I’ve been writing for this site for going on five years now. I have been watching Houston Texans football since they beat Dallas 19-7. I have been watching Houston NFL football since the late 1970s. At
no point did it ever feel like work. Last night did. A lot of it was a quick turnaround from a 9 PM Central start to a 6:30 AM start at school the next morning. The rest of it was the fact that I knew I had to watch because I needed to be able to report everything back to you.
Bill James once said that good statistics take on the properties of language. I’ve always preferred the art motif. They can paint a really good picture for you. The numbers in this case would paint stick figures. Some of the numbers will paint the picture of one of those stick figures holding a knife, but most will simply indicate that it was a fairly close game or that the Texans should have been winning it. The fact that it was never particularly close is an indictment.
The Numbers
- Total Yards: Houston Texans 254, Seattle Seahawks 316
- Rushing Yards: Texans 17/56, Seahawks 32/118
- Passing Yards: Texans 52/198, Seahawks 35/198
- Sacks: Texans 2, Seahawks 3
- Turnovers: Texans 1, Seahawks 4
- Third Down: Texans 2/15. Seahawks 2/14
- Penalties: Texans 10/105, Seahawks 12/93
- Time of Possession: Texans 27:43, Seahawks 32:17
I bolded the turnovers because this was the third time in 23 games that the Texans have been +3 or better in the turnover ratio and lost the football game. This one felt different than the other two. The Texans lost to the Lions and Packers last season doing the same thing. They frittered away a lead in the Lions game and they were in it until the very end against the Packers. In spite of all of the numbers and the final score, the Texans never really had a chance in this football game and that is a huge indictment.
The Good
The final score will say the defense gave up 27 points. Some will point out that individual players did not play their best football last night. I couldn’t agree more. In spite of his interception, Derek Stingley had one of his worst games as a Texan. Kamari Lassiter also added a pick, but it wasn’t a good game for him either. The fact that each could have a pick on a night they would love to have a do over on is a testament to how hard they fought.
The Seahawks got the ball three times in Texans territory and came away with 13 of their 27 points. It should have been a 31-19 Texans shallacking and that would have made the defense look even worse. They did a good job on the running game keeping the Seahawks under four yards a carry. They opportunistically created four turnovers. Yes, JSN had a nice game. The best players always do. Don’t listen to anything DeMeco Ryans tells you about how the defense needs to play better in order to win. They played their tails off.
The Bad
This game was C.J. Stroud’s worst game of the season so far. It’s hard to imagine that it looked visibly worse than the numbers indicate. The stat sheet will say he was only sacked three times, but all three were back breakers. He has to learn to get rid of the football in those instances. He does that thing where he runs backwards and it always gets him in more trouble. Granted, his receivers dropped a few balls and his offensive line did him absolutely zero favors, but great players have to overcome these things and when your defense gives you four turnovers you have to find a way to win the football game.
Regardless of what comes next (and there will be much more), the players are ultimately responsible for what happens on the field. They have to win their blocks. They have to go out there and make plays. His play caller shot him in the ass tonight and expected him to sit. Stroud has to audible out of those plays. It’s backyard football time in Houston and he needs to grab the sticks and pebbles and design his own plays on the go.
The Ugly
I’m done. I will have more on this later in the week when we bring back the stages of suck. I am out of the questioning stage on Nick Caley. I would have pulled his headset off in the third quarter and told him to walk his butt back into the locker room. He would have had to buy a plane ticket to get back to Houston. I very rarely ever react that emotionally or rashly to one performance. Maybe it was being up at 11:30 (at the point I made that decision). Maybe it was being burned from the false hope of the last two games.
The goal line offense and the sequences on third and one and fourth and one were criminal. It wasn’t just bad offense. It was criminally negligent offense. For most of the game, he had no answer to the Seahawks pressure. That’s fine. We saw that with Bobby Slowik. We are used to that level of incompetence. This game was an entirely different level. Don’t worry, I’ll have much more to say when we get to the stages of suck later in the week. Those stages of suck are here to stay and they will stay until this situation resolves itself.
