Texans vs. Bengals: Houston Grades, Notes and Quotes
The Houston Texans and Cincinnati Bengals met on the field three times over the 2011 and 2012 seasons, with Houston winning all three games, including two playoff contests.
At the time, the Texans seemed like a team that had finally figured things out after years of being stuck around the 8-8 or 9-7 mark and looked like they should continue to be a team on the rise.
On the other hand, the Bengals were viewed as a young team that had potential, but as a group they lacked experience and needed to gain some before being considered a serious contender.
The Bengals have made the playoffs in each season since drafting Andy Dalton in the second round of the 2011 NFL draft, but after back-to-back losses to Houston in the playoffs and two subsequent playoff defeats in 2013 and 2014, public opinion on Dalton started to sour.
Would Dalton ever be good enough to carry the Bengals on his back in the playoffs? Was Dalton an elite quarterback?
The second question might be one of the most annoying and most overused topics in sports conversation today, but regardless many people started to give up on him after four years of playoff failures.
As another example of how entertainingly unpredictable sports can be, the two teams did indeed go in different directions this season since last meeting in the 2012 playoffs, but they did so in the opposite way compared to what most people predicted.
However, in the continuous theme of unpredictability, the Texans pulled off a major upset and got arguably their biggest win since the Wild Card Round of the 2012 playoffs.
The Bengals were billed as the team with poise, executing well and playing with fire in this matchup, but they looked sloppy, were poorly prepared and were eerily similar to previous teams that got laughed out of the playoffs.
Instead it was the supposedly dysfunctional Texans showing more energy, intelligence and execution.
With the victory the Texans moved back into a first-place tie with the Indianapolis Colts, all while another Houston team—the Rockets—have become one of the worst teams in their league so far.
So yeah, good luck figuring out and predicting sports.
Position Grades for the Texans
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| Quarterback | B- |
| Running Back | D |
| Wide Receiver | B |
| Tight End | C+ |
| Offensive Line | C |
| Defensive Line | A |
| Linebackers | A |
| Defensive Backs | A |
| Special Teams | B |
| Coaching | C |
| Overall | B |
What a great win!
We can debate what the victory does for the Texans' playoff chances or what they'd be capable of doing if they get there, but the same team that fell behind the Atlanta Falcons and Miami Dolphins by over 40 points just beat an undefeated team on the road.
There haven't been many reasons to celebrate this season, so please, above anything else, just enjoy the moment, Texans fans.
DeAndre Hopkins' amazing catch and T.J. Yates getting the job done in relief will probably grab most of the headlines, but Houston's defense won this game.
J.J. Watt made the night miserable for Bengals reserve tackle Eric Winston—a former Texan—and was in the backfield and around the quarterback all night long. Perhaps out of pity the refs let several holding calls go with Cincinnati lineman just bear-hugging Watt, but he still impacted the game.
Watt finished with one sack, one tackle for loss and two quarterback hits. For Watt that stat line probably seems pedestrian, but he was a nightmare for the Cincinnati offense in this game.
Whitney Mercilus also continued his strong play with three tackles for loss against the Bengals.
Early in his career Mercilus often looked a step slow as he seemed to think too much instead of simply being able to react to what was happening, but that doesn't appear to be the case anymore.
Mercilus struggled in previous seasons with any sort of misdirection, screen play or play-action pass designed to fool defenders, but he showed great recognition and skill on an end-around run to Marvin Jones,—which included a fake dive handoff to the running back, that Mercilus stopped for an eight-yard loss.
His play since the Jacksonville game has been very encouraging.
It was also encouraging to see the rookie cornerback Kevin Johnson bounce back to make a few key plays in the second half, after getting hit with a couple of big penalties in the game's first half.
Johnson had two pass breakups, including one that nearly bounced into Charles James' arms, resulting in an an interception. There's still a lot of development that needs to happen—especially learning how to avoid penalties—but Johnson looks like a future Pro Bowl-caliber player.
Staying with the secondary, the veteran Johnathan Joseph was sensational Monday night. His interception off Andy Dalton's terrible pass was one thing, but the break he made on a pass to A.J. Green on a third-down play in the fourth quarter to force a punt was awesome.
Joseph struggled during the Texans' first two games against the Kansas City Chiefs and Carolina Panthers, but has played very well ever since.
On offense, the running game was nonexistent as most fans expected.
The Texans rushed for a decent 82 total yards, establishing a mere 3.3 yards-per-carry average. They only have one out of nine games with over 100 yards on the ground.
In the end the offense didn't end up costing the team the game, but some of the offensive play-calling was bizarre.
In particular, two plays stand out as bad moments for Bill O'Brien and George Godsey in this matchup with Cincinnati.
The first was the draw play on 3rd-and-10 with 11 seconds left before halftime. With timeouts in their pocket and positioned near midfield, that should have been a situation where the Texans looked to attack the middle of the field and possibly pick up enough yards to attempt a field goal.
What did they gain from a draw play? If they were just terrified of a costly mistake and wanted to get out of the half, then why did they call a timeout after the draw and still throw up a bomb on fourth down?
They had the field position and timeouts needed to take a chance to try for more points, but instead the Texans wasted a play with a call that had no upside; it didn't make sense.
The other head-scratcher came later when they decided to run a toss play with Jonathan Grimes on 3rd-and-3. Grimes is capable of doing more than he's normally asked, but he doesn't have the speed to get the edge against a defense as fast as Cincinnati.
They had been doing pretty well with the short passing game, but decided instead to run an edge play with a slow running back against a fast defense needing three whole yards when they haven't run the ball well all season?
Nothing will obviously happen after a win, but if Godsey truly is calling all the plays on offense, the Texans should look to improve that position before next season.
Texans Defense Shines on 3rd Down
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The Texans came into this week's game against Cincinnati ranked first in the league in third-down conversion percentage allowed at just 27 percent—a full 5 percent better than the second-best team.
That performance trend seems odd considering the two 40-plus-point holes they've been in against Atlanta and Miami, but it continued this week as they held the Bengals to just 4-of-14 (28 percent) on third down.
Cincinnati had been one of the NFL's best third-down offenses this season, with a conversation rate of 45 percent, which was good enough for fourth in the league before this week.
Having a mega-star pass-rusher like J.J. Watt certainly helps the the Texans' third-down performance, but why have they played so much better in those situations compared to the rest of the game?
One thing that's been noticeably different on third down is that they've been more willing to bring pressure and bring it from different areas, compared to more vanilla looks on first and second down.
The experience of veteran players such as Johnathan Joseph to know the situation, play tendencies, know where opponents have to go with the ball on a play and take away their first read is also key to their success.
Dismissing the Texans' performance against Tennessee before the bye week was understandable, but their play against Cincinnati should start to open some eyes.
Regardless of the reason, if Houston can continue to play this well on third down, the defense could really start to live up to the preseason potential many fans believed it had.
DeAndre Hopkins Does More Ridiculous Things
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Future Pro Bowl wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins had a slow first half against Cincinnati, but he rebounded after the break to post solid numbers, which included one of the more ridiculous catches you'll see all year, courtesy of Deadspin:
"Houston takes the lead on a marvelous DeAndre Hopkins catch: pic.twitter.com/xHaI9bNQSf
— Deadspin (@Deadspin) November 17, 2015"
That highlight-reel touchdown catch was Hopkins' seventh touchdown reception of the season, which set a new single-season career high for the young receiver, as Texans PR noted:
".@HoustonTexans WR DeAndre Hopkins has also set his single-season career-high with his seventh touchdown reception of 2015 #HOUvsCIN
— Texans PR (@TexansPR) November 17, 2015"
In what has become a weekly update, Hopkins is now on pace for 126 receptions, 1,648 receiving yards and 12 touchdowns—all of which would break the great Andre Johnson's single-season team records.
Hopkins has now caught touchdown passes from Brian Hoyer, Ryan Mallett and T.J. Yates this season—not exactly a Joe Montana/Steve Young combination. What he's doing with this group of quarterbacks and no running game to keep defenses honest is incredible.
Hopefully Hopkins starts to get the recognition he's earned as at least a top-five receiver after this big, prime-time performance in front of a national audience.
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Andy Dalton Can't Take a Joke
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In what seemed like a harmless—and probably scripted—joke, Watt inadvertently grabbed some attention with comments he made about Dalton after the game (h/t Nick Wright of CBS Sports Radio):
"JJ Watt just called Andy Dalton a red rider BB Gun! Life is amazing right now. pic.twitter.com/S4eUc95Y6T
— nick wright (@getnickwright) November 17, 2015"
Dalton took the joke in a way that didn't seem possible (h/t Adam Wexler of KPRC-TV Sports):
"Here's Dalton commenting on JJ Watt's "making Red rifle into Red rider BB gun" comments. #Texans #Bengals #NFL pic.twitter.com/BKmfqhxNTN
— Adam Wexler (@awexler) November 17, 2015"
Really?
You're going to slam Watt over the "integrity of the game" and being a role model to kids for that comment? To quote Aaron Rodgers, relax.
If Watt's joke was enough to offend you that much, the rest of your life is going to be really tough.
Follow me on Twitter for more news and opinion on the Texans: @sackedbybmac
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