Cincinnati Bengals @ Houston Texans. 1/5. 3:30. **Official Wildcard GameDay Thread**

[thunderkyss]

I keep posing this question: We have to bring our A+ game (something I haven't seen since the Ravens game, btw) and we have to have the Patriots make timely mistakes that we also must capitalize on by scoring points off those errors.

Can we get a question mark? Help us find this question.

I'm tired of all the chest beating. Someone tell me how the Texans are going to pull this thing off in New England, please. Give me adequate reasons, and not just the token "Any given Sunday" cliche.

It's just stats, but if you look at our stats, both offensively & defensively from the New England game to the Bengals game, you can see definite improvement in our ability to move the ball & stop our opponent. The question is whether or not we are good enough to beat New England next week.

I don't think we've improved enough to beat them. Hopefully (that's really all we've got right now, hope & prayers) we improve enough this week.

Last week's defensive performance also gives me additional hope as well. Not just the stats, but the eyeball. They looked like a very confident bunch, Jjo looks the closest to healthy he's been all year & Brandon Harris looks like he belongs on an NFL team. Kj is playing with so much confidence right now it's unreal & still there's Jj Watt. He's at the top of his game. Barwin & Merci were getting around the edge all day.

If the offense can come play with that kind of confidence, we've got a really good shot.

 

[klockWork]

Keys to beating NE:

1) Wade has to limit his blitz package and have faith and patient for his front 4 to get to Brady.
Brady look like a kid in a candy store with all those blitz he saw.

2) Limit penalty

Technically ints and fumble only count as turnovers. Penalty resulting in a 3rd down conversion is the same effect as a turnover. NE converted 3 first down on penalties alone. So we were an extra -3 in the "turnover" in that game.

3) Schaub have to play with more confidence and he must be on target on those deep throws.

Sadly only 2 of the 3 things on that list is controllable.

 

[ObsiWan]

Someone tell me how the Texans are going to pull this thing off in New England, please. Give me adequate reasons, and not just the token "Any given Sunday" cliche.

Okay, and the Sunshine Clubbers may revoke my membership for this but I'm gonna say it anyway.

The short answer is, and has been since before the season began is: The Texans aren't at the same level as the Patriots. Not yet. I don't give a rat's rear what those mid-season polls said when we were 6-0 or 11-1.

The Pats have been to the Super Bowl five times since 2001; they won three of them. That means the Patriots were a Super Bowl caliber team since before the Texans were even born. So to think that, after our second EVER playoff appearance, we're on the level of a team that has made the playoffs almost every year this century is a tad presumptious.

Can we beat them?
Sure, we can.
We have arguably the best D-lineman and the best RB (not named Adrian Peterson) in the league. As you said yourself, if the other guys bring their "A" games we can beat them. If we repeately pummel Brady whenever he goes back to pass, he can be rattled.
But playoff experience is on their side.
Head coaching is on their side and QB experience is on their side - remember, Brady was winning Super Bowls when Schaub was still in college.
Lastly, homefield is on their side. Especially since we gift wrapped it for them - yeah, I'm pissed about that too but what's done is done. Continuing to whine about it won't get it back.

That is the reality. We are definitely the underdog. But the underdog sometimes wins. The Giants weren't supposed to beat Brady & Co. when they had the world's greatest offense and went 18-0. But they lost.
Stuff happens.

So if you, GP (since you posed the question), are asking for a guaranteed Texans win, I can't help you. None of us can.

But I can guarantee one thing, neither Belichick nor Brady are taking the Texans lightly. They know, if Foster goes off or A.J. has a career day or if Wade's D causes multiple turnovers they can lose to us.
Yeah, we're the underdog, but that doesn't mean we have no shot.

/rant

 

[The Pencil Neck]

And you're letting one win alter the month-long perception this team has earned itself.

No. I'm letting two years of being a successful team lead me to the conclusion that we have a good chance to beat another team. That other team is better than we are at this point but the better team doesn't always win these things.

I keep posing this question: We have to bring our A+ game (something I haven't seen since the Ravens game, btw) and we have to have the Patriots make timely mistakes that we also must capitalize on by scoring points off those errors.

One of those things is in our control, and I doubt we get it done. Gary and his players have been bringing a B- level of play. I would call the wildcard win a B+ effort.

The other thing (Pats' errors) is not in our control. There will be wide open receivers for Brady, will he miss them? Will they drop passes? Will they get careless with the ball? Will they be undisciplined and commit dumb penalties that kill their drives?

I'm tired of all the chest beating. Someone tell me how the Texans are going to pull this thing off in New England, please. Give me adequate reasons, and not just the token "Any given Sunday" cliche.

There are an infinite number of ways the Texans can beat the Patriots and there are an infinite number of ways the Patriots can beat the Texans.

If we can get Arian going. If we can get the short passing game going. If we can hit some long balls. If we change up our defense and throw something at Brady that makes him think long enough for our defense to get to him.

You act like the Patriots are infallible and you have for years but they aren't. They haven't won a Super Bowl in a long time regardless of their HOF Coach and QB. This Patriots team lost to the Seahawks, the Cardinals, the Ravens, and the Niners and let the Jets take them to overtime. They CAN be beaten.

What pisses me off is giving up and waving a white flag. "How on earth could we possibly beat the all-mighty Patriots!?" This is one of the reasons (along with moving) why I didn't come to this board over the past month. We go 12-4 and people are acting like we're the worst team in the freaking league, with the worst coach since Bill Peterson and the worst QB since Cody Carlson.

Screw the Patriots. Screw the Broncos.

We're the freaking Texans, we're a play-off team now, and we're in this fight whether you like it or not. If you can't enjoy having a winning team -- and being 12 and freaking 4 is being a winning team -- then go root for someone else. Hell, go be a Cowboy fan.

 

[infantrycak]

No. I'm letting two years of being a successful team lead me to the conclusion that we have a good chance to beat another team. That other team is better than we are at this point but the better team doesn't always win these things.



There are an infinite number of ways the Texans can beat the Patriots and there are an infinite number of ways the Patriots can beat the Texans.

If we can get Arian going. If we can get the short passing game going. If we can hit some long balls. If we change up our defense and throw something at Brady that makes him think long enough for our defense to get to him.

You act like the Patriots are infallible and you have for years but they aren't. They haven't won a Super Bowl in a long time regardless of their HOF Coach and QB. This Patriots team lost to the Seahawks, the Cardinals, the Ravens, and the Niners and let the Jets take them to overtime. They CAN be beaten.

What pisses me off is giving up and waving a white flag. "How on earth could we possibly beat the all-mighty Patriots!?" This is one of the reasons (along with moving) why I didn't come to this board over the past month. We go 12-4 and people are acting like we're the worst team in the freaking league, with the worst coach since Bill Peterson and the worst QB since Cody Carlson.

Screw the Patriots. Screw the Broncos.

We're the freaking Texans, we're a play-off team now, and we're in this fight whether you like it or not. If you can't enjoy having a winning team -- and being 12 and freaking 4 is being a winning team -- then go root for someone else. Hell, go be a Cowboy fan.

Spot on TPN.

We are rightfully underdogs but the MB has been almost unbearable.

 

[TheMatrix31]

Best post in a long, long time.

 

[GP]

No. I'm letting two years of being a successful team lead me to the conclusion that we have a good chance to beat another team. That other team is better than we are at this point but the better team doesn't always win these things.



There are an infinite number of ways the Texans can beat the Patriots and there are an infinite number of ways the Patriots can beat the Texans.

If we can get Arian going. If we can get the short passing game going. If we can hit some long balls. If we change up our defense and throw something at Brady that makes him think long enough for our defense to get to him.

You act like the Patriots are infallible and you have for years but they aren't. They haven't won a Super Bowl in a long time regardless of their HOF Coach and QB. This Patriots team lost to the Seahawks, the Cardinals, the Ravens, and the Niners and let the Jets take them to overtime. They CAN be beaten.

What pisses me off is giving up and waving a white flag. "How on earth could we possibly beat the all-mighty Patriots!?" This is one of the reasons (along with moving) why I didn't come to this board over the past month. We go 12-4 and people are acting like we're the worst team in the freaking league, with the worst coach since Bill Peterson and the worst QB since Cody Carlson.

Screw the Patriots. Screw the Broncos.

We're the freaking Texans, we're a play-off team now, and we're in this fight whether you like it or not. If you can't enjoy having a winning team -- and being 12 and freaking 4 is being a winning team -- then go root for someone else. Hell, go be a Cowboy fan.

I'm not waving a white flag, our HEAD COACH did back in week 14, remember?

Stop acting like me questioning this team's own resolve is akin to ME waving a white flag. I mean, seriously. LOL. Wow.

You're sounding like a chest-thumping Kool Aid drinking fan right there in that post. "We're a playoff team!" and "Go be a Cowboys fan."

Serious Full-Blown Homer right there. All I did was ask for definite reasons why OUR team has given you reason to believe in it in THIS upcoming game. I asked for you to not do the "Any Given Sunday" bull**** knee-jerk cliche remark, and you couldn't resist the urge. It's all you had.

Basically, your entire post is this idea that (A) We're in the playoffs "whether GP likes it or not" which is just utter rubbish, btw, of course I want us to be in the playoffs, and (B) An underdog can find a way to beat Goliath.

That's it. That's all you had. Chest thumping.

LOL.

We're going to find out in about 24 hours from now if Gary and Wade did any REAL work this week or if it'll be Business As Usual for both sides of the ball vs. the Patriots. I don't have faith in Gary that he has drawn up a better, different game plan this time around.

His motto is: We are good enough that IF we play our own game, nobody can stop us. And if a team lines up across from us, balls up its fist, and then rams that fist into our team's face...we curl up into the fetal position and cry for mommy.

It's like Obsi said a few posts ago: We are so caught up in how we're a 2-time playoff team that we don't even understand that we're facing a Patriots team who has basically never known anything BUT playoff games and AFCC games for the entire stretch of the Texans' existence. Can we beat them? Sure. But that's not really engaging in actual football talk...that's just going all Rudy and The Blind Side and Miracle On Ice on the topic. Rah, rah, rah!...Oh ****, we get our faces caved in. How did THAT happen?

It happened because one team has been there, knows how to handle this stuff, and the other team is just now feeling its way through the playoff process. Our team looked apologetic in the final two games of the season. "Ya' know, we're good. We own the AFC South. Here, here's Home Field Advantage. I mean, it would be unsportsmanlike for us to get a bye and play a divisional round at Reliant. Well, best of luck to everyone!"