Texans 33 @ Saints 40: A Review of HansDat's Hot Reads

I’d rather him take the sack, ( did,nt he get stepped on by one of the offensive linemen on one sack?) than make some of the terrible throws he did last year. I:E interceptions.

Thanks for the read.

Brees had a good(borderline great) game and I’m satisfied with that because we got the “W”. Eventhough he had 2 INTs/TOs, it could have been 3 when he was getting sacked and was still thinking about doing an underhand throw that would’ve probably lost the game for us. I think sometimes Drew needs to understand that because he puts the team on his back every week, he can’t do it “all” and take what you’re given and remember the game is not “1 possesion”. GW needs to work on his schemes and disguising the blitzes so teams don’t audible like this last game. Hartley is on IR!!!! Don’t know whether I should throw a house party or take the day off! Gives us room for a quality OL who can help in the run game fand take pressure off Brees. Lastly, I think Dunbar will be that physical presence in the middle to slow/stop the run game. I want Vilma back but he needs to be 100% to be effective.

IMO , we are just barely establishing a running game enough to have the defenses “respect” it minimally. I think we can do better with the run. This RB by committee is doing well, but I think that neither PT nor Ingram get enough rhythm to bring out their best. Having said that, I don’t know what the answer is. I am partial to PT short term and Ingram long term. Sproles seems to be able to handle the sporadic game time- he’s used to it. When Ivory comes back, it will be very confusing- the way he played last year, you can’t just forget about him – you have to give him a few acrries and see what he does. You also have to play him because he could be trade bait for next season. But he may affect Ingram and PT negatively because of that RB rhythm thing. I guess, overall, it’s a good thing to have. If all 4 are playing well, I would be in favor of deactivating a different one each week to let them keep rested and be fresh for the playoffs.

But, that’s IF Ivory comes back.

Red Zone Efficiency: The Texans and Saints have both struggled at scoring TDs in the red zone. The team that scores TDs instead of settling for FGs in the red zone will win.

Not to say I called this one, but CHECK!!!!!!

Stop the run: Arian Foster has been banged up a bit, but Ben Tate has stepped in and looked like a BEAST. Shut down the running game and make Houston one dimensional.

For the most part, check

Turnovers: Both teams like to throw the ball around. There will be opportunities off of tipped passes or bobbled receptions for both teams. Whichever team takes advantage and turns those into turnovers, should win. They might also win TOP! TOP! TOP

We lost the turnover battle, but we did get a crucial INT when it mattered the most. The Texans forced two turnovers and scored on a bobbled attempt at an INT, so they get win this, but I think they only scored 6 points off of turnovers to our 7.

So, it’s a mixed bag, and it seemed Jo-Lonn and crew did just enough to win, but it needs improvement.

If Breezus didnt play lights-out in the fourth quarter, we would have lost at home. which good teams don’t do. The linebackers gave up too much to the tight ends and the fullback, of all people.

Maybe Vilma’s absence had something to do with that. Damn it, I WANT to like the linebackers – but they’re not doing it for me.

Fourth play of Sunday’s game – 32-yard reception by Andre Johnson on 1st down (which followed a 15-yard catch and run by Johnson on 3rd and 14). Clearly this game would go differently for the Saints than the celebrated Dome reopener in 2006.

My only quibble is that if the refs had been doing their job the fourth play of the game would have been a punt. That 15 yard catch and run was aided by a couple of blocks in the back and borderline holding. Granted the interior linemen are quite rarely called for holding. That doesn’t make what they do legal — as the few times they actually do get called rather conclusively proves — and 74 could have been called for a hold for the way he got his arms around Sedrick’s arms, and could also (if you’re being ticky-tack) been called for a block in the back. Then later 88 had a grip on a shoulder that could have backed them back up to 3rd and 12 when you take a 10 yard penalty from the spot of the foul. And who knows what happens from there.

And yeah I know — from personal experience, no less — that it’s hard to get the calls right all the time. But these guys are supposed to be professionals. They are paid to to their jobs, unlike me, and I saw these calls when they happened at full speed and only used Game Rewind to go back and verify that my full-speed impressions really had substance. And for that matter whomever was hugging — I mean “blocking” — Will Smith could also have been called for a hold as well (though I don’t remember anymore if I noticed that one at full speed). And that one was somewhat borderline as well. But it wasn’t truly legal and this was the OUTSIDE of the line, not the inside, where the standards are usually more rigorously applied.

I know the refs will never be perfect. But they should be a LOT better than they are. And if they can’t manage it on their own, then the league needs to make penalties — whether incorrectly missed or incorrectly called — challenge-able. Now obviously the standards of “incontrovertible proof” should always be used in those challenges, and it’s quite possible none of what I pointed out would have passed. But they were all at least technical violations of the rules and I don’t like seeing them.

All that said, had Greer played a little more aggressively, the play still probably wouldn’t have worked. The line clearly headed downfield too fast for anything but some sort of a screen. And at the time of the snap it was an empty-backfield. It was impossible for this to be a RB screen, so it has to be a WR or TE screen. And the OL is running towards him. That means he is the absolute #1 most key player who HAS to step up and take a chance to prevent the play from succeeding. He needs to run in IMMEDIATELY on that and get his face in the face of whomever in the area is an eligible receiver and drop him at the spot of the catch. There’s a 5 yard cushion between him and Andre, and that’s too much. Now to give him some credit, it was 10 yards at the snap, and sadly that’s both very understandable and also probably a bit too much. At least he started forward. But he didn’t KEEP going forward. He started forward, rocked back on his heels briefly, and then tried to go forward again once it was too late. He should have just kept going. Now there were two eligible receivers in the area, Andre and #88 (Garrett Graham) in the area. And I think that was the key mistake, he thought #88 might be getting the ball. But #88 is running upfield while Andre is stepping back. I have never seen a WR or TE screen where a potential blocker starts upfield and then steps back and THEN turns around and heads upfield again. Greer should have kept moving forward. Remember that 88 can’t start blocking until the pass is completed. If he tries, it’s offensive pass interference and we get 3rd and 20. Maybe, even despite that difficulty, 88 still prevents him from making the tackle, but at least he slows Andre up and gives his friends time to come help before the first down marker is reached.

I think this shows that he has been playing tentative. For that matter, so has most or all of the defense. They need to get back to their attacking ways from 2009 instead. At least they need to do that with teams that are not QBed by one of the true elites (Tom, Drew, Aaron, and probably Phillip even though his play so far this year sure hasn’t shown it). Even the “very goods” like Schaub can be made to look pretty bad if the defense does its job correctly. As also evidenced by what happened when he started undercutting routes later in the game.