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Week 17: Remind Them They're the Oilers

steelbtexan

King of the W. B. Club
Contributor's Club
Dont forget in the offseason our D will likely get worse in the likely event JJ wants to finish his career elsewhere.
I hate to say this but JJ's part of the problem. Today for instance, he lost contain trying to rush the passer and gave up a long Henry TD run. This has been happening regularly and the LB's aren't good enough to cover for him when he's undisciplined.
 

amazing80

Hall of Fame
That's not true at all , I've argued all season long about my thoughts on the subject , that's far from shutting down.


Watson for MVP .... rah rah rah .... 4-12.
There you go.

Welcome to the club. Grab your t-shirt and fanny pack at the welcome desk. Complimentary apple juice will be provided after you sign in. Have a great time!
 

amazing80

Hall of Fame
I hate to say this but JJ's part of the problem. Today for instance, he lost contain trying to rush the passer and gave up a long Henry TD run. This has been happening regularly and the LB's aren't good enough to cover for him when he's undisciplined.
To be fair, the first time he kept contain, there was a massive hole inside and Henry ran free (can't remember if he scored). JJ stopped playing the QB after that point (was that his choice or the coach's adjustment). This is hard to say. Our LBs are the biggest problem, well maybe tied with our secondary.
 

dream_team

Hall of Fame
I hate to say this but JJ's part of the problem. Today for instance, he lost contain trying to rush the passer and gave up a long Henry TD run. This has been happening regularly and the LB's aren't good enough to cover for him when he's undisciplined.
It's hard to tell what exactly is JJ's responsibility. On another play, he DIDN'T rush the passer, went for the fake to Henry, and Tannehill walked in for a TD. The QB is simply reading what JJ is doing, up to his teammates to back him up (pending JJ is doing his responsibility, which we don't know)
 

steelbtexan

King of the W. B. Club
Contributor's Club
It's hard to tell what exactly is JJ's responsibility. On another play, he DIDN'T rush the passer, went for the fake to Henry, and Tannehill walked in for a TD. The QB is simply reading what JJ is doing, up to his teammates to back him up (pending JJ is doing his responsibility, which we don't know)
Your right, we dont know.

However this has been happening alot this yr. If it's by design then the coaches need to re-design things this offseason.
 

KA4Texan

Woof!
Contributor's Club
I hate to say this but JJ's part of the problem. Today for instance, he lost contain trying to rush the passer and gave up a long Henry TD run. This has been happening regularly and the LB's aren't good enough to cover for him when he's undisciplined.
Easy to make mistakes when you have to play the entire side of the ball.

World of difference when you can trust those around you to do their part
 

Texansballer74

The Marine
And our point has been and will remain, it's not his philosophy, it was the offensive scheme. We will not have that issue next season. You're complaint is with the system, not the player.
Unfortunately it’s with the player, reason being, he just doesn’t like Watson. And whenever he does say something positive , there’s always a but.
 

Earl34

Hall of Fame
Everything is not black and white , One play does not e
It's like those few plays where the OL blows an assignment , you guys act like its routine ... when its really more like once or twice a game , typical for an NFL game no matter the line or QB.
It’s more than just the blown assignments. It’s the lack of push, their inability to handle basic stunts and delayed blitzes. To often they are flat out getting beat at the snap

Although they made strides with the false starts and pre snap reads,by the time Watson gets to the top of his drops, they still consistently allow too much pressure.

If it’s happening every game, It’s more than just an anomaly. If their performance was acceptable, Devlin would not be considered one of the worst coaches on the team.
 

Earl34

Hall of Fame
And our point has been and will remain, it's not his philosophy, it was the offensive scheme. We will not have that issue next season. You're complaint is with the system, not the player.
Excellent post. Watson is coachable to a fault. If he was going against the system or not playing the way BOB wanted him to play within his precious ED system, knowing what we know about BOB, does anyone think BOB would passively stand by and allow Watson to screw up his offense for four years? It doesn’t make sense.

You‘re absolutely correct. Simliar to when Cobb and Cooks complained about the offense. They mentioned wanting more quicker routes. That’s a system problem.
 

ClemsonTexan

Waterboy
Again , statistics back that up. #1 in yards per attempt , #1 in yards per completion , #1 in both intended air yards per attempt and intended air yards completion.
You're not very good at this looking up football statistics thing.

Screen Shot 2021-01-04 at 1.12.31 AM.png

And you've yet to explain how this is inherently a bad thing aside from all of the imaginary better options that were available on any given play. If intended air yards per attempt is an indication of poor QB judgment, then Tom Brady has the worst judgment of any QB in the entire NFL.
 

ClemsonTexan

Waterboy
Just to illustrate how specious an argument it is to say that intended air yards are somehow tied to an inability to sustain offensive drives, we can simply look at the number of passing first downs per drive by QB.

Mahomes - 1.56
Watson - 1.34
Rodgers - 1.31
Brady - 1.28
Wilson - 1.21
Carr - 1.16
Lock - 0.935
Wentz - 0.915

Brady and Watson are at the top of the list (#1 and #3, respectively) in intended air yards per attempt and also rank near the top of the list in passing first downs per drive. Wentz and Lock are also at the top of the list for intended air yards per attempt and are among the worst in obtaining passing first downs. Then you've got Rodgers who has been middle of the pack this year in intended air yards per attempt while ranking towards the top in first downs per drive.

There's no correlation between throwing long or short passes and sustaining drives. Some QBs throw long passes often and can't move the chains (Josh Allen's average intended air yards per attempt in 2018 was 11.0). Mahomes averaged 9.1 passing yards per attempt in 2018 and won MVP with 50 TD passes.
 
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maverick512000

Hall of Fame
Excellent post. Watson is coachable to a fault. If he was going against the system or not playing the way BOB wanted him to play within his precious ED system, knowing what we know about BOB, does anyone think BOB would passively stand by and allow Watson to screw up his offense for four years? It doesn’t make sense.

You‘re absolutely correct. Simliar to when Cobb and Cooks complained about the offense. They mentioned wanting more quicker routes. That’s a system problem.
I agree its a system problem but what bothers me is why didn't we see any improvement once the driving force behind the system was changed? Oh I didn't expect to have a complete overhaul of everything in the middle of the season and I didn't expect a winning record this season but we saw pretty much nothing change. If it was just OB cracking the whip to make all the players and coaches follow his flawed system then why did they not throw out the book and go to simple, easy to do plays? And I don't buy that its because of Kelly because he is a first time OC that everyone knows is on his way out so he has no power at all. I'm not saying its on Watson either, calling plays is not his job really, but what I am saying is firing OB was not and will not be the magic bullet that fixes our problems.

I'm not sure what the answer is but when the only two teams that did worse than you were teams trying to tank then that means there is something majorly wrong with the team as a whole and everyone in the front office and EVERY player needs to be given a hard look because as JJ himself said they are being paid millions to do what many do for free and there seems to be a complete lack of caring. Post game interviews from players saying "We need to do X better" or "We need to focus on Y more" means jack all if it doesn't translate to the field and all year we saw the same crap in every game.

One bright point is I saw more commercials for people to buy season passes this year than I have since the Texans were founded so maybe that's a sign that more people are starting to stop spending their very hard earned money, especially in this economy, on a product that doesn't seem to get better.
 

ClemsonTexan

Waterboy
If it was just OB cracking the whip to make all the players and coaches follow his flawed system then why did they not throw out the book and go to simple, easy to do plays?
LMAO! Okay. Yeah, it's that easy. You simply throw away the entire playbook and run new, simple plays that no one has even practiced. LOL.

 

amazing80

Hall of Fame
LMAO! Okay. Yeah, it's that easy. You simply throw away the entire playbook and run new, simple plays that no one has even practiced. LOL.

Yeah that notion to me is ridiculous. I do think they started to incorporate new things by the end of the year, but the way they block, read defenses, gameplan, make adjustments, route combinations etc, didn't change. It's a philosophy that is ingrained into those coaches. The team cannot take a 180 midseason. That's why bad teams continue to suck throughout the year. It takes an off-season of implementing with new coaches to see real change.
 

Corrosion

Idealist
Staff member
Unfortunately it’s with the player, reason being, he just doesn’t like Watson. And whenever he does say something positive , there’s always a but.

Saying I Just don't like Watson is downright asinine when I've stated several times that there is only ONE other QB I'd rather have to build around. That's a pretty short list and not indicative of your I hate Watson narrative.
 

maverick512000

Hall of Fame
LMAO! Okay. Yeah, it's that easy. You simply throw away the entire playbook and run new, simple plays that no one has even practiced. LOL.

See this is why I have trouble taking you seriously. I didn't say throw out the entire playbook, in fact I said I didn't expect them to but you only read what you want to read, but if these plays are so complex no one can do them then what does it matter since apparently practicing them doesn't help anyway. Also yes you can adjust plays so that they aren't so complex and create fairly simple plays that NFL level players should be able to, if they are even remotely worth being at this level, learn. Watson talked about how he and Hopkins drew up that trick play last year in the sand. Now I don't expect any of our current receivers to be on Hopkins level but yeah they shouldn't have to practice something for years to get a basic route down.

Yeah that notion to me is ridiculous. I do think they started to incorporate new things by the end of the year, but the way they block, read defenses, gameplan, make adjustments, route combinations etc, didn't change. It's a philosophy that is ingrained into those coaches. The team cannot take a 180 midseason. That's why bad teams continue to suck throughout the year. It takes an off-season of implementing with new coaches to see real change.
Again people read what they want to read and if they did start to incorporate new things then please tell me what because the only new things I saw was new ways to lose. Finally "those coaches" are both first year rookies who shouldn't be so set in their ways particularly since it wasn't their way but OBs way. RAC yeah he's not changing but the offense should have done SOMETHING different. Now I've said before nothing helps if a receiver can't catch a ball that hits him dead in the chest but we still did the same old same old of things like run up the middle on first down and TEs barely being a factor.
 

maverick512000

Hall of Fame
The dropped passes schtick is a joke .... Watson ranked 29th in drop percentage

2020 NFL Advanced Passing | Pro-Football-Reference.com (pro-football-reference.com)
I wasn't referring to the season has a whole, frankly I haven't looked up the stats because I don't care how great anyone on the team played 4-12 is still bad. I'm more remembering that one play I saw out of the corner of my eye against the Bengals where Watson literally hit the receiver, didn't even care enough to look who it was, in the chest and the guy still didn't catch it. It just seem to be an example of the season and team as a whole.

Like I said I don't care about stats because the only stats that matters is 4-12.
 

steelbtexan

King of the W. B. Club
Contributor's Club
See this is why I have trouble taking you seriously. I didn't say throw out the entire playbook, in fact I said I didn't expect them to but you only read what you want to read, but if these plays are so complex no one can do them then what does it matter since apparently practicing them doesn't help anyway. Also yes you can adjust plays so that they aren't so complex and create fairly simple plays that NFL level players should be able to, if they are even remotely worth being at this level, learn. Watson talked about how he and Hopkins drew up that trick play last year in the sand. Now I don't expect any of our current receivers to be on Hopkins level but yeah they shouldn't have to practice something for years to get a basic route down.



Again people read what they want to read and if they did start to incorporate new things then please tell me what because the only new things I saw was new ways to lose. Finally "those coaches" are both first year rookies who shouldn't be so set in their ways particularly since it wasn't their way but OBs way. RAC yeah he's not changing but the offense should have done SOMETHING different. Now I've said before nothing helps if a receiver can't catch a ball that hits him dead in the chest but we still did the same old same old of things like run up the middle on first down and TEs barely being a factor.
After listening to Hopkins apparently that Clemson education ain't what it's cracked up to be.
 

ClemsonTexan

Waterboy
See this is why I have trouble taking you seriously.
Feeling is mutual, bud.

I didn't say throw out the entire playbook, in fact I said I didn't expect them to but you only read what you want to read, but if these plays are so complex no one can do them then what does it matter since apparently practicing them doesn't help anyway.
Well, perhaps you need to be more articulate. You literally said "throw out the book" and "go to simple, easy to do plays" and then throw a hissy fit when someone interprets that as fundamentally changing the way the offense runs.

Also yes you can adjust plays so that they aren't so complex and create fairly simple plays that NFL level players should be able to, if they are even remotely worth being at this level, learn. Watson talked about how he and Hopkins drew up that trick play last year in the sand. Now I don't expect any of our current receivers to be on Hopkins level but yeah they shouldn't have to practice something for years to get a basic route down.
Let me first say that I don't even agree with the predicate of your argument. You said that nothing has basically improved since BOB's firing, but the passing game has dramatically improved in an objective, statistically verifiable way.

The success (or lack thereof) of any NFL offense is always multi-factorial. It's not just the QB quality, or the RB quality, or the play design, or the play call, or the blocking. There has to be a synergistic mix of all those things to make an offense hum. But I think what plagues the Texans more than anything else is blocking since this offense can't execute screen passes effectively. You can have brilliant route concepts that will go for naught if your blocking scheme can't pick up chunk yards on screens and runs to stay ahead of the chains.
 

Corrosion

Idealist
Staff member
I wasn't referring to the season has a whole, frankly I haven't looked up the stats because I don't care how great anyone on the team played 4-12 is still bad. I'm more remembering that one play I saw out of the corner of my eye against the Bengals where Watson literally hit the receiver, didn't even care enough to look who it was, in the chest and the guy still didn't catch it. It just seem to be an example of the season and team as a whole.

Like I said I don't care about stats because the only stats that matters is 4-12.

I was just dispelling drops as an excuse ....
 

maverick512000

Hall of Fame
Feeling is mutual, bud.



Well, perhaps you need to be more articulate. You literally said "throw out the book" and "go to simple, easy to do plays" and then throw a hissy fit when someone interprets that as fundamentally changing the way the offense runs.



Let me first say that I don't even agree with the predicate of your argument. You said that nothing has basically improved since BOB's firing, but the passing game has dramatically improved in an objective, statistically verifiable way.

The success (or lack thereof) of any NFL offense is always multi-factorial. It's not just the QB quality, or the RB quality, or the play design, or the play call, or the blocking. There has to be a synergistic mix of all those things to make an offense hum. But I think what plagues the Texans more than anything else is blocking since this offense can't execute screen passes effectively. You can have brilliant route concepts that will go for naught if your blocking scheme can't pick up chunk yards on screens and runs to stay ahead of the chains.
For me to "throw a hissy fit" as you put it would mean that I care at all and trust me I don't, this is simply a way to kill time at work. Now that being said I reread what I wrote and I can see where you could misunderstand my meaning as I did say throw out the book but I was using that as more a turn of phrase, that was a mistake on my part and forgetting tone doesn't carry over in text. The serious part was when I said I don't expect a complete overhaul. Even still I would have thought we'd see SOMETHING different when it came to plays. You see teams bring out new plays all the time and develop plays mid-season. Now it could be we just don't have the coaching talent for that but its still a disappointment to throw Johan overboard and still be in the middle of a hurricane. The passing game may have improved but so what, we still went 4-12 and we still had players making the same mistakes and doing the same plays with the same results. You can say the team has improved but the win-lose record, the only record that matters, says otherwise and this year the team had no fight in them at all outside of a couple of players like Watson and JJ. As happy as I was to see OB gone that doesn't seem like an improvement to me.
 

steelbtexan

King of the W. B. Club
Contributor's Club
Fulton was the worst offender here but not the only one. Look at how high Heck's pad level is. He gets walked all the way back into the QB with ease.
OTs are taught to run wide rushers past the QB and it's the QBs job to step up to avoid the outside rusher. On this play DW4 couldn't step up because Fulton got beaten badly. Heck didn't do a bad job and that sack wasn't on DW4. IMHO
 

ClemsonTexan

Waterboy
OTs are taught to run wide rushers past the QB and it's the QBs job to step up to avoid the outside rusher. On this play DW4 couldn't step up because Fulton got beaten badly. Heck didn't do a bad job and that sack wasn't on DW4. IMHO
What does this have to do with his Heck's pad level? The sack obviously wasn't on DW4. Even if Fulton doesn't get beat on the spin move, you have a rookie tackle getting walked back into his QB because his pad level is too high.
 

thunderkyss

Just win baby!!!
Staff member
Contributor's Club
Yeah that notion to me is ridiculous. I do think they started to incorporate new things by the end of the year, but the way they block, read defenses, gameplan, make adjustments, route combinations etc, didn't change.
& I really think that was the biggest issue. I blamed the scout team for most of it, but it dawned on me yesterday, even against our division rivals we start the game like we have no idea who they are, or what they want to do.

Both sides of the ball.

I’m wondering if they just don’t know how to run meetings & drills. The game prep was just too bad.
 

Thorn

Dirty Old Man
Great, Trevor Lawrence will be a Jaguar...
Just because you have a great QB doesn't automatically mean you win games. One look at the Texans should reveal that. And just because he's a great QB in college also doesn't automatically mean he'll be a great NFL QB.

We'll see. But if he does go to the Jaggies, and they get their act together, and Lawrence turns out to be the real deal, then yeah that will be a pain in the ass for many years to come.
 

Earl34

Hall of Fame
How many of those can you show from yesterdays game ?
I'm not a video editor. I don't have another video. If I come across another one, I'll share it with you. However, if you want to just focus on 1 or 2 anomalies per game. That's what? 20, 25, 32 flagrantly blown blocks this season? What number of blown blocks are acceptable before we can highlight it?

In your rush to call me disingenuous (what happened to attack the post, not the poster) and defend this OL, you are totally ignoring that they regressed from last year. Their inability to run block and their inconsistent pass blocking is one of the major issues on this team. Yet, you ignore their overall performance and want to complain that it's unfair to highlight when we observe a blown block during a play.
 

DanielTx

Veteran
Just because you have a great QB doesn't automatically mean you win games. One look at the Texans should reveal that. And just because he's a great QB in college also doesn't automatically mean he'll be a great NFL QB.

We'll see. But if he does go to the Jaggies, and they get their act together, and Lawrence turns out to be the real deal, then yeah that will be a pain in the ass for many years to come.
Hopefully he pulls a Eli and refuses to play for the Jags. I haven’t watched any of his games but we better start drafting a defense. It’s going to be embarrassing watching him break rookie records against these guys
 

Corrosion

Idealist
Staff member
I'm not a video editor. I don't have another video. If I come across another one, I'll share it with you. However, if you want to just focus on 1 or 2 anomalies per game. That's what? 20, 25, 32 flagrantly blown blocks this season? What number of blown blocks are acceptable before we can highlight it?
That's a fairly typical number for just about any OL .... Its rare that an OL will go a complete game without a blown assignment or two.

In your rush to call me disingenuous (what happened to attack the post, not the poster) and defend this OL,
That's not a personal attack by any means. (@Double Barrel)

Your narrative is false , what should I call it ?

you are totally ignoring that they regressed from last year. Their inability to run block and their inconsistent pass blocking is one of the major issues on this team. Yet, you ignore their overall performance and want to complain that it's unfair to highlight when we observe a blown block during a play.
I do not ignore any of the above. I'm just stating that they aren't as atrocious as you say they are based upon watching 1 or maybe 2 lowlights per game. They are , on the vast majority of snaps serviceable as a pass blocking unit.
Thru 15 games (I haven't done done the math since the last game) - when Watson gets the ball out in under 3 seconds they have given up a sack once every 45 plays and one sack every 5.9 plays when he held the ball longer than 3 seconds.

Those are fairly respectable stats .... equating to ~1 sacks in an entire games worth of snaps under 3 seconds.
Pretty terrible after that 3 second mark.

They couldn't block you and me when it comes to run blocking.
 

ClemsonTexan

Waterboy
Offensive line play is difficult to evaluate. And you have to look at more than just sacks allowed even when trying to evaluate pass pro.

Unlike a lot of other people, I put 75-80% of bad offensive line play on the coaching, especially if the line is giving up tons of pressure through the interior. It is an easily correctable issue with proper coaching and game planning though.
 

Earl34

Hall of Fame
That's a fairly typical number for just about any OL .... Its rare that an OL will go a complete game without a blown assignment or two.



That's not a personal attack by any means. (@Double Barrel)

Your narrative is false , what should I call it ?



I do not ignore any of the above. I'm just stating that they aren't as atrocious as you say they are based upon watching 1 or maybe 2 lowlights per game. They are , on the vast majority of snaps serviceable as a pass blocking unit.
Thru 15 games (I haven't done done the math since the last game) - when Watson gets the ball out in under 3 seconds they have given up a sack once every 45 plays and one sack every 5.9 plays when he held the ball longer than 3 seconds.

Those are fairly respectable stats .... equating to ~1 sacks in an entire games worth of snaps under 3 seconds.
Pretty terrible after that 3 second mark.

They couldn't block you and me when it comes to run blocking.
So, all of the false narratives on this forum, you never called out as disingenuous. But, highlighting the OL missing their blocks is disingenuous to you? We will have to agree to disagree on that one.

As far as your 3 second standard for this serviceable OL. Unless you know the progressions or acknowledge the OL needs to block longer on those slow developing routes, placing all the blame on Watson for all of those sacks is a false narrative and disingenuous by your standard.
 

Texansballer74

The Marine
So, all of the false narratives on this forum, you never called out as disingenuous. But, highlighting the OL missing their blocks is disingenuous to you? We will have to agree to disagree on that one.

As far as your 3 second standard for this serviceable OL. Unless you know the progressions or acknowledge the OL needs to block longer on those slow developing routes, placing all the blame on Watson for all of those sacks is a false narrative and disingenuous by your standard.
I guess we should call his take on Watson disingenuous too huh.
 

Corrosion

Idealist
Staff member
So, all of the false narratives on this forum, you never called out as disingenuous. But, highlighting the OL missing their blocks is disingenuous to you? We will have to agree to disagree on that one.

As far as your 3 second standard for this serviceable OL. Unless you know the progressions or acknowledge the OL needs to block longer on those slow developing routes, placing all the blame on Watson for all of those sacks is a false narrative and disingenuous by your standard.

How bout all those underneath routes he passes up in favor of those deeper routes ...
 

OptimisticTexan

2024 / Rebuilding Block 4 After Playoffs / Texans
Just because you have a great QB doesn't automatically mean you win games. One look at the Texans should reveal that. And just because he's a great QB in college also doesn't automatically mean he'll be a great NFL QB.

We'll see. But if he does go to the Jaggies, and they get their act together, and Lawrence turns out to be the real deal, then yeah that will be a pain in the ass for many years to come.
.....also, the Jags will have the TL Pick, 21, 33, 45, 65, 97, and 117. That would be 7 of the top 117 rookies coming into the NFL. They also have 82M in cap space. This team could get healthy in a hurry.
 
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Earl34

Hall of Fame
How bout all those underneath routes he passes up in favor of those deeper routes ...
Without knowing the progressions, you are being disingenuous to push the "Watson doesn't throw underneath" narrative. I guess in your opinion, on this play, he should have thrown the underneath passes on 3rd and long instead of the tougher, longer pass to Coutee.

 

OptimisticTexan

2024 / Rebuilding Block 4 After Playoffs / Texans
What's the difference between him and Bortles?
What's the difference between Justin Herbert and Blake Bortles? I believe Trevor Lawrence is actually the more talented QB in every facet of his game. JH got into the right offense and TL has the same opportunity since the entire FO and coaching staff will be brand new.
 
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