The Houston Texans are ‘who we thought they were’

For the second consecutive week, and in three of the past four games, the Houston Texans have failed to score a touchdown. For as much fun it was watching the Texans a couple weeks ago against the New England Patriots, the most recent game, a Week 7 loss to the Arizona Cardinals, was the complete opposite.

Last Sunday was bad when the Texans lost to the Indianapolis Colts by a 31-3 score, and in early October the 40-0 loss to the Buffalo Bills was tough to watch too. But as this season has moved along, the loss this past Sunday to the Cardinals, a 31-5 score, was another reason why this team will most likely have a Top 3 pick in the 2022 NFL Draft.

The Houston Texans aren’t improving whatsoever on offense, as it is evident the interior offensive line needs improvement, the running backs aren’t the players they were with past teams, and to take an line idea from the late NFL head coach Dennis Green, “The Texans are who we thought they were!”

The Texans sadly aren’t a very good football team. In fact, they are worse now than they were at the start of the ’21 season, and it would be easy to say they need to improve this, and improve on that. To be honest, did any of us really expect this team to have a winning record? Did any of us expect this team to function on offense without Deshaun Watson under center?

Again, the Texans had a rookie wide receiver lead the team in receiving yards on Sunday, as Nico Collins had two receptions for 28 yards, with one of the catches being a 22-yard gain. That was the highlight of the game for the Texans on offense.

The process of this rebuild stinks, but teams have to go through some very tough times before success can happen, and success is a long way away for the Houston Texans this season and in the foreseeable future.

Houston Texans: The offense was bad; defense had some positives

Though David Culley wasn’t too harsh with his starting quarterback Davis Mills following the Texans’ consecutive loss, the rookie quarterback has much work ahead of him, and probably more hard times in his path to be a solid starter in the NFL.

Mills finished 23-of-32 for 135 yards with no touchdowns, but on a positive note, he also threw zero interceptions.

The play of the running backs, and the run blocking of the Houston Texans’ o-line is very disturbing, and it is something they won’t overcome this season. The Texans’ running back trio of David Johnson, Phillip Lindsay and Mark Ingram combined for 42 yards on 15 carries.

Arizona also stopped Brandin Cooks as he had 21 receptions for 21 yards, and one of those receptions was 18 yards. That means his other four catches went for a total of three yards. That’s not a very good day at all for a No. 1 receiver on the roster.

There is so much that goes wrong with the offense, but even though the defense has allowed 31 points each in the past two games, and 127 points this month, on Sunday they did force a turnover with Lonnie Johnson Jr. grabbing an interception.

Knowing this is a rebuild, there wasn’t much room for high expectations, but lately it seems this team just can’t score points, and that is worrisome, even with how the Texans franchise is built at the moment.

When the running back you traded DeAndre Hopkins for has just 25 yards rushing in a professional football game, that doesn’t leave much hope for the rest of the year. The Los Angeles Rams are next on the schedule, a team that is 6-1 with an extremely talented defense, so it will be yet another long game just like three of the past four games the Texans have played in.