In two straight games, the Houston Texans failed to convert on fourth-and-short. Seven days after getting swallowedalive by Dexter Lawrence and the Cincinnati Bengals' defensive line, it happened again in Houston's 19-17 loss to the Indianapolis Colts.
Against Indianapolis, the Texans were attempting to capitalize on a strip sack from Will Anderson to get Houston up with a short field. They were in field goal range with the ball at the Indianapolis 31-yard line and attempted to pick up the first down with running back David Montgomery.
However, just as against the Bengals, Montgomery was not able to get the yard and he was met behind the line of scrimmage by a handful of Colts defenders for a loss of two.
After the game, head coach DeMeco Ryans
defended his choice.
"Yeah, I make the call to go for it. Look, you're aggressive; you go for it, you have to live with it. Just standing here last week, I don't go for it, ‘Shame on me.’ You go for it, you don't get it, ‘Shame on me.’ That's the position of a head coach,” Ryans said. “It happens, and I'm man enough to own those decisions and live with the decisions that I made. I came out of this game saying we're going to be aggressive. We took the ball to start the game, wanted to come out with an aggressive mindset, offensively come out, try to get a good drive, go. Fourth down, being a little bit aggressive there to, 'Hey, let's punch it. Let's move these guys off the ball. Let's try to get a yard,' which I've seen our guys do. I've seen the guys get it done, and it didn't happen. We got stopped, and that happens. When you're the head coach, you make decisions. Sometimes they go great. You're the best coach ever. Sometimes decisions don't go great. You're the worst coach ever. You should get fired. I understand that. I'm a big boy. I can handle all of that."
The failed conversion proved to be costly. If the Texans had attempted the field goal and made it, they would have gone up 3-0 in the first quarter.
Instead, Indianapolis got the ball with decent field position, got down into field goal range and made the attempt to take the lead.
The Texans ultimately lost by two points, making that missed opportunity even more crucial to the final outcome.
This article originally appeared on Texans Wire: Texans HC DeMeco Ryans does not regret going for it on fourth down vs Colts
