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Cromartie confident he can cover AJ

Goldensilence said:
*shrugs*

No one has completely shut AJ down this season much as he's not getting the high number of targets we've come to expect from a healthy AJ.

There's two reasons:

1.) The Texans are just running the ball more than anyone in the league. I expect the numbers to become more balanced out between Tate and Foster as the season wears on though.

2.) The Texans don't HAVE to depend on AJ solely for in the air production anymore. This is a good thing in the long run. There are things I can and have criticized Kubiak in the past but, the way this offense is currently composed is scary for opponents. Matt Schaub is really distributing the ball REALLY well, finding open guys, taking what the defense gives, and isn't afraid to throw it to the open man. Now whether that's AJ, OD, Martin, Walter, Casey, Foster or Tate out of the backfield or Jean it's really becoming pick your poison with this offense.

What's got to be even scarier is these young guys at WR aren't yet fully integrated into this offense. AKA it's going to get better.

So Cromartie... you feel like you can cover AJ. Great! Can the rest of your teamates cover the other weapons in this offense?
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Besides significantly limiting the plays that they target him, if you notice his routes are essentially avoiding acute cuts/curls/change of direction. They are straight-line or gentle angles. In their game play plans they are definitely showing sensitivity to avoiding moves that will encourage recurrence of hamstring, knee and ankle problems, while trying to further protect him from further aggravating his ongoing groin problem.
 
Ryan is going to do what he wanted to do the first time he ever played us....knock the crap out of Matt Schaub. Only problem is, I think our TEs are going to have a great game against that front.
 
I think I would rather watches AJ have limited looks in the regular season so that he can unload in the playoffs this year. We can make a playoff push just on the back of our run game alone. :)

AJ has been targeted deep as well. He had that TD pass to him against the Tacks that he never saw until it was too late. Schaub got the ball in the air early for a timing pass and AJ never got eyes on it. His numbers will be there when it matters.
 
I'm thinking AJ has a big game tonight, I think we'll open them up early on by taking advantage of Wilson across from him, leading them to leave him 1 on 1 at which point he'll go sick.

I agree they're going to come after Schaub hard and we'll need the right side of our Oline to hold up in this one and keep him upright, Schaub has a newfound knack of standing in the face of pressure and getting the pass away even when he's about to take a big hit, I don't want to see him having to be brave tonight, time for the youngsters to step up in pass pro.
 
paycheck71 said:
In that game, AJ dropped a pass that hit him right in the hands that would have probably been a TD. He also wasn't able to coral the pass in the end zone on the play where Schaub got hit by Mays. In fairness, that was very well covered, and AJ shouldn't blame himself for that play. My though is he was upset with himself on those two plays.
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he actually got a ball kicked out of his hands in the endzone iirc but still was upset about that
 
It's not easy for us Texans fan to accept, but Andre is not the player he was 5 years ago. Probably not even 2 or 3 years ago. He's not as fast as he was once and his focus isn't as sharp and he's now more injury plagued.
 
Game's not over, but good call by those who knew Cromartie could keep up with AJ. The last I saw someone cover AJ like that for an entire half was Revis.
 
Well I was kind of wrong. I thought Dre would be able to get some shorter, intermediate routes against Cro but he's not even getting that. I'd like to see him get some quick hits to him. Slants against Cro generally are effective plays. I'd like to see some of this in the second half.
 
I've always thought Cromartie was a pretty good corner. I never considered him elite or anything, but definitely a #1 on many teams. That said, I'll go ahead and say what I know a few people are thinking - Andre Johnson is no longer AJ. That hamstring clip last year concerned em when I heard about it, and while I have faith that he's still good enough to be a starting WR, he's no longer going to be one of the best WRs in the game.
 
So the Texans have to know that AJ is slowing down, hence the mixing in of the young guys. The "saving" players is BS b/c they are running Foster like crazy.
 
props to cromartie, but andre looked bad all by himself. lethargic routes, dropping atleast 2 that hit his hands, and just all around not himself. he was even pulled from several 3rd down situations that i saw ... bad day for #80.
 
How many times did they actually throw to AJ tonight though? Other than the first few games, It didn't seem like the play calling tried to get the ball to AJ a whole lot. Kubiak is so engrained in wanting to run the ball, kill the clock, and to be respectful to the other team. To me it just seems like our offense has tried to utilize AJ as much.
 
Dear Cromartie,


Congrats on limiting AJ, you did your job man, how does that wiiii.... Loss feel?


Signed,

Rest of the Texans team
 
Cromartie did well covering Andre Johnson but Andre just wasn't himself tonight. He dropped a couple of wide-open first downs. He made one nice first-down catch. Seems like Andre just didn't bring his A-game. Had he, I think he could have burned Cromartie's ass for one or two TDs.
 
Props to Cromartie! Fortunately we can still win without AJ carrying us, the true sign of a strong team :)
 
drs23 said:
We'll see. As he admits in this article he's never covered AJ in his career. I think AJ is going to take him to school.



Also seems their game plan is much like other teams to slow down the running game. This sure seems to me to be a "pick your poison" game. OD, Casey, Graham & Kevin could play huge rolls.

I'm really looking forward to this prime time national exposure game.

Go Texans!
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Cromartie did just what he said he was going to do...he was holding and grabbing jersey quite a bit but he did it in a way the officials couldn't catch him. At one point AJ had some words for him but he is a hellava athlete.....doubles as a WR...
 
AJ is not the same this year, so good corners like Cromartie can cover him. However, AJ is still good enough that he will rip apart corners and safties with less talent. AJ might not be the best in the league like he once was, but I'll still take him over 99% of the rest of the recievers in this league.
 
Texecutioner said:
How many times did they actually throw to AJ tonight though? Other than the first few games, It didn't seem like the play calling tried to get the ball to AJ a whole lot. Kubiak is so engrained in wanting to run the ball, kill the clock, and to be respectful to the other team. To me it just seems like our offense has tried to utilize AJ as much.
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How many times did Schaub have to throw the ball away because the receivers were all covered?

The Jets secondary did a great job last night. Schaub had a ton of time to throw at times and just had nobody open.

I think that had more to do with the last drive or two. The only respect Kubiak was showing to the other team, was respecting the job the defense had done and not wanting to risk a turnover.


And Andre did look frustrated last night. They showed him on the sideline late fighting off Cromartie and he just look frustrated.
 
Thorn said:
AJ is not the same this year, so good corners like Cromartie can cover him. However, AJ is still good enough that he will rip apart corners and safties with less talent. AJ might not be the best in the league like he once was, but I'll still take him over 99% of the rest of the recievers in this league.
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^^^^
This

Doc pointed out to me (Corectly surprise,suprise) that AJ isn't able to make sharp cuts anymore. So all he runs are fly/back shoulder fades and post patterns. Could it be that his hamstring/knee are hurting? Or is AJ taking it easy during the regular season so that he will be ready for the playoffs?
 
Physically, AJ appeared fine. Maybe he needs to see a sports shrink! Somethings not right with him, and I think it's from the nose up. I refuse to believe he has lost heart, that's just not AJ. He's been through an emotional roller coaster with our team for YEARS, maybe it's taking it's toll!
 
Malloy said:
Separation, or lack of, surprised me the most. If he cant get that his role is reduced bigtime...
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If you saw the Titans game there was a play where he caught the ball over the middle, but all 3 Titans D-backs in pursuit caught up with him - the ole AJ of 5 years ago would have been long gone for the TD. Then there's the dropped passes, which is more difficult to explain, and accept.
 
Yep, props to Cromartie. It ain't braggin' if ya can back it up, and he did. Though like others have mentioned, Dre looked bad. I know we say it about 'other receivers' but a few balls hit him in a bad place, his hands. I don't recall ever having seen AJ drop easy balls like that.

A much closer game than I thought it would be but still undefeated.
 
We had an off game and still won it.

Some guys will go through this like AJ did. Foster didn't look good at all last week. Look what Foster did in the Jets game, though.

We need to keep it real, folks: Not every game is a thing if beauty by all 53 players.
 
GP said:
We had an off game and still won it.

Some guys will go through this like AJ did. Foster didn't look good at all last week. Look what Foster did in the Jets game, though.

We need to keep it real, folks: Not every game is a thing if beauty by all 53 players.
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GP, we're fans. We panic. It's what we do.
 
Dre looked bad because Cromartie was all over him.


Did you guys not see the replays they showed of Cro's coverage on him?

When a corner gets you out of your groove you see things like we saw last night...dropped passes...

Give Cromartie his credit. He probably would have struggled trying to cover keyshawn but he matches up well with Andre...
 
GP said:
We had an off game and still won it.

Some guys will go through this like AJ did. Foster didn't look good at all last week. Look what Foster did in the Jets game, though.

We need to keep it real, folks: Not every game is a thing if beauty by all 53 players.
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Meh... I'm sticking with this ^^^^^^^^

Dre is and will be fine.
 
I don't think Andre is 100 percent. It almost seems like he doesn't trust his body in some situations. Just my opinion and what I see, but I think that's whats causing the drops too. He's thinking so much out there and its hurting him in other areas. After being injured a lot the last couple of years I can't blame him, but he just needs to trust that his body will hold up and go out and make plays.
 
I thought Johnson looked slow and lethargic. I'm a little worried about that going fwd.
 
Am I the only one that is under the impression that AJ was just fine? They used AJ as a distraction. They didn't want AJ hitting his 10k mark in an away game. They want him to hit it at home, where the fans can see it in person.

I mean, he's not young and spry anymore, but he could've played much harder than what he did, if he wanted to.

I still think that Cromartie is pretty good though.
 
Most of the team looked like they stayed up all night drinking Manhattan Martinis.



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