TexansUSMC0311

As a Texans fan, this hurts to read but it is so true. We are a running team. I hope we can stay on the field long enough to tire down your defense and make some plays or like you said, we are toast.

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Brady_to_Moss

fans that actually come in with good conversation? wow a first here at pats fans becasue it sure as hell doesn't come from bronco or jets fans..

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Hael

Houston on paper has the one thing that historically bothers Brady. Namely an interior push that gets penetration up the middle.

Surprisingly they didn't use that as much as say the giants. So I mean, rush 3 or 4, keep everyone else in shifting and confusing zone/man mixes and make Brady hold on to it a few seconds longer than usual, where he can get jittery when Watt breaks a double team.

That forces NE to run the ball. Which is what you want them to beat you with if your Kubiak.

patfanken

OK but please give me some insight into Wade Philips. Do you think he's the kind of DC who can change his stripes, or will he come to NE and try to do to the Pats what he did today to Cinci, and what he did the last time he was here?

SVN

I think people forget in the december game that after the intial 21 pts , we went 3 and out or had very short drives for long a time. They really started getting hits on brady and forced brady to throw deep which kept trying until he hit stallworth. Gronk can make a diff but they also didnt have reed .Plus our oline has shown tendencies to crap the bed at times namely vs 49ers and jax. If brady is forced to throw quick and isnt give much time, this could be trouble for the pats and the texans are certainly capable of that. Somehow iam not so buoyant as some here proclaiming the texans cant stop us. This is how everyone used to think about the colts in the playoffs .A good defense like the texans can certainly stop us especially since they played us once and have some knowledge of our tendencies.

SVN

Texans can take a page out of the 49ers who when they came here opened up with all passing and some bold/creative playcalling. If kubiak tries that and takes some chances it could catch the pats off guard.

goheels22002

Andy Dalton threw 0 TDs on 14 of 30 with 1 interception and got sacked 2 times. The Bengals offensive lines was awful. By comparison, Brady threw for 4 TDs on 21 of 35 passes, zero interceptions and was sacked once against the same defense a month ago. Night and day.

The Patriots will score their points. It's up to Schaub to keep up. Arian Foster ran the ball 32 times against the Bengals tonight. I doubt they'll be able to pound the rock against the Pats' front seven, definitely not if they're playing from behind. Foster also caught 8 passes. He has to be beat up after 40 touches.

supafly

Actually, the Texans will have all 3 TE's healthy as one of them was out for the December game. I can't remember his name off hand, but he played yesterday vs Cincy. This could actually prove to see more of Spikes, not less, as there is a good chance that we could be in the base more often than not. Even in the first matchup with only 2 healthy TE's, I believe that 47/70 plays were in the base defense.

I do agree though that it'd be nice to see either Chung or Wilson acting as the protector against those middle of the field problems in sub packages. If they can effectively limit A.Johnson, Schaub then looks to his security blanket TE's, so that will be a big part of their offense. Obviously they'll need to keep Foster in check again, but those insanely effective play action passes are what worry me. We were able to see less of them in the first meeting simply due to the 2 quick TD's, which then became a 21-0 lead. Unless we once again can get off to a decent lead, I expect a lot more of the play action attempts, with a focus also on the middle of the field routes down the seam.



Even with no passes deflected and no sacks or tackles for losses, he still managed to produce either 4 or 5 QB hurries (depending upon who credits the stat as I have seen both 4 and 5), and managed to put 3 QB hits on Brady. He also caused a fumble too, so even though he was very "quiet" for his terms, improvements can be made, and he certainly will be a force for all of the offensive line, RB's on the blitz pickup, and obviously Tom Brady too.

One thing of note, Brady was able to get the ball off on an average of 2.27 seconds to his targets in that game, which profootballfocus rates as being one of the quickest in the entire league this year out of all of the NFL games. That is certainly something that they had planned to do, and will likely try and replicate once again.

He will once again be the main focal point of our line scheming, and I hope they are up to the task. If only we had moved up in the 2011 draft. It makes you think of what could have been..in hindsight it's very easy to look back, especially with Dowling failing to do anything whatsoever at pick #33, although I hate to do that due to it not being too fair for most involved. It does still eat at me a bit though when I think of the possibilities that would have created. Having followed the Big 10 conference closely, I was an enormous advocate of moving up for the big guy.

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supafly

I couldn't agree more. As we found out in the NYJ blowout in early Dec.2010, the second meeting can be much different.

The first game started off with Foster running for carries of 12 and 15 yds (although one was called back for an illegal shift IIRC), and we all know that he is one of the best RB's in the entire NFL. Not only that, Johnson still gained almost 100 yds on 8 catches, many vs Talib, so that is another matchup to keep an eye on too.

The NE defense was able to get a huge stop with the DMcC pick after allowing them to march down the field, and that was really the turning point of the game in my opinion. After that the offense was able to score quickly to go up 14-0, and that set the tone for the rest of the night. I'm not sure that we'll get as lucky the second time around though, so it will once again come down to the individual matchups and they have to execute to the fullest extent.

The HOU defense certainly settled down and I believe they stopped us on 4 consecutive drives where they basically got nothing at all, so their scheme was working on some level, particularly when they adjusted.

I think that we are still obviously the better team, but I also think that Houston matches up a lot better than most people are giving them credit for. They have the revenge factor in mind too, and will certainly feel disrespected with the double digit pointspread and talk of another blowout.

That all said, there were also many, many good things that our team did that night, from bottling up Foster to keeping pressure on Schaub and creating turnovers. If they can contain the RB once again, and Talib can limit Johnson, they have an excellent shot at winning the game. They'll need to watch those TE routes down the middle, and they'll need to make it uncomfortable for the QB, but if those things can be achieved, we should be good.

I'm not trying to make them out to be the "1972 Dolphins" as Rob would say, but I do think that Houston has the capability to keep this game a lot closer than most imagine. I hope I'm wrong because my nerves are already getting too worked up and it's still more than a week away.

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Fencer

Ken, you seem to be suggesting that BB will assign two different Pats to be the personal watchdogs for two different opposing players. Really? When has he done that before in the history of ever?

Great call on your part if he actually does it.

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