Texans morning huddle: Wilfork getting impatient, Texans drop another
By Randy Gurzi
The Houston Texans came up short again, this time on the road as they lost 24-17 to the Carolina Panthers. It was an ugly game with a lot of mistakes by everyone. To try and see what went wrong, we can check out our morning links related to the game from Sunday.
Vince Wilfork: ‘We’re running out of time’ – by Tania Ganguli, ESPN
"Vince Wilfork is not a patient man.At least not when it comes to waiting for his team to start clicking.“We’re running out of time,” Wilfork said after the Texans’ 24-17 loss to the Carolina Panthers. “It’s just getting too crazy right now. We’re running out of time. We have to get this fixed quick, so back to the drawing board again this week.”Wilfork’s sentiment wasn’t matched elsewhere in the locker room, which was permeated by talk of patience and confidence that the Texans defense would soon dominate they way they, frankly, should. But Wilfork has never played for a team that’s started the season 0-2 (the Texans haven’t done it since 2008). The worst season record he ever experienced in his 11 with the New England Patriots was a 10-6 record. The Texans have only been 10-6 or better twice in their entire history.His expectations are different.“It’s very frustrating because we talked about it in OTAs,” Wilfork said. “Bad football, we do not want to play bad football, and we did today at times and it cost us. When you do that, this is the result. We got to get it figured out.”The Texans defense wasn’t the reason they lost the game. The defense held for much of it as the offense was unable to move the ball. The Texans only got into Panthers territory twice in the first half and only got past the Panthers’ 41 once.Finally in the second quarter, the Panthers began to encroach on Texans territory. They scored all 24 of their points in the final three quarters, aided by penalties. The 80-yard drive that ended with Newton’s acrobatic touchdown run featured three Texans penalties, one of which wiped out an interception by safety Rahim Moore.The Texans also gave up passing touchdowns of 25 and 36 yards."
Newton leads Panthers over Texans 24-17, SI.com
"Cam Newton joked with Stephen Curry before Sunday’s game, telling the NBA star ”I’m just trying to be like you, man.”Newton certainly played like an MVP on Sunday.The fifth-year quarterback threw for 195 yards and two touchdowns and, like his buddy Curry, showed a flair for the dramatic by somersaulting into the end zone on a quarterback draw to lead the Carolina Panthers to a 24-17 victory over the Houston Texans.Curry, a Charlotte native and loyal Panthers fan, was at the game to hit the ”Keep Pounding” drum before the team’s home opener wearing a No. 30 Panthers jersey.Newton seemed to feed off that energy.He threw TD passes of 25 yards to Ted Ginn Jr. and 36 yards to Philly Brown and ran for 76 yards, including his highlight reel 2-yard TD run to give Carolina the lead for good at 17-10 late in the third quarter.The go-ahead score came after Garrett Graham tied the game at 10 with a one-handed, 7-yard touchdown grab in the back of the end zone from Ryan Mallett.On a first-and-goal from the 2, Newton took a step back before racing through an open hole in the line and sizing up defensive back Rahim Moore. Joking that he was deprived of a trampoline by his parents as a child, Newton decided the best way into the end zone was to somersault over Moore rather than try to take on the contact and run him over.”My heart was in my socks,” Newton said. ”As I was flipping I was like, hey, I don’t know how this is going to end.”"
Ryan Mallett: some good, some bad in L at Carolina – by Drew Dougherty, HoustonTexans.com
"Like his teammates, Ryan Mallett struggled at times during Sunday’s loss at Carolina.But also like his teammates, he flourished at other points in the contest.“He played a tough game,” head coach Bill O’Brien said. “It’s a good defense that he went against. There were times when he really did a good job. There were some things, like all of us, that he could improve upon.”The fifth-year quarterback threw it early, often and throughout the 24-17 loss to the Panthers. Hecompleted 27-of-58 attempts for 244 yards, with a touchdown and an interception. He also scrambled for a 6-yard score in the fourth quarter.“We gotta execute better,” Mallett said. “It’s about goinng back to work tomorrow and getting ready for Tampa Bay. We’ve gotta watch the film, make our corrections and put that one behind us.”The offense struggled in the first half, managing just a field goal and 93 yards of offense. Mallett was 11-of-29 in the first 30 minutes, and not pleased with how he and the squad performed.“We’ve gotta get it going,” Mallett said. “We can’t start off slow. The second drive was like a 10-play drive. We gotta score touchdowns. We can’t settle for field goals.However, after the intermission, Mallett was a perfect 7-of-7 on the first drive of the second half, hitting Garrett Graham in the back of the end zone for a 7-yard toucdown pass. O’Brien was complimentary ofthe way Mallett rebounded.“But he hung in there,” O’Brien said. “He was resilient. He tried to bring us back there at the end, but we were just a play short there.”Mallett targeted receiver DeAndre Hopkins 11 times, completing five passes to the wideout for 53 yards. The pass-catcher, like O’Brien, saw some good things in Mallett’s performance."