Divisional Round: Texans Vs Pats

 Going back to New England      

          On January 13th at 3:30, the Houston Texans are heading back to New England to attempt to avenge their 42-14 loss in week 14. The Pats completely mastered the Texans by dominating every facet of the game. Houston looked incompetent and fraudulent after this shellacking and their performance over the last four games of the regular season. Luckily, Houston looked like the suffocating anaconda-like team that won 12 games in last week's 19-13 win over Cincy. It was a game Houston controlled from the first snap, but the score was closer than the game suggested because of too many field goals (more to come later). Hopefully, this is the team that goes to New England and not those big fat phonies from the last four weeks of the regular season. Houston has to keep the boulder rolling and will need to be more disruptive than New England on defense, win the battle on third down and capitalize in the red zone to beat the Patriots.

Watt or Wilfork?

          In the week 14 match-up, Vince Wilfork shredded the Houston offensive line. He had 4 tackles at an average loss of 2.5 yards, one sack, and a forced fumble. On top of that Mayo and Hightower had six tackles each because of Wilfork's ability to gobble up double teams. In the zone running game it's not a true hip to hip double team that creates movement. What Houston does is have the center give some help and have the guard take over so the center can move up to the middle linebacker. The center's job is not to move the nose (Wilfork), but get up to the MLB. However, Wilfork is nearly impossible to move in this type of blocking technique and as a result he wreaked havoc last time they met. This week Houston will either have to have Myers give the guards more help or they will have to run outside. However, if Myers gives more help it just opens the lane for Mayo and Hightower to make tackles. So Houston should just hammer outside runs on the left side and then mix it up with some outside runs to the right. Last week Houston had 12 runs for 70 yards on outside runs to the left. Look for this trend to continue on Sunday in their attempt to neutralize Wilfork.
          On the other hand Watt did not have the performance he was accustomed to in their game earlier this year. Watt had 4 tackles at an average gain of ten yards, zero tackles for a loss, zero passes swatted, one forced fumble that was recovered in the end zone for a NE touchdown, and three quarterback hits. It was frustrating to witness how close Watt was to getting to Brady only to have him barely get the ball out in time reverse Macgruber style. To combat Brady's release Houston will have to get there quicker. Look for more stunts inside from the defensive ends to get pressure up the middle. It worked incredibly well against Cincy when Watt was able to force Dalton into poor throws and abuse the Bengals' center. On top of that, Wade is going to have to show different looks at the line then what is actually going to be used. He must camouflage their coverage and confuse Brady's pre-snap reads. On top of this, Houston can not let James, Dobbins, or Ruud cover Gronk, Hernandez or Welker. If they run any man coverage like this Brady will go right their way and pick up 8 yards a play. Hopefully, Wade will put Reed or Barwin on one of the TE, Manning on the other and Quinn on Welker and then run some zone to cover the rest of the field. Regardless of scheme, Houston must be more disruptive than NE to win this game.

3rd Down

          The past 5 weeks Houston has been a lunatic when it comes to the battle on third down.
HOU 4-14          HOU 5-13             HOU 1-11           HOU 5-11           HOU 8-17
              42-14 L                29-17 W                23-6 L                28-16 L               19-13 W
NE    6-12           IND 1-8                MIN  9-18           IND 9-15            CIN  0-9

       The past weeks has been a windy, up and down travel through the Devil's backbone for the Houston Texans when it comes to third down. There has been zero consistency from game to game. However, it's simple, if Houston does well on third down they win the game. Last time they played against NE they did a fair job, but the average third down that NE had was 4.375 yards. This week Houston needs to put New England into longer third down situations.  On top of that Houston has to get away from having long third downs. The past five weeks they have had to get 6.93 yards to reach the first down on average. As a result they have run 52 passes compared to only 16 running plays. Opposing defenses can dial in on the blitz and know exactly what is upcoming if Houston keeps putting themselves in long third down situations. This is a conclusion from the run run pass offense that has been casually run all season.
         On top of third down Houston will need to open the game up more, like what they did against Cincy, and utilize some element of surprise. Kubiak is going to need to take some shots deep against a weak NE pass defense, keep them on their heels and cultivate the running game. New England is weak against TE and third WR so Schuab must spread the ball around like what he did against Cincy. Dre should have a big game against Talib, and LeStar will make a big play. Also Houston will be able to run three TE sets that they were unable to run against NE the first time since Graham was hurt. Houston must apply every aspect of their offense if they want to beat the Belichick defense.

Red Zone Red Alert

          Houston has been homeless in the redzone as of late. It's been impossible for them to get touchdowns in the red zone. Last week they kicked three field goals that made a possible 28-13 game a 19-13 win. Kicking field goals is not a bad thing when they are in the 40 yard range and in 4th and long situations. However, most of Houston's field goals have come when they are in the red zone and their drives crap out. In the last five weeks Houston has kicked 13 field goals and have slammed it into the end zone only 5 times. This includes a streak of 8 straight field goals, none of the touchdowns have been longer than 15 yards, and 4 of the TDs are less than five yards. Houston's average field goal length during this time period is 37 yards which is a field goal kick from the 20 yard line (+10 for the length of the end zone and +7 for the distance between the line of scrimmage and where the kick actually takes place). Nine of their 14 field goals have taken place inside the redzone, that stat really is the dingleberry on top of a shit sunday. Houston has been able to move the ball, but they choke once they get to the 25 yard line. Touchdowns, not field goals will beat the Patriots on Sunday.

The Decision

          I have been sick and bored the past couple of days so I booted up NFL 2K5 on the trusty old PS2. It was almost impossible to complete a pass to Corey Bradford with David Carr, let alone even get the ball away. The defense consisted of studs like Morlon Greenwood, Travis Johnson, Antwan Peek and rookie Jason Babin. They got rammed for 7 yards on every carry by LT as a Charger. In addition to this was Faggins (I remember a time when Houston fans all were thinking he wasn't half bad, man we were oblivious to what good football was) , Glenn Earl and Dunta Robinson (who finished second on the team in tackles with 69). The 2005-2006 season Houston went 2-14 and Kubiak came in who slowly changed the culture of the organization into the successful team that we have today. The whole point to this is that yes the Texans will probably lose on Sunday, but before you start to call in talk radio and go on message boards think about how macabre the past has been. Think about David Carr and Sage Rosenfels as starting QBs. Think about Amobi Okoye at Nose Tackle. Think about all the 5 losing seasons and the three 8-8/9-7 teams that just were not good enough to make the playoffs. This is a great young team that will continue to win and get better.
          This game will be much better than the eerie week 14 match up. Houston should actually get some breaks this week, but they must play perfect football. No turnovers, play impeccable third down defense and score touchdowns, not field goals. They will be able to move the ball on the NE offense and the defense should be able to be more troublesome. Add this to the Nobody Believes in Us Factor and how not one person has picked Houston in this game thus far (except for Adam Schefter and the Simmons podcast linked might be the next podcast jinx like when NE lost to the NYG after being 17-0). I think Houston will lose just because of their inability to score touchdowns in the redzone compared to the Pats' stellar Hernandez and Gronk Duo. Pats win 31-20 and Houston will be stopped short of their first AFC title game. Schuab proves doubters wrong by winning the Pro Bowl MVP. The groundhog won't see his shadow. Winter will be long and lonely.

Other Picks
DEN over BAL (I do think HOU would win in DEN and BAL would win in NE)
SF over GB
ATL over SEA
Still SF over NE in Superbowl