Will We Ever Learn?

In what was to be Houston’s first true test of the season, the Texans went into the other Bayou City, and from the first half, looked like they were going to take the Saints by storm. Relentlessly moving the ball at will and scoring almost at will, scoring field goals, but scoring nonetheless. Defensively, the team was somewhat lights out holding the Saints’ strong offense to only 17 points in the first three quarters, but once the clock struck midnight, ushering in the fourth quarter, and Houston’s Cinderella like performance eventually lost steam, and began to fall apart. Drew Brees led the Saints to 21 almost unanswered points in the fourth, propelling his team to victory as the Saints’ defense built momentum from the crowd and the scoring drive that put them ahead of an team whose offense moved the ball at will earlier in the game. The performance Houston put up in the fourth quarter was very reminiscent of last years error riddled Texans, but all great times must face great tribulations.

The Texans offense played amazingly well, but there is always room for improvement, and what must be improved by the offense, if anything, is being able to take full advantage of a scoring opportunity when in scoring position, sure three points is better than none, but in a shootout, high scoring game such as this turned out to be, every point counts, and who knows what happens if the Texans have those additional 4 points from every scoring drive, which adds up to a total of 16 points. The Texans probably, no, very likely, would have had this game in the bag. I suppose another area in much need for improvement could be the two minute drill offense, the Texans somewhat perfected the art of the comeback victory last season, and could have used that magic today, but fell apart when Shaub was pressured and the defense played tight coverage on the receivers. Improvement is certainly needed in these categories, but Houston is not normally known for lighting up the scoreboard, but they are known for having the ability to be do so, the offense needed to keep pace with the Saints’ high powered offense, and more than certainly kept up with, if not led and set the tone for the offensive tempo.

Defensively, we dropped the ball as far as the fourth quarter goes, the Texans played great defense in the first three quarters, but pulled the usual Texan defensive choke, a firm lesson than we have yet to learn is to better our fourth quarter play and the two minute drill defense, not to harp harshly on the team, we have made drastic improvements and advances as far as the standard of last year was, yet again, there is always room for more improvement, if we had applied the same pressure in the fourth as we did in the other three, the Saints might have only scored one or two touchdowns, or maybe even forced field goals, turnovers, or even a turnover on downs, but the team faltered, like most good teams do, and no team is ever perfect, one last lesson for the team to learn is how to recover and bounce back from a close disappointing lose like this as we face another high powered offense in the Pittsburgh Steelers who are currently blazing through the same Colts whom we tore apart in week one.

Overall, I cannot be upset with this team as they have exceeded my expectations for this game, and have raised my hopes for the game against Pittsburgh, as anybody who reads this site, I absolutely love this team and will stand by them no matter how badly they lose. These Texans may be down, but they are certainly not out.

– Richard Perez