there, but we played descently. I thought David Carr did good. He had 0 turnovers again, thats obviously a plus. His technique (footwork) does seem to get a little jumpy in stressful situations, like key 3rd down plays, as I said yesterday, and Kubiak will continue to work with him on that. Got a few balls knocked down out the line with his sidearm motion, he cleaned that up in the second half though. He got a little banged up late in the game, by brusing his right shoulder, but he should be fine, he is certainly a fighter and competitor, we have seen that in the past. Overall, he played good, still is making a few mistakes but he will only get better. Rushing game, and I talked about this yesterday in my post-game post, was pretty solid. Lundy had some small, but solid gains like with 3, 4 or 5 yards at a time, and I like to see that. Gado came in in the second half, played very well, had solid yardage and basically I said very early this season that I thought we had 3 solid backs in Lundy, Dayne and Gado and we are certainly seeing that now. Like other areas of this team, its only going to get better. I would like to see our offense finish more drives out instead of having to rely on the field goals, so this is something we'll have to work on. I was gald to see us take some shots deep in the passing game Sunday as well, including the 44-yarder on the first drive to Andre, and that was key. Defensively, again, and I said alot of this in my post-game post yesterday, but we are going to have one hell of a defense for one hell of a long time. The past, you know, 4 or so games, even dating back to the Miami game, our defense has played pretty solid (the exception of Dallas). We are stopping the run nicely, defending the pass better, and we have really greatly contained and stopped alot of pretty good offenses recently. I think the one thing we were lacking defensively befroe yesterday's game with Jacksonville, was turnovers. We got 4 in the form of interceptions this game, very, very good to see. We have another very young unit defensively. We playing with a new scheme. We have new coaches. I kept saying, you know, after the first 3 games agianst Philly, Indy and Washington, it would take time and we will improve and that has certainly happended. We will still have our learning mistakes, but overall, we will keep getting better and better I think. This is another very exciting element of our football team, I think this D can be really good for a really long time. I do want to talk a little about Special Teams. Kris Brown missed two field goals against Jacksonville, one from 32 yards, the other from 52. Kris missed the at the end of last season if you remember, also well as in the pre-season of this year. When he did miss a few this pre-season I though Kubiak should bring in some competetion but we should keep Kris as our kicker, as far as I know he didnt bring anybody in, but I feel we should. However, all kicker go through some cold spells, I like Kris Brown and think we should keep him our kicker, he, in my mind hasnt done quite enough yet to loose that role, but again, brininging in some competition would not hurt, it could even motivate Kris a little more and make him better, so we'll see what happens with that, but I say we stick with Kris. Chad Stanley has been a very solid punter for us since we came into the leauge in 2002. He however, has struggled some this season. He has been shanking a few, not placing a few where we would like, and it is probably just a cold spell for Chad. I still feel he's a good punter, and I think he'll start to put those bad ones behind him and work to get a little better. So no major red flags in the Special teams department, Kris can get better, I like his attitude, he can overcome this. We have a tremendous coach with Joe Marciano, so we should be okay. Guys, I think we continue to get better as a team and took another step foward by defeating Jacksonville. We accomplished alot with that W, including winning our first road game since December 04. We played like good football teams do on the road. Not much penalties, did not turn the ball over and played outstanding defense. The future still looks bright with our young team, and I have said along with can have success this season, and we are already seeing some. We're 3-6, started off the second half of the season with a W, our schedule lightens up a little these last 7 games, and hey I will say this. If we play up to our potentail and continue to practice and prepare hard, play hard and not commit the little mistakes, we have a shot. I kind of said something similar to this back when we were 2-4, and we are not in horrible position right now, you never know, so we'll see. One thing is for certain, the future defintely looks bright for Houston Texans football. Continue to cheer us on grealty fans, GO TEXANS !
Nice post. I think Stanley may be getting older. It happens to the best of them. I read in the Chronicle at the start of the season that Chad didn't have the leg that he used to and now the accuracy is hurting some too. I hate to see him go, but he may be ending his career here in Houston. I just hate for us to spend a draft pick on a punter, but you have to sometimes. As for Kris Brown, we will know where he is at by the end of the season.
What scares me at this point are the injuries. I don't think we have the depth to take all the injuries we've taken on the offensive and defensive lines. I'm especially worried about Mario's plantar fascitis; my wife had that and it was painful. We're entering the "easy" part of our schedule and I think we might struggle with it because of the injuries. The Bills and Jets are playing tough football. The Raiders defense is actually looking pretty good. We can't let down.
that was my favorite stat to see from our D. We haven't had but a few coming into his game and to see 4 INTS was great. that means that our D line is doing its job making the QB make the bad throws and the secondary is doing its job capitalizing on said plays. if we can keep getting the ball back to our O, the points will keep coming. also, i'm estatic to see the DRob got his 1st pick this season, hope there's more on the way..
IMO, you don't use a draft pick on a kicker or a punter. During the offseason, after the draft, have a tryout of all the FAs and undrafted rookies, that might want to become a Texan, to determine our new kicker. I would say punter too, but I might get my arse reamed.lol.
I agree man, we can beat those teams, but at this point in the season every time has injury woes, we just have to overcome them. It's going to be tough but I'm sure Kubes will have the team ready. Sadly, I think Chad is starting to lose some of his leg, but hopefully not. I've supported Kris, and this happened last year as well, he started off pretty good, but then had a stretch of a couple of game where he wasn't clicking, I don't know what's happening but I hope he pulls through.
We've lost 3 players for the season. That's big time. Others are pretty banged up. We need for the other team to mess up like Jville did Sunday. There were some pretty passes just dropped.
