Houston Texans: What is wrong with this team?
By Randy Gurzi
The Houston Texans were a nine win team one season ago and many felt the team would improve in their second season under head coach Bill O’Brien.
Instead, they have gone in the opposite direction as they fell to 2-5 in embarrassing fashion following the 44-26 bashing at Miami. Things were so awful that at half time, the team was trailing 41-0.
The running game was non-existent and the passing game was embarrassing. All season the running game has been terrible and the passing game, while it looks good statistically, has been up and down with many of the yards coming in garbage time after the Texans were out of the game.
How did things go so wrong though?
The blame can’t be placed on one person alone, but the team as a whole. General manager Rick Smith has made some boneheaded decisions. The worst possibly being passing on quarterback Derek Carr and taking guard Xavier Su’a-Filo instead.
Carr has gone on to lead a resurgence in Oakland where the team is 3-3, but playing very competitively while doing so. Su’a-Filo has started one game and still has yet to suit up in 2015.
Other picks were absolute duds by Smith as well, and to name a few there was 2013 second round pick D.J. Swearinger, the safety that was released after two seasons. That was followed up with 2014 third round selection, nose tackle Louis Nix, who was cut before ever playing a down.
Other personnel errors can be equally attributed to the general manager and the coach, O’Brien. Houston has reached out to take cast offs from O’Brien’s old team, the New England Patriots, and the results have been awful.
After seeing quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick play at a high level and put up the best numbers of his career, Smith and O’Brien dealt him to the New York Jets for a seventh round pick.
He was replaced by two former Patriots, quarterbacks Ryan Mallett and Brian Hoyer. The two competed through five weeks to see who could make the most mistakes and in the end Hoyer became the starter.
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O’Brien showed no ability to maintain his decision as he flip-flopped between the two with no rhyme or reason. He also failed to make an example out of Mallett for “sleeping through” his alarm clock after losing the starting job the first time.
To prove Mallett doesn’t care or get it at all, he flew commercially to Miami because he missed the team flight this weekend. He says he was stuck in traffic, but apparently no one else on the team or coaching staff drives the same way to the airport as Ryan, because no one else missed the flight.
Another former Patriot was brought in, but if he wasn’t the size of a small elephant, no one would know. Nose tackle Vince Wilfork was the big free agent pick up from New England and so far he has recorded a whole 8 tackles on the season.
The rest of the defense has been just as bad as teams are able to move the ball at will against them. So add it all up, you have a defense that can’t stop anyone. An offense that stalls out and starts slow and a front office that can’t make a good draft pick.
This could be a long season Houston fans. And as long as nothing changes with who makes the decisions, it could be a longer offseason.