Houston Texans: Can the Houston Offensively Beat Oakland Without Andre Johnson?

Of course the Texans can. Why? We have done it before. In the past 3 games versus Oakland WR Andre Johnson has averaged 28. 3 yards a game, and 1.3 catches a game…I don’t know about you, but to me those kind of stats are not essential to us winning.

Those stats are attributed mostly to shutdown CBNnamdi Asomugha, and guess what, he isn’t there anymore. Which means even without Andre our receiving core should be able to get some substantial yardage.

So how did we win those two games?

Well it is safe to say we ran the ball a lot. In 3 games we accumulated over 350 yards, that is 116.6 rushing yards a game. I think it is safe to say that RB Arian Foster is back and our offensive line has never been better. Arian has never been more valuable than he is right now, and he couldn’t have returned at a better time, with Andre going down.

Offensive Coordinator Rick Dennison and Head Coach Gary Kubiak will highly rely on Foster to take a fair share of the work load Sunday, and hopefully deliver a W to Houston.

To top it off the Raiders defense is struggling this year.

They are currently ranked 22nd in the pass and 29th in the rush, which against the Texans offense isn’t too scary. QB Matt Schaub is one of the best in the league at play action, and since obviously we will be running without AJ, expect lots of big plays from Schaub this Sunday.

Do not expect him to totally relax.

I expect him to get 1 to 2 TD’s this weekend, one to TE Owen Daniels and one to WR Jacoby Jones or WR Kevin Walter.

Losing Andre Johnson for 3 weeks doesn’t mean the season is over, there is no need to freak, if anything it is a good test for us. A test that our offense can perform without its franchise player.