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 3rd 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 8th 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…
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