In response to DD -
What is going on?
Do the Texans players realize that the 3rd Quarter is a very real part of the game eack week?
I think they realize it.
I have seen bad playcalling on the first possession.
Bad plays are those that do not work.
I have seen a THIRTY FOUR YARD punt. We pay a guy THAT much money to punt the ball 34 yards? There's a guy in Dallas punting it 75 yards. I used to just skip over the Chad Stanley Sucks threads. Chalked it up to uneducated fans wanting something else to gripe about. Not anymore. Cut his rear.
The Dallas guy doesn't average 75 yards a punt my friend. He hit a bomb. Stanley hits them every once in a while as do most NFL punters. What you fail to mention and realize is that there are no returns after Stanley punts. His hang time is good and enables the cover men to get down and cover the punts. Other punters go for stats and bomb 50 and 60 yard punts, but the other team then returns those punts for 20 and 30 yards. Net punting has not been too horrible for Chad and it wasn't bad at all yesterday.
I have seen arm tackles that allow big Jaguars plays to keep the chains moving.
No question. Horrible first down given when the backup back for Jacksonville caught a third down pass five yards short of the sticks and went through two Texan defenders. The tackling was putrid in the third quarter.
I have seen the Texans punt on 4th and 1. Amazing. The crowd booed. It was a no-brainer move: You've lost momentum, Texans, and you might as well try and get it back by converting a new set of downs. Nope.
The crowd is not always right. And they certainly were dead wrong for thinking the Texans were picking up a first down on fourth and short. They had a third and one and went backwards. They had a fourth and one from their own forty yard line with a lead. You don't go for it on fourth down on either occassion.
Talk about an entire team, from top to bottom, with no clue of how to BE successful and STAY successful. Bob McNair should be furious about this stuff. He should be all up in the coaching staff's grill about this 3rd Quarter ineptitude.
Obviously they do because they won the game going away. Coaches don't scheme for missed tackles. That is execution and it comes down to our players. Sanders got better and more physical as the game wore on. Overall our DBs didn't look like they wanted any part in tackling the Jacksonville Jags' backs. That's not coaching.
Can ANYBODY find me more than 1 or 2 examples of the Texans doing ANYTHING "big time" in the 3rd Quarter OF ANY GAME THIS SEASON? Let me help yo out: Don't waste your time trying to find it...it don't exist, bro.
Unreal.
I would call holding off the Jags in the third quarter and not losing the lead big time. I would say that staying away from costly turnovers is big time. I would say hanging on to a halftime lead and expanding on it is big time. I would say that Sunday was EXTREMELY encouraging to see how our guys battled and played. You can nitpick about a win, but that is just sad.
Not mentioned by much of anyone is the Jaguars running left all game long. Now some may say that they found a weakness and went to it, but others might say that Mr. Mario had something to do with that. When they went to the right side, the Jags were stuffed. They ran a reverse that Mario sniffed out corectly, but just missed the angle on. They could not move him at all. This was very VERY encouraging to me. Once our DC figured out the deal, we started blitzing to the left side and this shut the Jags down completely in the run game. Nice adjustment by those coaches you want to hang.
Great game and great win against a quality team.