Saints vs. Texans: Houston Grades, Notes and Quotes
Winning football games isn't hard when your defense is playing at the level of the Houston Texans right now.
Houston allowed Miami to score three touchdowns in the first quarter when they met in Week 7, but it has only allowed two touchdowns over its last 18 quarters of play—an incredible turnaround.
"The @HoustonTexans allowed only 2 touchdowns in November, which is tied for the 4th-lowest @NFL total in the month since 1970
— Texans PR (@TexansPR) November 29, 2015"
During their current four-game winning streak, the Texans have held their opponents to an average of 70 rushing yards per game, an average of 180.5 passing yards per game and only 8.7 points per game.
The defensive performances against the New York Jets and Tennessee Titans without Marcus Mariota could be dismissed by pessimists, but they've also held the New Orleans Saints and Cincinnati Bengals—both top 10 in points per game—to a total of 12 points during the win streak.
The win gave Houston its first winning record of the season and kept it in a tie for first place in the AFC South with Indianapolis, who won its Week 12 game against Tampa Bay.
Kansas City also won, so it will hold on to one of the wild-card spots based on its head-to-head win against Houston. The Texans do hold a conference-record tiebreaker over Pittsburgh, who lost to Seattle on Sunday and is also 6-5.
Position Grades for the Texans
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Quarterback: C
Brian Hoyer led multiple touchdown drives and his stats from this game look pretty good, but when the team goes back to watch the tape, they'll see a ton of missed opportunities and points left on the field from poor throws.
The interception Hoyer threw in the first half will likely be what stands out the most, but he made some equally poor throws later in the game, as well. On the interception, he committed nearly every inexcusable mistake a quarterback can make by throwing late over the middle of the field and off his back foot.
On the third-quarter drive that ended with a Nick Novak field goal to put the Texans up by 18 points alone, Hoyer's pass on the 32-yard completion to Nate Washington and the incompletion to Ryan Griffin two plays later were both well behind the receiver.
Those weren't the only examples of Hoyer throwing behind his target, but they stood out as poor throws causing the offense to leave potential points on the field.
Hoyer also reverted back to some bad tendencies he showed during the opening-week loss to Kansas City by holding on to the ball for too long and at times looking past easy completions underneath in favor of forcing something to a deeper route.
Considering his stat line and the final score, many won't want to hear the criticism, but against nearly any other defense—the Saints have the worst defense in the league—those poor throws could have been costly.
Running Back: B
It takes a truly terrible defense to make the Texans running game look efficient, but that's what the Saints did for most of this game.
The struggling Alfred Blue got only his second rushing touchdown of the season and, before having his average dropped by obvious run situations late, was over five yards per carry through three quarters.
Blue had a pitiful 3.19-per-carry career average before this game, but he averaged 4.8 against New Orleans.
Their team average of 4.4 yards per carry against New Orleans may not seem like much to get excited about, but their season average before this game was a league-worst 3.2 per rush, so this was a noteworthy improvement.
Wide Receiver: B-
The wide receivers didn't have a big statistical day against the Saints, but if you keep Hoyer's problem with accuracy in mind, it feels fair to judge the position on a bit of a curve.
DeAndre Hopkins had his lowest receiving yards total of the season with just 36 on five receptions.
Cecil Shorts chipped in as a runner once again with 20 yards on three carries. His touchdown technically came from a pass, but was really a part of the running game off of motion and a quick pitch like many spread offenses in college use.
Tight End: B+
For the second game in three weeks, the tight ends of the Texans actually had a pretty good game.
Ryan Griffin and C.J. Fiedorowicz combined for six receptions, 92 yards and one touchdown against New Orleans. It almost feels like the team made some sort of illegal deal after the trade deadline with the newfound production from the tight end position.
The 72 yards from Griffin were a new career single-game high for the third-year player.
Offensive Line: B
Through nine weeks of the season, the Texans only had one game with over 100 rushing yards as a team, but they went over 100 yards for the second week in a row, with 167 yards against New Orleans.
Despite Hoyer holding the ball for far too long at times, the Texans offensive line also only gave up one sack for the game.
Defensive Line: A
Sacks are often the first, and sometimes only, stat fans look at to determine whether or not a team has a good pass rush, but as the Texans showed against the Saints, you don't have to sack the quarterback to negatively impact his play.
Even when the Texans didn't sack or hit Brees, they were able to force him to move off his spot, shuffle his feet and not let him set up for his throws. When Brees has time, is able to set his feet and step into his throws, he's one of the most accurate passers not just in the league today, but of all time.
Unfortunately for Brees, when J.J. Watt is consistently beating double-teams, things just aren't going to go your way.
For the game, Watt had two sacks, two tackles for loss and six hits on the quarterback.
Linebackers: B+
Falling behind 14-0 quickly had something to do with it, but the Texans held the Saints to their lowest total in rushing yards this season with only 50 for the game.
The Saints tried to run the ball early, but the Texans did a great job of setting the edge to prevent runs from getting outside, while also flowing quickly to the football to bring the runner down for a short gain or a loss.
If you take away the one long run of 29 yards from Mark Ingram, the Saints only averaged 2.3 yards per attempt on their other nine carries. The Saints certainly abandoned the run early into this game, but the play of Houston's defense was a major reason why that happened.
Defensive Backs: A
Watt deservedly gets most of the headlines when the Texans defense plays well, but the secondary had an exceptional game against New Orleans.
The All-22 tape will show a more complete picture, but it seemed like a lot of the pressure the Texans got on Brees was due to great coverage forcing him to hold the ball, more than a quick rush.
Johnathan Joseph, Kareem Jackson, Kevin Johnson, Quintin Demps and Eddie Pleasant all made plays, with one interception, four passes defensed and three tackles for loss between them.
More specifically, the breaks on the routes made by Jackson and Pleasant to come away with two of the biggest defensive plays of the game were outstanding.
The Texans held Brees without a touchdown pass for the first time since November 2012. It was only the second game in which Brees has been held without a touchdown pass since October 2009.
Phenomenal effort by the Texans secondary.
Special Teams: C+
Nick Novak and Shane Lechler did their jobs on special teams, but the gunners in punt coverage had a bad game. Specifically Darryl Morris and Charles James was each responsible for a couple of Lechler's punts bouncing into the end zone for a touchback instead of being downed inside the 10-yard line.
However, it should be said, if the play of the gunners in punt coverage is one of the major complaints from a game, then that team probably did pretty well.
Coaching: A
No major complaints here as the offensive play-calling on the first two scoring drives was excellent and Bill O'Brien obviously had his team ready to play, but he did fall back into some overly conservative habits.
With a lead and a quarterback who had a couple of shaky moments, his decision to run out the clock at the end of the first half was understandable, but not wise.
At the time the Texans only had a one-score lead, and despite how well his defense had played, it wouldn't have been unreasonable to be concerned about the Saints offense finally figuring things out and going on a run in the second half.
So, with over a minute left and two timeouts available, why not try to move the ball and at least get a field goal to extend the lead back to two possessions? That decision basically implied that they felt a one-score lead at halftime against a normally explosive offense was safe.
They turned out to be right since the Saints were held scoreless in the second half, but why would you ever settle for just a one-score lead at halftime?
His decision to play it safe is defensible considering their quarterback situation, but it was still a spot where they should have been more aggressive.
DeAndre Hopkins Breaks Another Team Record
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One of the storylines this season for Houston has been the quick ascension of third-year wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins and the records once held by the great Andre Johnson that have fallen to him along the way.
".@HoustonTexans WR DeAndre Hopkins has passed Andre Johnson (208) for the most catches in a player's first three seasons in team history
— Texans PR (@TexansPR) November 29, 2015"
Hopkins broke Johnson's team record for most receiving yards and receiving touchdowns through three seasons earlier this year.
At his current pace—117 receptions, 1,572 yards, 13 touchdowns—Hopkins is still on track to break Johnson's single-season team records for receptions and receiving touchdowns, but he would fall three yards short of his record for yards.
The Texans Defense Owns Third Down
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Coming into this game, the Texans had the best defense in the league in terms of third-down conversion percentage, while the Saints had the top offense in that same stat.
Something had to give, and that something turned out to be the Saints.
Houston held New Orleans to just 3-of-12 on third down for a miserable 25 percent conversion rate, well below its league-leading 47 percent mark before this game.
As a result, the Saints offense that had averaged 24 first downs per game only earned 14 against Houston and lost the time of possession battle by nearly 13 minutes.
Losing time of possession by that wide of a margin and getting 10 fewer first downs than your opponent will not win many football games.
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New Running Back Akeem Hunt on Fitting in
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The loss of Arian Foster to a season-ending injury left many holes on the roster considering his ability as a receiver and pass protector, but the biggest thing it took away from the Texans offense was his game-breaking ability to make big plays with speed.
Foster has never been the fastest back in the league, but he does have the ability to break long runs, a skill that Alfred Blue, Chris Polk and Jonathan Grimes haven't shown.
New Texans running back Akeem Hunt is raw, but one thing he has going for him is tremendous speed. As a midseason acquisition, just learning the playbook and his teammates' names will be a tough battle, but, per Aaron Wilson of the Houston Chronicle, he's starting to feel more comfortable.
"Texans running back Akeem Hunt: 'I'm starting to get comfortable out there. In the open field, I'm going to be faster than the other team.'
— Aaron Wilson (@AaronWilson_NFL) November 29, 2015"
Hunt showed his speed on a great third-down play where they faked a dive run between the tackles and tossed it out to him. The Texans picked up a first down on that play and scored on a pitch to Cecil Shorts the very next play.
The sample size has been extremely small, but it's been awhile since we've seen a Texans running back get the edge as easily as he did on that play.
Grimes and Blue did a good job against New Orleans, but hopefully we'll see Hunt worked into the rotation a little more.
Follow me on Twitter for more news and opinion on the Texans: @sackedbybmac
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