Texans postseason dreams slip away in 22-13 loss to Bengals.
Nov 23, 2014; Houston, TX, USA; Houston Texans quarterback Ryan Mallett (15) reacts after a play during the second quarter against the Cincinnati Bengals at NRG Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports
The Texans knew they had a tough match up, knew they had to win the game to keep hope alive. Hope however was not to be had. The Texans had a good game from J.J. Watt, Jonathon Joseph and that was about it for good game. Ryan Mallett, who so impressed last week with poise, command and confidence looked like a 4th year player traded for a 7th round draft pick by a team that knew he wasn’t the answer. Many passes were either too high, behind or both on long passes and too low on short passes. Alfred Blue was pedestrian against a run defense that ranked near the bottom of the NLF in stopping the run. The Texans let their postseason dreams die today.
Defensively, aside a just gorgeous pick six by Jonathon Joseph and a solid day for J.J Watt, failed to get pressure on Andy Dalton all day. This allowed him time to pick apart the Texans defense that was playing inexplicably soft. The Texans gave up 139 yards on the ground and 233 through the air. It was all in all a very poor day for your Texans on both sides of the ball. Repeatedly the Texans secondary was 8-10 yards off the Bengals receivers and Andy Dalton just feasted on this poor game plan with repeated passes to wide open receivers.
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The offense had two plays that doomed them, in the grand scheme of everything. The first was the decision to run a sweep play from their two yard line. This was doomed quickly and resulted in a Safety. When your ball carrier gets the ball in the end zone, running wide is generally a really bad idea. The second was the first play of the 3rd quarter. Mallett tried to get the ball to Keshawn Martin and instead was picked off by Rey Maualuga. Poor decision, bad pass, all fail.
A disappointing loss that puts the Texans now at 5-6, two games behind the Indianapolis Colts. Mathematically they might not be out of the playoff picture, history and reality say it’s over. The Texans play for pride from here on out, pride and what little hope they can muster. Their season will finish as things stand 7-9, putting them right in the middle of the draft and forced to make some big decisions on which if any quarterback on tap is worth making a ply for draft pick wise. 2014 has been better then 2013, but only on paper.
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