Not So Happy Ending

 

The best season in Texans franchise history came to a crashing end on Sunday at the hands of Ed Reed and the Baltimore defense.  Looking at the statistics after the game just makes me cringe.  The Texans dominated this game defensively! But when the offense and special teams gives the ball away 4 times even this masterful defensive performance goes to waste.   After the 3^rd interception of the day the Texans defense again stood strong and got the ball back for the TJ Yates and the Texans offense one last time.  With a shot at tying the game, Yates’ pass found no Texan and fell restlessly to the ground.

When you look at the box score, you think the Texans won.  The Texans D held the Ravens to 227 total yards, 87 rushing yards and a scant 2.8 yards per carry.  Andre Johnson had an Andre Johnson type performance with 8 catches for 111 yards and Arian Foster went for 27 carries and 132 yards and a TD. The best offensive line in football gave up 0 sacks to the team that led the NFL in sacks, and our defense got 5 sacks against the Ravens and held Flacco to under 50% passing. JJ Watt had one of his most dominating performances as a pro with 12 tackles and 2.5 sacks.  Almost everyone on the Texans played well enough to win. 

I said almost everyone.  There were two notable exceptions.  TJ Yates looked like a rookie going against a great defense.  All three of his interceptions were off of bad decisions. TJ got locked on to Andre Johnson and couldn’t seem to get to the next receiver in his progression. The one that killed the game though was at the end of what should have been the game tying drive. Reed grabbed his 8^th career post season interception at the 4 yd line and ended a drive that could have vaulted Andre Johnson into post season lore.

The other obvious notable exception was Jacoby Jones. It hurts right now just to say his name.  A friend texted me during the game and said that Jacoby didn’t deserve his own initials as he was the anti JJ Watt of this game.  Jones had no catches in the game and averaged .7 yards per return. To be clear that is 0.7 yards not 7 yards.  His fumble in the first quarter flipped the script on the game after a great kickoff return by Danieal Manning and a quick 3 and out by the Texans defense. If he doesn’t get cut on the plane ride home, I may turn on Kubiak.  I don’t care how much money they gave him, he’s not worth it.  1 punt returned for a TD a year isn’t worth all the fumbles and the consistent lack of production. In Andre’s absence this year he was downright horrible. I don’t want to say the Jacoby is the reason we lost but my buddy did say if Jacoby’s dad had just pulled out… the game would have at least gone to overtime. Just sayin…

My Playoff Experience

Sorry for the long layoff.  I am just getting my voice back, literally and metaphorically.  So what happened while I was gone?  The Texans finally won a game I hear!  And what an experience!  I snagged some tickets the day before because I figured I share my experience with you.

I was at work on Friday when a coworker was perusing StubHub and said there were tickets that were under $100.  I said I didn’t believe him and when I saw it for myself I decided to give the wife a call to get the go ahead. (Yes, she controls the wallet).  She knew there was no way I was going to miss this so she acquiesced with little fight. I secretly think she really wanted to go too! We also snagged a parking pass from a good friend of mine who manages Reliant Park. So were set, tickets, parking pass and a voice to lay in sacrifice on the football altar.

We met up with a buddy of mine in the Blue Lot and had one hell of a tailgate.  The BBQ was great, the beer was flowing, and the anticipation was building.  I have to admit, I had been anxious all day about the game and walking up to the stadium I was so nervous for the Texans.  Could they beat this team again after a less than stellar performance the first time around?

We go into the stadium about 15 minutes before kickoff and it was as packed as I’ve ever seen before kickoff.  The atmosphere was already buzzing and when the starting lineups were announced it felt as if the roof might blow off.  Then the entire visitors side of the lower bowl became on big “GO TEXANS” billboard and at the moment the crowd just erupted!!  It was amazing! 

I was really looking forward to the first big 3^rd down to see how loud the crowd would get and the fans didn’t disappoint, it was near deafening.  I could barely hear myself screaming, as my yells of excitement just seemed to fall in line with the rest and commenced an attack on the Bengals offensive eardrums.  It would get much louder though… much!

Much of the first half was a defensive battle and the Texans had far from asserted dominance.  But when J.J. Watt grabbed that ball out of the air and started running the place went crazy.  I spilled half the beer in my cup, as I was jumping around like an idiot screaming “Oh my god!, Oh my god!, Oh my god!!!!”.  The Houston Chronicle reported that the sound was measured on the field at 110 decibels, which is the equivalent to listening to a power saw at 3 feet.  I tell you what, there was a power saw on that field in the second half as the Texans completely dominated the Bengals from the halfway mark.  And let me say this, I was so happy and so proud to be have been a Texans fan for so long when I saw Andre juke Pacman out of his shoes and scored his first playoff touchdown! He did a Lambeau Leap that he’s been holding for a long time!

 I tweeted after the game that I spent $105 on the tickets and it was totally effing worth it.  It was. It was worth every dollar.  Not sure if I can afford tickets should fate bring the Texans back home in two weeks, but we’ll cross that bridge if we get to it.  The Texans are 1-0 last week and hopefully they can find a way to go 1-0 this week.  For now, I'm going to check out this Bama-LSU rematch.  Talk to y'all soon.