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First a confession: I belong to a football pool where we pick 5 games against the spread. Well after a lot of thought I reminded myself that we ARE playing for money, so I DIDN'T play this game. You know it will be hard to bet the Pats in September just because we don't know what this team really is until the leaves start to turn. Clearly the pre-season told us nothing. Houston has a roster full of impact players on both sides of the ball, and the Pats just have Gronk, Brady, and 51 other guys named Joe. (hyperbole) At least that's what the national view is. So I passed on the Pats game and instead picked the Steelers vs Cleveland 
and NO vs TB I did pick the Jags/Giants correctly and I'm looking OK with my KC pick and have the Lions tomorrow in order to salvage the week. But enough about me. Lets break down this game.
1. General Overview- We might NOT have had the better roster, but for this game at least, we had the better TEAM. Without the 3 turnovers, this game wouldn't have been NEARLY this close. Clearly the biggest and most satisfying surprise was how well the DL played in both putting pressure on Watson as well as containing him. They had 12 QB hits to go along with the 3 sacks, and Watson had do make some great plays to elude the rush to pick up 40 yds on 8 trips across the LOS. Bottom line there was a lot more to be happy about, than to complain about.
2. QB - There was a time when completing 66% of your passes was an exceptional day. In Tom Brady-land, it's just OK. Clearly he was unhappy about the offense in his post-game comments. I won't disagree. I thought he threw too many passes off his back foot in this game. He made a few questionable throws and a couple that were just inaccurate. In other words, it can and likely WILL get better. Let us not forget that the Texans do have an outSTANDING DL with Watt, Mercellous, Clowney, as well as Joseph and Matthieu in the secondary. So throwing 66% and 277 yds with 3 TD passes against these guys IS an accomplishment. The pick was unfortunate, but tipped balls happen and in this case a first down was turned into a TO by the length of a finger.
3, RB - I love how hard Burkhead runs. But if gets 18 runs/game he's not going to make it past midseason. It is really too bad that J Hills season is likely over. Not only did he run very effectively, his loss is going to stretch the RB room very thin. James White took a step back IMHO in the running game, while he was his same effective self in the passing end. Soney Michel's return can't happen too soon.
4. TE- How can a team allow Gronk to catch 123 yds in the passing game, when he is CLEARLY the only major threat. Now I don't fault Romeo in his scheme. Gronk was doubled on almost every play. However I do fault the execution of that double-team, as Romo consistently and correctly pointed out. The results speak for themselves. No team should ever let Gronk beat them, though it might be harder than they think to make that happen.
All praise to Gronk, however I still have a problem with Josh for not making teams pay for that double team with zero throws to our OTHER TE.
5. Receivers - Raise your hand if you thought Phillip Dorsett would have 7 catches and a TD this game. No one??. Well for at least this week, the daily harangue to add more WR's will abate...a bit. Dorsett not only made some good catches, he ran the ball well after them and got open more than any other WR. Good for him.
Hogan had a very quiet game, hopefully he'll get more opportunities next week. The rest of the passes were taken care of by the RB's including JDevlin who had 4, which was remarkable since he had just SIX all last season.
Patterson flashed on that one catch and the 2 reverses. I would have liked to see him targeted more. For example, I wish HE was the WR running that deep route instead of McCarron
6. OL - It was MUCH better than I feared, given who they were playing. Brady was sacked just twice and hit maybe 4 or 5 times during the course of the game, especially when you think one sack happened because no one blocked the guy closest to the QB But overall they pretty much shut out Mercellous and Clowney, and kept Watt under control for most of the game (except for about 4 plays all game,
Trent Brown didn't make every block, but he came pretty damned close. I don't know if he's an improvement on Solder, but he's not a step back either, and I'm sure Dante will make him even better as the season goes on. Speed rushers will like be an issue from time to time, but they were for Solder and Light as well, and when it became an issue it was dealt with schematically, so I see no reason to worry about the LT position.
Shaq Mason had a hand in both the sacks, but before I would get totally pissed at him, those were just 2 plays out of 68. You'd have to look at the totality of the game, as well as looking at the quality of the competition
Cannon an Waddle seemed to split the snaps and did fairly well, though on the 2 plays where Watt stood out, Waddle was the guy he beat.
Finally what a find David Andrews has turned out to be. He seems to get better with every passing year (though he has to share the blame for the Reader sack) Again one play out of 68.
Overall I thought it was a decent start for the OL. I thought the pass protection was outstanding, and the run blocking was OK but needs to get better. There were never a lot of great holes for the RB's.
7. Front 7 - First the good news. Like I said earlier, the Pats pass rush was both effective and disciplined. 3 sacks and TWELVE QB hits is good against any NFL QB, but exceptional against a guy like DWatson, who is elusive as it gets. The bad news was the 132 rushing yds they gave up to the Texans RB's. I'm not sure if this was a matter of poor schemes or just poor play. This SHOULD be an important discussion when the all 22 comes out. But watching that 3rd quarter TD drive was very disturbing at the time. Another thing they we need to see is who was in the different situational defenses over the course of the game.
Kudos to Larry Guy who I thought had a very strong game. Flowers and Wise might have gotten credit for the 3 sacks, but Guy, Shelton ,and Brown did a lot of the dirty work up the middle to make those happen. I would love to see how the pressures/hits stats break down.
Adrian Claybourn didn't make the NFL.com stat sheet, but I'm sure he had several pressures. I was impressed with the depth of his rushes and how disciplined he was in maintaining his leverage and not running past the QB. From what I saw he has a non-stop motor.
So in the end lets see how things improve or not going forward. Ideally we can continue to bring controlled pressure, while improving on the run stats.
As for the LB's I thought it was a mixed bag. Bentley flashed, though I'm sure he had his share of errors. He was (for the most part) just hair late in his pass coverage, but that should get better. This WAS his first look at real game speed this year. He wasn't horrible, and I thought it telling that on a couple of plays they put him outside on a WR Fortunately they never threw his way. I wonder why?
Van Noy made a couple of impact plays including that great tackle on the reverse as well as a couple of other plays. But if there was one disappointment for me it was Dante Hightower. I'm not saying he played badly, but he IS the 2nd highest paid defensive player and except for being the one who fell on the fumble (one of several Pats how were in the vicinity) he was invisible to me (credited with 2 assisted T's). I expect more from him. But its early yet. I h.ope it isn't a trend.
8. Secondary. Compared to last season, Stephon Gilmore started out very strongly, imho. Hopkins is one of the best WR's in the league, and Gilmore certainly kept him under control. Sure he had his catches, but only one was deep (17yds), and all the rest were closely contested. Good to see him moving players around before the snap as opposed to being the one who needed to be moved. I liked the Gilmore I saw today.
The last time these 2 teams met, the Pats gave up over 300 yds passing. Today that number was 176, Granted Watson was playing HIS first game after an ACL and wasn't sharp; this was a marked improvement. Very few of the Texan receivers were running wide open through the secondary. For the most part they made the Texans earn every reception they had.
Bottom line - Hopefully this is not the best this secondary will be, but it's a good starting point heading into week 2.
9. Special teams - This has historically been one of the best units in the league. Well punt coverage and the kicking games were a good as we are accustomed to expect. BUT the KO coverage was as bad as I can ever remember seeing. I don't know why, but the NEVER held Houston inside the 25 and the way they were going, I was starting to be thrilled to see them stopped inside the 35.. It looked like a couple of them were one step away from going a lot further. Let us hope this will improve GREATLY going forward.
10. The refs - I think we got one on the Gronk catch, though I'm sure there are some that think it was good and I guess there COULD be a case made for it....but. There were only 12 accepted penalties and for the most part the refs let them play and the game flowed well. No onerous PI's, or helmet penalties. I'd give these guys an A- though it is also a credit to both coaching staffs that the game was played as cleanly as it was, especially when you compare it some of the other games where there were 25-30 flags.
11. The announcers - Romo is even better this year. His job is to make the audience smarter about the game and he does it over and over, and is mostly right. I don't even mind the rare times he's wrong. If he going to be exceptional he can't be afraid to make a mistake. And if there is one thing that Romo doesn't seen to be is afraid.
Nance on the other hand should shut up and remember he's there to be the play by play guy. He's good at that, except he tends to stray into trying to analyze too. When he does that, it isn't good. Stay in your lane, Jim!!!!
12. Next week - Brady is going to face the challenge of facing even a TOUGHER defense and do it on the road when the Pats travel to Jacksonville. Before this game, I would have told I'd be fine with the Pats being 2-2 going into October. After watching this game, I have to say my expectations have been raised.
Any road game is very difficult, but the Pats may have caught a break if Fornette is out this week. Unfortunately Fornette doesn't play defense, so I expect anything over 20 points to be an excellent outcome for an offense that after that game will STILL be a work in progress.
OK that should be enough to start a discussion. As always feel free to comment, add insights or disagree. I'm happy I managed to end up 2-2 on my picks with the Lions game left to see if I can get to 3-2.
and NO vs TB I did pick the Jags/Giants correctly and I'm looking OK with my KC pick and have the Lions tomorrow in order to salvage the week. But enough about me. Lets break down this game.1. General Overview- We might NOT have had the better roster, but for this game at least, we had the better TEAM. Without the 3 turnovers, this game wouldn't have been NEARLY this close. Clearly the biggest and most satisfying surprise was how well the DL played in both putting pressure on Watson as well as containing him. They had 12 QB hits to go along with the 3 sacks, and Watson had do make some great plays to elude the rush to pick up 40 yds on 8 trips across the LOS. Bottom line there was a lot more to be happy about, than to complain about.
2. QB - There was a time when completing 66% of your passes was an exceptional day. In Tom Brady-land, it's just OK. Clearly he was unhappy about the offense in his post-game comments. I won't disagree. I thought he threw too many passes off his back foot in this game. He made a few questionable throws and a couple that were just inaccurate. In other words, it can and likely WILL get better. Let us not forget that the Texans do have an outSTANDING DL with Watt, Mercellous, Clowney, as well as Joseph and Matthieu in the secondary. So throwing 66% and 277 yds with 3 TD passes against these guys IS an accomplishment. The pick was unfortunate, but tipped balls happen and in this case a first down was turned into a TO by the length of a finger.
3, RB - I love how hard Burkhead runs. But if gets 18 runs/game he's not going to make it past midseason. It is really too bad that J Hills season is likely over. Not only did he run very effectively, his loss is going to stretch the RB room very thin. James White took a step back IMHO in the running game, while he was his same effective self in the passing end. Soney Michel's return can't happen too soon.
4. TE- How can a team allow Gronk to catch 123 yds in the passing game, when he is CLEARLY the only major threat. Now I don't fault Romeo in his scheme. Gronk was doubled on almost every play. However I do fault the execution of that double-team, as Romo consistently and correctly pointed out. The results speak for themselves. No team should ever let Gronk beat them, though it might be harder than they think to make that happen.
All praise to Gronk, however I still have a problem with Josh for not making teams pay for that double team with zero throws to our OTHER TE.
5. Receivers - Raise your hand if you thought Phillip Dorsett would have 7 catches and a TD this game. No one??
. Well for at least this week, the daily harangue to add more WR's will abate...a bit. Dorsett not only made some good catches, he ran the ball well after them and got open more than any other WR. Good for him.Hogan had a very quiet game, hopefully he'll get more opportunities next week. The rest of the passes were taken care of by the RB's including JDevlin who had 4, which was remarkable since he had just SIX all last season.
Patterson flashed on that one catch and the 2 reverses. I would have liked to see him targeted more. For example, I wish HE was the WR running that deep route instead of McCarron
6. OL - It was MUCH better than I feared, given who they were playing. Brady was sacked just twice and hit maybe 4 or 5 times during the course of the game, especially when you think one sack happened because no one blocked the guy closest to the QB
But overall they pretty much shut out Mercellous and Clowney, and kept Watt under control for most of the game (except for about 4 plays all game,Trent Brown didn't make every block, but he came pretty damned close. I don't know if he's an improvement on Solder, but he's not a step back either, and I'm sure Dante will make him even better as the season goes on. Speed rushers will like be an issue from time to time, but they were for Solder and Light as well, and when it became an issue it was dealt with schematically, so I see no reason to worry about the LT position.
Shaq Mason had a hand in both the sacks, but before I would get totally pissed at him, those were just 2 plays out of 68. You'd have to look at the totality of the game, as well as looking at the quality of the competition
Cannon an Waddle seemed to split the snaps and did fairly well, though on the 2 plays where Watt stood out, Waddle was the guy he beat.
Finally what a find David Andrews has turned out to be. He seems to get better with every passing year (though he has to share the blame for the Reader sack) Again one play out of 68.
Overall I thought it was a decent start for the OL. I thought the pass protection was outstanding, and the run blocking was OK but needs to get better. There were never a lot of great holes for the RB's.
7. Front 7 - First the good news. Like I said earlier, the Pats pass rush was both effective and disciplined. 3 sacks and TWELVE QB hits is good against any NFL QB, but exceptional against a guy like DWatson, who is elusive as it gets. The bad news was the 132 rushing yds they gave up to the Texans RB's. I'm not sure if this was a matter of poor schemes or just poor play. This SHOULD be an important discussion when the all 22 comes out. But watching that 3rd quarter TD drive was very disturbing at the time. Another thing they we need to see is who was in the different situational defenses over the course of the game.
Kudos to Larry Guy who I thought had a very strong game. Flowers and Wise might have gotten credit for the 3 sacks, but Guy, Shelton ,and Brown did a lot of the dirty work up the middle to make those happen. I would love to see how the pressures/hits stats break down.
Adrian Claybourn didn't make the NFL.com stat sheet, but I'm sure he had several pressures. I was impressed with the depth of his rushes and how disciplined he was in maintaining his leverage and not running past the QB. From what I saw he has a non-stop motor.
So in the end lets see how things improve or not going forward. Ideally we can continue to bring controlled pressure, while improving on the run stats.
As for the LB's I thought it was a mixed bag. Bentley flashed, though I'm sure he had his share of errors. He was (for the most part) just hair late in his pass coverage, but that should get better. This WAS his first look at real game speed this year. He wasn't horrible, and I thought it telling that on a couple of plays they put him outside on a WR
Fortunately they never threw his way. I wonder why?Van Noy made a couple of impact plays including that great tackle on the reverse as well as a couple of other plays. But if there was one disappointment for me it was Dante Hightower. I'm not saying he played badly, but he IS the 2nd highest paid defensive player and except for being the one who fell on the fumble (one of several Pats how were in the vicinity) he was invisible to me (credited with 2 assisted T's). I expect more from him. But its early yet. I h.ope it isn't a trend.
8. Secondary. Compared to last season, Stephon Gilmore started out very strongly, imho. Hopkins is one of the best WR's in the league, and Gilmore certainly kept him under control. Sure he had his catches, but only one was deep (17yds), and all the rest were closely contested. Good to see him moving players around before the snap as opposed to being the one who needed to be moved. I liked the Gilmore I saw today.
The last time these 2 teams met, the Pats gave up over 300 yds passing. Today that number was 176, Granted Watson was playing HIS first game after an ACL and wasn't sharp; this was a marked improvement. Very few of the Texan receivers were running wide open through the secondary. For the most part they made the Texans earn every reception they had.
Bottom line - Hopefully this is not the best this secondary will be, but it's a good starting point heading into week 2.
9. Special teams - This has historically been one of the best units in the league. Well punt coverage and the kicking games were a good as we are accustomed to expect. BUT the KO coverage was as bad as I can ever remember seeing. I don't know why, but the NEVER held Houston inside the 25 and the way they were going, I was starting to be thrilled to see them stopped inside the 35.
. It looked like a couple of them were one step away from going a lot further. Let us hope this will improve GREATLY going forward.10. The refs - I think we got one on the Gronk catch, though I'm sure there are some that think it was good and I guess there COULD be a case made for it....but.
There were only 12 accepted penalties and for the most part the refs let them play and the game flowed well. No onerous PI's, or helmet penalties. I'd give these guys an A- though it is also a credit to both coaching staffs that the game was played as cleanly as it was, especially when you compare it some of the other games where there were 25-30 flags.11. The announcers - Romo is even better this year. His job is to make the audience smarter about the game and he does it over and over, and is mostly right. I don't even mind the rare times he's wrong. If he going to be exceptional he can't be afraid to make a mistake. And if there is one thing that Romo doesn't seen to be is afraid.
Nance on the other hand should shut up and remember he's there to be the play by play guy. He's good at that, except he tends to stray into trying to analyze too. When he does that, it isn't good. Stay in your lane, Jim!!!!
12. Next week - Brady is going to face the challenge of facing even a TOUGHER defense and do it on the road when the Pats travel to Jacksonville. Before this game, I would have told I'd be fine with the Pats being 2-2 going into October. After watching this game, I have to say my expectations have been raised.
Any road game is very difficult, but the Pats may have caught a break if Fornette is out this week. Unfortunately Fornette doesn't play defense, so I expect anything over 20 points to be an excellent outcome for an offense that after that game will STILL be a work in progress.
OK that should be enough to start a discussion. As always feel free to comment, add insights or disagree. I'm happy I managed to end up 2-2 on my picks with the Lions game left to see if I can get to 3-2.
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