Titans vs. Texans: Houston Grades, Notes and Quotes
Save that team eulogy for the 2015 Houston Texans for at least another two weeks, because they're not dead yet in the AFC South title race.
A 3-5 record heading into the bye week is nothing to get excited about and definitely wasn't something fans would have took if offered before the season started, but all things considered they're in a decent spot at the regular season's halfway mark.
With the Indianapolis Colts about a seven-point underdog—according to Odds Shark—on the road against Carolina on Monday Night Football, the Texans will likely be tied for the division lead after this week.
The Texans' schedule after their bye week is brutal, and they'll likely be underdogs themselves in most of those games, but with the aforementioned Carolina game this week and upcoming games against Denver and Atlanta on deck, a 3-7 start for the Colts is not an unlikely scenario.
The Texans will need more out of their running game and won't be able to rely on facing helpless offenses like Tennessee every week, but for now they're surprisingly a legit threat to win their division.
Position Grades for the Texans
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| Quarterback | C |
| Running Back | C- |
| Wide Receiver | B+ |
| Tight End | D |
| Offensive Line | D |
| Defensive Line | A |
| Linebackers | A |
| Defensive Backs | A |
| Special Teams | B- |
| Coaching | B- |
| Overall | B+ |
He's proven to be a better option than the recently released Ryan Mallett, but Brian Hoyer still makes rookie mistakes despite being in the league since 2009.
The Titans weren't able to take advantage of his shortcomings, but a few "pick-six" touchdowns will come Hoyer's way if he continues to stare down his targets and lead defenders to the football with his eyes.
Titans linebacker Brian Orakpo got close to catching one interception, but overall Hoyer got lucky Sunday. He seems to pre-determine his reads before and after the snap and immediately locks on to that target until pressured into scrambling.
That issue not only showed up on a few batted passes and dropped picks, but it also reared its ugly head with the reliance on checkdown passes to the running backs for short gains, instead of Hoyer going through his progression to find a more-open target for a bigger gain.
Looking at Hoyer's stat line without watching the game might tell a different story, but he has much to work on and improve at over the Texans' remaining games.
The running game produced its second-lowest rushing total of the season with only 56 yards on the ground, but it's tough to put too much blame on the running backs considering the group's talent and the offensive line's poor play.
Left tackle Duane Brown was beat badly by Orakpo for a sack, guard Oday Aboushi allowed quick backfield penetration several times and the group as a whole was pushed around and physically outplayed for the second week in a row.
Despite struggling in pass protection, Hoyer was still able to find DeAndre Hopkins and Nate Washington several times for big plays. Hopkins was held under 100 yards for the second straight week, but he was an impact playmaker Sunday with eight receptions for 94 yards and a touchdown.
On the other side of the ball, the Texans finally found the pass rush they had been looking for all year and let out what seemed like pent-up frustration from the embarrassing defeat they took last week.
Seeing J.J. Watt have a monster game is hardly a surprise, but it was nice to see Whitney Mercilus explode with a big performance. Mercilus has had a couple of chances to play his more natural position of weak-side pass-rusher recently with Jadeveon Clowney injured, and the results have been promising.
Watt and Mercilus combined for six sacks, five tackles for loss and 13 quarterback hits against an overmatched Tennessee offensive line.
The Texans' secondary also had a nice bounce-back game after performing poorly against Miami last week. They seemed to have an idea of what was coming from Tennessee several times during the game, as their break on the football once it was thrown was very quick all day long.
Included in the defensive backs' success Sunday was rookie Kevin Johnson's first career interception. The Texans selected Johnson with their first-round pick earlier this year. Miami picked on him some last week, but overall he has had a solid rookie campaign.
Lastly, with the coaching Sunday, there were a few play designs that worked really well, but the Texans continued use of one play in particular was exasperating.
On offense they did a nice job of using the attention Hopkins drew to open up plays and routes for other receivers. That strategy paid off on the touchdown pass to Nate Washington, when Hopkins came across the field underneath to draw the secondary's attention, while No. 85 got past them on a deep post route.
On defense, defensive coordinator Romeo Crennel similarly used the attention that Watt draws to open up easy sacks for his other players.
In particular, that was the case on Mercilus' second sack when the Texans' ran a defensive end/outside linebacker stunt, with Watt taking multiple linemen out wide to open up a rush lane down the middle and produce an easy sack.
To the negative side of their play-calling, why in the world are Bill O'Brien and offensive coordinator George Godsey still calling the quick receiver screens?
Their idea is probably to stretch the defense from sideline to sideline in an attempt to open up things over the middle of the field, but they're wasting plays because it never works.
If their screen plays were effective, then they might get that desired result, but why would the defense commit players to or scheme against something that never works? Adam Wexler of KPRC-TV highlighted a screen that did not work:
"Hoyer just went WR screen to TE Fiedorowicz w/ Hopkins as lead blocker - it didn't work. FG time.
— Adam Wexler (@awexler) November 1, 2015"
How is throwing a pass to the extremely disappointing tight end C.J. Fiedorowicz, with arguably a top-three receiver in the league blocking for him a good idea? That's about as poor of a job they can do in maximizing the talent on the roster.
How does that play design not get laughed at when suggested? At best that is a serious case of way overthinking the situation.
The Texans just don't have the personnel to make that play work and watching them use Hopkins as a blocker on wasted plays is very frustrating.
DeAndre Hopkins Sets Another Team Record
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One of the Houston Texans' few bright sports this season has been the play of wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins, and that continued this week as he set another team record, as Texans PR noted:
".@HoustonTexans WR DeAndre Hopkins passes Andre Johnson (2,806) for the most receiving yards in a player's first 3 seasons in team history
— Texans PR (@TexansPR) November 1, 2015"
Setting a new team record is one thing, but breaking a three-season record once held by the great Andre Johnson with eight games remaining is very impressive.
Johnson didn't have much to work with during his first three years, but was David Carr really that much worse than the combination of Brian Hoyer, Ryan Mallett, Case Keenum, Ryan Fitzpatrick and a suddenly over-the-hill Matt Schaub from 2013, that Hopkins has played with during his first three years?
Hopkins makes plays with excellent route running and an exceptional ability to high-point passes, while Johnson excelled more through great size and athleticism, but their results have been similar.
Since it's been mentioned multiple times this season, Hopkins is still on pace for a monster year.
After Sunday's game, he's on pace for 132 receptions, 1,740 receiving yards and 12 touchdowns; each number would easily break the current team record held by Johnson.
He still has a long way to go to reach Johnson's level from a career view, but Hopkins will probably break a few more season and career team records before he's done.
Jadeveon Clowney Leaves the Game Multiple Times with an Injury
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Bad luck with injuries has followed Jadeveon Clowney around since being selected first overall, and that trend unfortunately continued this week against Tennessee as Texans PR pointed out:
".@HoustonTexans OLB Jadeveon Clowney is questionable with a back injury #TENvsHOU
— Texans PR (@TexansPR) November 1, 2015"
Clowney fought through an apparent back injury and tried to stay on the field, but had to come off multiple times before eventually being pulled for the game as ESPN's Tania Ganguli noted:
"So that's three times Clowney has started a drive and come off the field. Second time he's had to go to the locker room. #Texans
— Tania Ganguli (@taniaganguli) November 1, 2015"
Credit to Clowney for showing some toughness by trying to play through the pain, but back injuries are hard to overcome.
The frequent injury problems for a player with such promising potential like Clowney is frustrating, but the play of Whitney Mercilus in his absence has been a nice silver lining.
Mercilus had been playing out of position as more of a pass-coverage linebacker with Clowney playing the role of the weak-side pass-rusher, but as we've seen over the last three weeks, he's much more comfortable getting after the quarterback than dropping back into coverage.
The 2012 first-round pick now has 5.5 sacks over his last three games.
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Texans Break Out of a Sack Slump
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The Texans came into this game with a struggling team pass rush that ranked 21st in sacks this season. They were averaging less than two sacks per game as a team with 13 through seven games, but the sacks came quickly and in bunches against Tennessee. It's been four years since the Texans' made seven sacks in a game, according to Deepi Sidhu of HoustonTexans.com:
"The last time the #Texans had 7 sacks in a game was 11/27/11 against the Jaguars. #TexansGameday
— Deepi Sidhu (@DeepSlant) November 1, 2015"
In that game Watt had two sacks and former Texans outside linebacker Connor Barwin had four sacks, in a very similar performance to what we saw Sunday.
For those questioning the type of season he is having, Watt decided to remind them in Sunday's matchup that he actually had fewer sacks at the halfway point last season, than this season, as Brian T. Smith of the Houston Chronicle pointed out:
"Watt knows he has more sacks now than he did this time last year. Joked that maybe critics will get off his back. #Texans
— Brian T. Smith (@ChronBrianSmith) November 1, 2015"
Watt had seven sacks last season after eight games and finished with 20.5 on his way to a second Defensive Player of the Year award, so with 8.5 through eight games this season, could he break his own team record? Smith provided Watt's stats "through eight games" last season:
".@JJWatt through eight games 2015 2014 40 tackles 32 8.5 sacks 7 25 QBH 24 15 TFL 10 1 FF 1 5 PD 7
— Brian T. Smith (@ChronBrianSmith) November 1, 2015"
Having Mercilus emerge as another consistent threat or getting Clowney back healthy would certainly help that effort by taking away a few of the double-teams Watt sees so often.
Follow me on Twitter for more news and opinion on the Texans: @sackedbybmac.
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