Cincinnati Bengals vs. Houston Texans: Full Report Card Grades for Houston
What a massive letdown.
The Houston Texans controlled their own destiny coming into the game against the Cincinnati Bengals, but they let that opportunity slip through their collective fingers with a discouraging performance.
Much in the same way the win last week over the Cleveland Browns was a total team victory with every unit playing well, this was a total team loss with every position group and player deserving a piece of the blame for the loss to Cincinnati.
Quarterback Ryan Mallett was inaccurate, the offensive line failed to open up holes for the backs, the defense looked soft up front, the secondary got torched and the coaches made several strategical errors. Other than that the Texans looked great!
Unfortunately this game felt like more than just one loss; their playoff chances are dead.
Sure they could run the table to reach 10-6, but the Bengals, Pittsburgh Steelers and probably still the Indianapolis Colts would own the tiebreaker over the Texans. That list doesn't even include the Cleveland Browns, Baltimore Ravens and Miami Dolphins, who could also win enough games to take a wild-card spot.
Honestly though, does anyone actually believe that the Texans can win at Indianapolis, where they've never won before? I don't. And a loss in that game means the best they can do is reach 9-7, which won't be enough without the help of owning a few tiebreakers in a tight race.
They've played better than I expected them to at times, but it's time for the coaching staff to get a look at the young players who haven't played and time for us as fans of the Texans to start our normal November tradition of looking ahead to the draft.
Quarterback
1 of 11
There will be ups and downs and plenty of bumps in the road during the development of a young quarterback, but the game against Cincinnati felt like Ryan Mallett hit a speed bump doing about 70 mph.
The inconsistent accuracy issue that people talked about with Mallett coming out of college and with his limited playing time in the preseason over the last several years with the New England Patriots popped up in an ugly way as his throws were often too high or behind the intended target.
For the game Mallett finished 21-of-45 for 189 yards with a 49.2 quarterback rating. Mallett also failed to throw a touchdown pass but did turn it over with a crushing interception to start the second half.
The Texans got the ball first to start the second half and trailed by less than a touchdown despite an awful first half, but Mallett's pick on the first play of the third quarter set up an easy touchdown for Cincinnati and pretty much ended the game.
We'll have to be patient with Mallett, who was making just his second career start. He played well enough last week to earn the starting role for the rest of the season, so we'll have to let these final games play out completely before judging his performance and making a decision on how to address the position for the future.
It was a bad performance today but no reason to give up on his potential yet.
Grade: D
Running Back
2 of 11
There wasn't much out of the running backs Sunday afternoon, but the Texans also didn't get much help from their offensive line or their quarterback either.
It's hard to run the ball well when the line doesn't open up many holes and the quarterback doesn't give the defense a reason to back off the line by threatening it deep or throwing the ball with good accuracy.
Alfred Blue and Jonathan Grimes combined for 62 yards on 18 attempts against the Bengals—one of the Texans' worst performances running the ball this season.
For the game Blue led the team with 16 rushing attempts—14 more than Grimes—but averaged just 2.9 yards per carry. Blue has potential, but he shows little patience for letting a play develop or vision for running lanes away from where the run is designed.
The running backs' production was pretty bad, but feel like I have to grade on a curve here considering that Arian Foster was out, which left a rookie sixth-round draft pick as Houston's starter.
Grade: C
Wide Receiver
3 of 11
You don't need me to tell you that the stats for the wide receivers today weren't very good, but you also shouldn't need me to tell you that no group of receivers would have excelled with the poor play of quarterback Ryan Mallett.
Mallett's passes were behind, high or both on what seemed like well over half of his pass attempts. It's hard for the receivers to make a play or an impact when the ball goes sailing over their heads or behind their backs.
The Texans' two best receivers—Andre Johnson and DeAndre Hopkins—combined for eight receptions for 75 yards and no touchdowns.
Despite the low output in production those two receivers did hit a couple milestones with Hopkins surpassing 100 career receptions, with his 100th noted by the team's Twitter account, and Johnson passing up one of the greatest of all time—Randy Moss—on the all-time receptions leaderboard.
"#Texans' Andre Johnson moves into 10th place on #NFL's all-time reception list. Ball 983.
— Brian T. Smith (@ChronBrianSmith) November 23, 2014"
Grade: B
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Tight End
4 of 11
After "breaking out" last week with a touchdown catch by Garrett Graham, the tight ends were put back into witness protection against Cincinnati.
Sure, Graham had his second-highest reception total of the season with four—sad fact—but three of those receptions came during garbage time on the Texans' final drive when the game was already decided.
While the game was actually still up for grabs, the trio of tight ends combined for one reception for eight yards—completely invisible.
Grade: D
Offensive Line
5 of 11
Last week the offensive line had arguably its best performance of the season. This week not so much.
Alfred Blue and Jonathan Grimes were running into clogged up holes all game long as the Bengals did a great job of stacking the line and flooding defenders into the lanes. A game like this is where you really miss Arian Foster's special ability to see and hit the cutback lanes when the blocking isn't there.
As a team the Texans rushed for 64 yards on 3.4 yards per carry—their second-worst total after only the Buffalo Bills game, when they managed to rack up only 37 yards on the ground.
The line wasn't great in pass protection either, as right tackle Derek Newton in particular was awful.
"Dunlap finally gets to Mallett. Beats Newton for the 3rd time. #Texans
— PDS (@PatDStat) November 23, 2014"
Ryan Mallett was only sacked once, but penetration given up by the offensive line negatively impacted more plays than just that one. Mallett often had to shuffle around in the pocket to avoid rushers and struggled to get himself reset and ready to throw.
Maybe a more veteran quarterback is able to reset faster than Mallett was, but the line has to protect its quarterback better, especially when that quarterback has questionable mobility.
Grade: D
Defensive Line
6 of 11
Early in the season opponents of the Texans had success running the ball against them by going into spread formations with three or four wide receivers, getting the Texans to put in a dime formation with D.J. Swearinger moving to linebacker and then just hammering between the tackles; the Bengals must have noticed.
For whatever reason recent opponents haven't used that strategy, but Cincinnati did with pretty good results.
Overall the Bengals' running backs as a group only averaged 3.2 yards per carry, but that number is a little deceiving since the average was brought down when having to run it in predictable situations late in the game.
Rookie back Jeremy Hill averaged nearly five yards per carry, and the Bengals never seemed to struggle to pick up the important yards in critical situations. For the game Cincinnati racked up 139 yards on the ground, the fourth-highest total allowed by the Texans this season.
J.J. Watt had a good but not spectacular game with seven tackles, one tackle for loss, one pass defensed and one hit on the quarterback, according to ESPN.com's box score. The rest of the defensive line combined for no sacks, no tackles for loss and no hits on the quarterback.
Grade: C
Linebackers
7 of 11
There was not a single sack, tackle for loss or pass breakup from Texans linebackers today. Akeem Dent did get a hit on the quarterback. And Jadeveon Clowney had one tackle for loss, but I'm pretty sure he was lined up as an end with his hand on the ground on that play. The linebackers made virtually no impact as a position group.
Linebackers in most cases should be your leading tacklers, but defensive backs Darryl Morris and Kendrick Lewis topped that list today. Naturally defensive backs are going to get most of their tackles down the field, so having them as your leading tacklers is a definite indicator that your front-seven group struggled.
The linebackers also struggled in coverage, with the Cincinnati running backs averaging 10 yards per catch, including a backbreaking first-down catch-and-run by rookie Jeremy Hill late in the fourth quarter where Mike Mohamed took a bad angle and let Hill get past the marker.
Brian Cushing and Clowney were supposed to be playmakers, but they didn't come close to meeting that expectation Sunday afternoon or overall for the season.
Grade: D
Defensive Backs
8 of 11
It's hard to stop any passing attack if your corners are lined up six to eight yards off the line of scrimmage every play. Easy money today for Andy Dalton as he lit them up on the underneath routes the Texans just gave away for free.
In particular A.J. Bouye got abused as he was filling in for the injured Kareem Jackson. At one point early in the game it got so bad that Bengals star receiver A.J. Green yelled out that the Texans needed to put someone else on him, almost like he felt disrespected by the caliber of the defender on him.
"AJ Green vs AJ Bouye is a total mismatch. Green knows it. Yelling "This guy can't hold me!" Might want to get JJo over there.
— nick wright (@getnickwright) November 23, 2014 "
"Watching A.J. Green on Texans' secondary, says Andre Ware, "is like watching candy being taken from a baby."
— David Barron (@dfbarron) November 23, 2014"
Once Bouye was finally pulled, his replacement, Darryl Morris, played a little better with three passes defensed and a team-leading 10 tackles, but he gave up his fair share of receptions as well.
Dalton completed 16 of 18 passes in the first half for 8.4 yards per attempt—over a full yard better than his career average. The secondary played better in the second half which included a pick-six from Johnathan Joseph, but the damage was already done.
If not for the Joseph pick-six this grade would have been an F, but I had to give the grade a little boost since the secondary scored the Texans' only touchdown of the game.
Grade: C-
Special Teams
9 of 11
It was the same old story Sunday as with most Texans games: The return game produced nothing, but their kicker and punter played pretty well.
As far as the return game, Danieal Manning had just one kick return in the game which netted them only a couple yards more than a touchback, and Keshawn Martin only managed to rack up seven yards on his two punt returns. The group has produced nothing as a whole all season long—very disappointing.
Randy Bullock accounted for over half of the Texans' points scored by making all three of his kicks, which included two field goals with a long of 36 yards.
Shane Lechler played well also. He averaged 47.2 yards per punt with a long of 58 and one punt downed at the 5-yard line.
Grade: B+
Coaching
10 of 11
A personal plea from me to Texans defensive coordinator Romeo Crennel: Please, please stop playing your corners six to eight yards off the line of scrimmage in short-yardage situations!
Any decent quarterback who happens to be paying attention will fire off a short hitch and let the receiver run for an easy first down.
I can't blame Crennel for his corners getting torched by A.J. Green, who might own a gold jacket some day, but his scheme could help them out more by playing tighter to take away the quick and short passes.
Taking away the quick underneath routes would also give more time for J.J. Watt to make a play.
Crennel was probably concerned that the corners would get beat over the top if they played press, but keeping a safety over the top of Green would solve that.
Bottom line is this: Andy Dalton is not a quarterback I would be worried about beating me deep, so key your defense toward stopping the shorter passes instead of playing off-coverage all game. Why give a quarterback without a cannon easy completions underneath? That played right into Dalton's strengths.
Another inexcusable mistake in strategy came from head coach Bill O'Brien when the game was already decided. Despite the odds of pulling it off, O'Brien robbed his team of any opportunity to win by not kicking the ball late in the fourth quarter.
The Texans got the ball back down nine points with 1:55 remaining and no timeouts left; pulling out a victory was obviously very unlikely.
Needing two scores in that situation when the Texans stopped the clock—with a spike—after a completion with 20 seconds left and with the ball at the Cincinnati 20-yard line, the right call was for an immediate field-goal attempt that would have been under 40 yards.
The only way to win the game at that point was to possess the ball twice. And by not kicking the ball when they had a chance and instead foolishly going for a touchdown, the Texans ran off all the remaining time and gave away whatever chance they still had left.
"Like a .01% chance of winning, but kick FG w 25 seconds left, on sides kick, Hail Mary was easily best chance at end.
— Sean Pendergast (@SeanCablinasian) November 23, 2014"
If you attempt the field goal there with 20 seconds left and Randy Bullock makes it, then you have a chance to win the game if you also recover the onside kick. With Mallett's arm strength he could easily reach the end zone with a Hail Mary from wherever the Texans got the ball after an onside kick.
"They were going to lose here anyway, but not knowing you kick a FG as soon as possible in this spot is unforgivable.
— nick wright (@getnickwright) November 23, 2014"
On the other hand, unless you score a touchdown on the very next play by throwing it into the end zone from 20 yards out, then you'll run off too much time to get the second possession you have to have to win the game.
The Texans couldn't win the game unless they possessed the ball twice—can't possess it twice if you run off the entire clock.
Grade: D
Overall
11 of 11
| Quarterback | D |
| Running Back | C |
| Wide Receiver | B |
| Tight End | D |
| Offensive Line | D |
| Defensive Line | C |
| Linebackers | D |
| Defensive Backs | C- |
| Special Teams | B+ |
| Coaching | D |
| Overall | C- |
Follow me on Twitter for more opinion and analysis on the Texans: @sackedbybmac
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