Patriots looked beatable in win over Texans
Basically, neither potential AFC Championship Game finalist, Pittsburgh or Kansas City, was watching in great awe at the prospect of having to face Brady in his home stadium next week. If anything, the confidence of both of those teams grew exponentially while watching the Patriots struggle against the punchless Texans.
Perhaps the Steelers and Chiefs were thinking, The Patriots aren’t so great. They were at home with a week off and barely beat a team that can’t score. We can absolutely beat them next week.
And if they were indeed thinking that, they’d be correct. The Patriots got a little fat playing the easiest schedule in the league and without TE Rob Gronkowski, they’re not super talented. If their execution level isn’t high, like it wasn’t against the Texans, the Patriots can be beaten.
But there’s a flip side to what happened on Saturday night. It was probably the greatest gift the players could have given coach Bill Belichick, who may or may not have been grinning about it all while walking off the field.
If the Patriots had pummeled the Texans, Belichick would have had a more difficult time pounding the best out of his players while preparing for the AFC Championship Game. Now, after that performance, Belichick has all the ammo he needs to make this a Hell Week for his players. And that, ultimately, might be heavenly for the the team's prospects.
According to Texans coach Bill O’Brien, it was a combination of what the Texans have done all season: stemming (moving them in a coordinated direction) the line, and then penetrating the unveiled weaknesses with Clowney and Mercilus.
“We stemmed the front a lot, moved the front,” O’Brien said before boarding the team bus. “We don’t line up in one front and then when the ball’s snapped stay in the same front. We’ve been doing that all year. Then we change it up from week to week. So whatever we did last week, maybe we did something different this week. We moved Clowney around, Mercilus, and I think that’s tough to deal with. Our defense played their asses off.
“Those guys are good, we know they’re very well coached so you can’t be vanilla. They’ve got vanilla. You’ve got to figure out something else to do and do some different things. If you line up in the same front that you did last week, they’re going to block the crap out of you.”
But Belichick is going to have his say at making adjustments this week. And while the Chiefs and Steelers are going to duplicate some of the things the Texans did, each team’s skillset is unique.
“I think the one thing about blueprint and stuff like that is each team is going to have to do their own thing,” O’Brien said. “… What we did tonight, we’ve been doing it in different ways all year; we’re a very active front. So whatever the next team is, Pittsburgh or Kansas City, they’ve got to do what they do. That’s just how we do it.”
