What was the great, good, and bad from Sunday’s blowout victory?
The usual course with this piece is to look at the good, bad, and ugly from this week’s game. It is hard to look at anyone in the face and come up with two negatives when you score a 41-21 blowout. The Houston Texans defeated the New England Patriots 41-21 in a game that was never really in doubt. I suppose when you opened the second half there was a brief moment where you were nervous, but that nervousness quickly went away.
By The Numbers is an aggregation and not a snapshot in time. When we put these things together we start to get a portrait of a football team. The Texans almost always outgain their opponents. Their passing game is usually better than their opponent. However, they normally commit more penalties and have committed more turnovers than their opponents coming into play today. Let’s see how those categories fared on Sunday.
Key Numbers
Total Yards: Texans 368, Patriots 291
Total plays: Texans 62, Patriots 63
Rushing Yards: Texans 28/192, Patriots 26/82
Passing Yards: Texans 34/176, Patriots 37/209
Sacks: Texans 4, Patriots 2
Turnovers: Texans 1, Patriots 4
Penalties: Texans 4/38, Patriots 9/50
Time of Possession: Texans 30:47, Patriots 29:13
Obviously, the way this game transpired impacted the way the numbers fell. When you lead by a bunch you start to play more lax and keep things in front of you. Maye had more success in general in the second half in gaining yards. He also had three of his four turnovers in the second half.
However, if you focus in on the turnover battle and the penalty battle then you see that the Texans played the cleanest game they have played all season. 15 of those 38 penalty yards came on Stefon Diggs’ “taunting” penalty. It didn’t impact the game at all and taunting is a kitteny call anyway.
The Great
Picking the Schlitz Malt Liquor Bull player of the game is normally pretty easy, but you could name three defenders from Sunday and provide a pretty good defense. Will Anderson had three sacks and a deflected pass that turned into an interception. He feels like the right pick for the award, but you would be forgiven if you wanted to give it to Mario Edwards following a career high eight tackles and a fumble recovery or Calen Bullock who had an interception and fumble recovery of his own.
I’m not sure if this is a great defense or not. The basic stats don’t say so. They give up more yards and generate fewer turnovers and sacks than a great defense usually does. However, opposing quarterbacks have the worst completion percent in the NFL when facing the Texans. They make key stops in key moments like great defenses do. You could charitably say they are good enough and simply leave it at that.
The Good
I’ve been overly critical of the Texans rushing attack over the years. Admittedly, there were times when they simply ran up the gut for no gain, but no team gains four or five yards on EVERY carry. The general idea is that you want a threat that other teams have to honor on the defensive end. Clearly, Joe Mixon is a different kind of back than what they have on the roster. Mixon had a touchdown on the ground and one receiving out the backfield showing off his complete skill set. The best part was they didn’t need him to touch it 30 times. He was efficient.
Dameon Pierce looked like it would be another game where he averaged fewer than three yards a carry, but he busted a 54 yard touchdown run that was a shade of the 2022 Pierce if only for one play. It was the kind of run that hopefully he can build off of. This team will need both backs to be productive with Nico Collins on the shelf. The best part was they put up 41 points on the board where in weeks past they would have found a way to make it a 24-21 or 27-21 win.
The Bad
As dominant as the performance was, the Texans still left points on the field on Sunday. You missed a key field goal in the first half that could have added to the point total at a time when the game was still in doubt. Dalton Schultz dropped a touchdown pass and somehow managed to deflect it up in the air so it could be intercepted. That was at least six if not ten points that they left on the table in the first half when they were still trying to pull away in this game.
Yes, it seems like my complaints here are over the top, but eventually you will play a team that makes you pay for leaving those points on the field. Buffalo almost made you pay last week, but they made blunders of their own. You cannot Bill O’Brien you way into the victory circle every week. Sometimes you have to beat teams and not simply hope that they beat themselves.
The Texans are moving up in weight class next week. Green Bay is a beatable football team, but I am reasonably certain that you will have to beat them. You cannot turtle and simply hope they do something stupid. This team has shown flashes of brilliance on both sides of the ball and they came closest to playing their most complete game today. It was just one or two key errors, but those errors could and will hurt against better competition.