Houston Texans

Day 3 of our All-Division Teams takes us to the AFC South which is currently in a state of flux. With no Peyton Manning it was anything but the status quo as the Texans managed to dominate a division they justly won, while overcoming a plethora of injuries in the process.

But what about the best players from the AFC South? Were the Texans able to make us much noise with our team as they did in the regular season? Or were the combined efforts of the Titans, Colts, and Jaguars enough to make this more of an AFC South team, and less of a Houston Texans team?

As ever, reading on provides the answers.

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In a closely contested affair, you always got the feeling that whoever made fewer mistakes out of the Baltimore Ravens and Houston Texans would win, and so it proved with the Ravens advancing to the AFC Championship game as they held onto victory against a stubborn and resolute Texans side.

While people have been quick to come out and criticize Joe Flacco, the Ravens quarterback did exactly what was needed, against a defense that has caused plenty of teams problems and didn’t turn it over. Throw in several excellent throws and compare it with the performance of T.J. Yates, and you have the biggest reason the Texans are going home and the Ravens are preparing for the Patriots.

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For this game we decided to do the NFL equivalent of tracking an endangered species–we scouted the fullback and in Vonta Leach, one of the few players at that position who get any significant playing time.

It amazed me this year when Michael Robinson was named as the NFC’s first alternate; in part because he actually wasn’t very good as a blocker, but more to do with the fact he only played 22.8% of the Seahawks’ snaps. No fullback played more snaps than Leach (584) and with 52.6% of snaps, it may even be worth my while putting it all to paper. As it turned out, the Ravens game plan was so conservative that he ended up playing an awful lot more than his season average. Let’s have a look at how he did. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s rematch weekend in the NFL Playoffs and the encounter between the Baltimore Ravens and the Houston Texans is arguably the most intriguing games and the toughest to pick. Even though the Texans have been hit by injuries, both teams are built on very similar models and matchup very well. Both run the ball well, play stifling defense, and have a quarterback who is just surviving and not making the mistakes to throw their team off course. The Ravens maintained their momentum down the stretch but have taken a week off while the Texans stumbled into the playoffs, but have momentum going into this game after a comfortable victory over the Cincinnati Bengals on Wildcard Weekend. This game could not be more finely balanced. Read the rest of this entry »

Making the playoffs is good, winning in them is better.

You won’t need to tell the Houston Texans that after a victory in their playoff debut sent a rocking Reliant Stadium home happy. After a season that has seen them lose their star pass rusher and starting and backup quarterbacks, they overcame a Bengals team that had its chances. That they did owes a lot to a rushing attack that gave Arian Foster just enough space to make some big runs, and a defense that got to grips with Andy Dalton, eventually making him look every bit the rookie he is.

The Cincinnati Bengals will no doubt be disappointed this was the case after an efficient start that saw them have success moving the ball downfield. But after missing an opportunity to put up points, and then being held to just a field goal, they failed to deliver the kind of blow that could have rattled a Texans team that had lost three on the bounce. Still, there’s plenty of young talent on that roster (check out what Neil Hornsby had to say about the excellent Geno Atkins) and they took a huge step forward in what was meant to be a transitional year. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve been pulling our hair out about this all season … how do we give you some great information you can’t get anywhere else just after the game finishes? For technical reasons we can’t start analysis until just after the game ends and then it’s around eight hours of hard data crunching before the information surfaces and another hour or so before we publish our Re-Focused articles.

We thought about giving you some quick hit stuff but frankly that’s not our style; we have lots of flaws at PFF but lack of substance isn’t one of them. We’re not going to give you, the hard core fan, less information than you deserve so we had an idea–how about giving you more? Why don’t we cut down on the width dramatically but go into more depth on a particular area of the game or matchup than we’ve done previously. We’ll use our top guys (or me in this case) to log just one part of play but in great detail and get it to you as soon after the game finishes as we can. Read the rest of this entry »

Things were looking so good for the Houston Texans this season. They got a huge break before any football had been played when Peyton Manning’s injury ended up costing him the entire season (and who knows what else beyond), and that seemed to give them the impetus to finally shake off the title of also-rans and push into the playoffs. Houston had things wrapped up and was chasing the No. 1 seed when Matt Schaub went down, a blow that was rapidly followed by backup Matt Leinart‘s fall. This left the ship under the control of late-round rookie quarterback T.J Yates, or the potential backup of Jake Delhomme should the wheels really fall off. Luckily for Houston, they’ve been able to play well enough to date that there has been no need to panic … but now it’s the playoffs.

Cincinnati made the playoffs after saying goodbye to Chad Ochocinco and Carson Palmer, probably the team’s two most iconic figures of the past decade. They have played some great football at times despite being led by a rookie quarterback in the shape of Andy Dalton and their defense has been much improved. Despite failing to knock off rivals Baltimore and Pittsburgh in the AFC North, they’ve found their way in as the third qualifying team from the division. Read the rest of this entry »

With an outside chance of making the playoffs, this was it for the Tennessee Titans and first year head coach Mike Munchak. Could they beat a severely depleted Houston Texans side, and would it matter?

Unfortunately while the answer to the first question was yes, it ultimately proved only of consequence to their draft stock as results went against them. A disappointing end to an encouraging season where the Titans got plenty of rookies plenty of playing time, though the nature of this victory against a largely second string Texans side shows there is a lot of work to be done.

As for Houston they march into the playoffs and will consider this game a success, presuming T.J. Yates is at full health as they host their first ever playoff game. After all they got Andre Johnson some snaps, didn’t lose anyone to injury, and got their depth some playing time. Let’s look at how that depth, and others, performed.

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Quite incredibly after handing the Indianapolis Colts their first victory of the 2011 season just two weeks ago the Tennessee Titans are still alive in the playoff hunt. With a victory over the Houston Texans, who are locked into the third seed in the AFC, along with wins for Baltimore and the New York Jets, the Titans will steal an improbable sixth seed in the AFC and re-match in Houston next weekend. So we are left with the interesting situation, which we’ve had a couple of times in recent seasons, where a “better” team has nothing to play for against an inferior opponent with a playoff berth and potential momentum all to play for.

If Tennessee’s recent history is anything to go by watch for this game to be one of the closest of the weekend and one that could see the AFC sixth seed going down to the final minutes. Tennessee has only had one of their last six games decided by more than six points, their two touchdown defeat to the Colts, with four of those six games settled by a score of 23-17. All Houston has to play for in this game is momentum and some semblance of control over their wildcard opponent. Here are three focus points for one of three key games in deciding the sixth seed in the AFC.

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Peyton who?

After a second win on the bounce, the Indianapolis Colts find themselves rolling at such a speed they may take themselves out of the position where they’re faced with a decision that will cause Bill Polian plenty of sleepless nights. It’s the reward for a team that looked like it had given up finding some fight, working within their own limitations to win football games that you really didn’t think they could.

Indeed when Indianapolis turned the ball over on their first offensive snap of the game, and the Houston Texans ran in it for six on their second, this had a feeling of another one of those Thursday Night Games where a team gets blown out. Instead the Colts got some excellent play from a guy you can’t help but feel happy for, and capitalized on a Texans team that had some big runs, but never stepped it up a gear to put their embattled rivals away. Let’s look at some of the most notable performances from the first game of Week 16.

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