Official Post Game Thread- Texans beat the Pats

[Lagaffe_07]

Stidham had an opportunity in training camp and didn't seize it

That is not really true. He was the best QB the first two days then got injured and lost reps because of it and after that he was too far behind and couldn’t make up ground. I am not saying he would have won the job because I think Bill told Cam he would be the starter all along when he signed him.

Honestly, depending on our situation at that moment of course, I would give Stidham the last two games of the season. I want to see how Stidham plays with a full week of preparation. I want to see if he can at least be a decent back up that can win games if our starter gets injured.

 

[Lagaffe_07]

Back to the game, yesterday Cam was Ok. I thought it had more to do to the fact than the Houston passing D was horrible yesterday. It was way worse than ours and we only scored 20. I never saw so many wide open Patriots receiver this year.

they were plays where Byrd caught the ball and there wasn’t a Houston defender in a 10 yards radius.

i don’t know if it is why Josh decided to throw the ball more. Because Houston was selling ou to stop the run and there was patriots receiver open all over the field.

they had pressure but it was often on blitzes with DBs and Cam has to recognize these plays and adjust the protection which he didn’t

 

[luuked]

Disappointing outcome. But it encapsulated the main issue that has prevented this team from being at around 7 wins this year: consistency of execution.

And that goes towards everyone and every unit on the team. Except maybe Jake Bailey who has been mostly knocking those punts out of the park.

I wonder if there is a metric for how many "clean" drives teams manage. Because more often than not our offense stutters when it starts self sabotaging themselves.

Whether that is a lineman screwing up an assignment or getting beat too easily, someone causing yet another penalty on plays, the QB underthrowing short passes so they bounce off the turf or sometimes even a player just slipping there has just been way too much of that. They did an admirable job of overcoming this at times against the Texans with a pretty productive passing game but in the end -- combined with losing your LT at the 2min warning -- it was just too much.

Good choice by the Texans to keep blitzing out of their run formations. Once they had figured out how to defend the crack tosses there was not much of a running game left and we went into passing mode which worked fine when the execution was clean.

But it brings me to another issue that has followed them for a while now. As much as the OL looked great in the run game until yesterday, they have had issues with pass protection for a while now and yesterday it was another killer:






The defense played well against the run but their inability to contain at times (Wino set the damn edge!) and more importantly tackle Watson just gave Houston enough of an edge to score their points. Kudos to Watson for his unreal accuracy when rolling out. As bad as the pass defense looked yesterday you can't realistically expect them to cover for more than 3-4 seconds. There will always be someone open somewhere.

Ultimately the loss of key pieces on defense (KVN, Collins, Shelton, Hightower, Chung) is just too much. I guess we all expected them to regress some but that they would go from the #1 in DVOA to #32 is just a back breaker. I suppose a lot of this looks even worse when you end up playing a lot of zone with inexperienced players.

On the plus side it was another close and exciting game. I hope the remaining games this season follow that trend and are as dramatically entertaining.

Fingers crossed that Rex has a full recovery from what looked like a season-ender and that Wynn somehow got away lucky and can be back this year.

 

[Mike the Brit]

Bad loss. No complaints. At least, Nick Folk looked awesome.

(1. Deshaun Watson is a very good quarterback. Cam Newton not so much.

2. If BB is right and James White is the best third-down back in the league, think how much better he'd be if he could break a tackle or make someone miss

3. You can have the best secondary you like, but it doesn't matter if the receivers are competent and the quarterback has seven seconds to throw the ball

4. The point of rushing the passer is to stop him from throwing the ball. It's not much use if you get close but then let him run away.)

 

[SHOWTIME15]

Bill Belichick mum on Damien Harris' disappearance vs. Texans

After a hot start, Damien Harris’ playing time quickly dwindled.

patriotswire.usatoday.com

 

[sb1]

They have more potential offensively this year than last year. Just with the fact that they have an OL and a running game this year which Brady hadn’t last year.

Brady would not be 0 for 4 with the ball at the opponent 30 at the end of games. That basically put you at least between 8-2 to 6-4 because I think would he would have converted at least 50%

It has less to do with Brady himself and more to do with the state of the defense. They were (mostly) great last year, and one could easily argue they masked a lot of deficiencies on a weak offense. This year they're pretty terrible, and I'm skeptical now that Brady with this offense could have carried them and get in. I'm sure they'd be better than 4-6 but not that much better.

 

[Pats2000]

It's never Harry's fault right ? 2 years and a catch % of 55%. Doesn't matter if it's Cam or the GOAT. Also multiple INTs given up, he doesn't fight for the ball. Oh and also concussion prone and injury prone. He's on a similar trajectory as Rivers and Froholdt.

.

I'm not saying he's a great receiver man. I'm just saying it wasn't like they shipped the ball to him 10 times. I think he got 3 or 4 targets, one of them was a drop and one of them was in the dirt at his feet. The other two he caught. No need to extrapolate. He's a #3 or #4 potential receiver at best right now. What I was saying is that Cam went 26 of 40 and missed a lot of guys and had a lot of balls batted down because he telegraphs his throws. He's not an accurate passer unless he can get his feet set perfectly. Otherwise the ball sails on him.

 

[patsinthesnow]

Bright spot on the DL continues. Davis played 20 snaps at NT and led the team with 4 pressures (not good for the defense overall).

Run defense 3.6 ypc in the 3 games he’s played. Have to re-sign him.

 

[Scotty]

Davis , yes but its a start and help is needed

 

[luuked]

Since Reiss brought it up on his Twitter.. this was also once again a game that was wrecked by a lack of consistency by the refs:

Cooks gains 44 on a pick that happens between the 32 and 33 yard line (i.e. slightly outside the 1 yard buffer):



At the same time Harry gets called on a ******** call that most likely was on Byrd with the contact happening exactly one yard beyond the LOS:



This turned a Burkhead first down at the Texans' 20 into a 2nd & 17.

In turn the refs ignored how blatantly Carl Davis was held on Watson's TD run instead of turning it into 2 & goal from like the 20. But at least missing OL holds was a theme for the crew yesterday because they pretty much ignored most of them.


It will never happen because the League doesn't care but for gods sake if the refs can't figure out how to be consistent applying the rules then adjust the rules to be more black and white and less of a judgement call. I don't care if that means going ultra conservative or ultra lax but the inconsistencies of how the same rules are applied in a single game by the very same crew are very frustrating.

And no I am not saying the refs stole the game. This is just a general observation that I would have made win or lose.

 

[1960Pats]

Bad loss. No complaints. At least, Nick Folk looked awesome.

(1. Deshaun Watson is a very good quarterback. Cam Newton not so much.

2. If BB is right and James White is the best third-down back in the league, think how much better he'd be if he could break a tackle or make someone miss

3. You can have the best secondary you like, but it doesn't matter if the receivers are competent and the quarterback has seven seconds to throw the ball

4. The point of rushing the passer is to stop him from throwing the ball. It's not much use if you get close but then let him run away.)

2. BB is absolutely correct about White. He's one of the best at making defenders miss.

 

[Patsfanin Philly]

On the double safety blitz in the 4th quarter,Harry was in motion from left to right and blitzer went right by him. Is it his assignment or option to chip the blitzer to slow him down?

 

[Lagaffe_07]

Since Reiss brought it up on his Twitter.. this was also once again a game that was wrecked by a lack of consistency by the refs:

Cooks gains 44 on a pick that happens between the 32 and 33 yard line (i.e. slightly outside the 1 yard buffer):



At the same time Harry gets called on a ******** call that most likely was on Byrd with the contact happening exactly one yard beyond the LOS:



This turned a Burkhead first down at the Texans' 20 into a 2nd & 20.

In turn the refs ignored how blatantly Carl Davis was held on Watson's TD run instead of turning it into 2 & goal from like the 20. But at least missing OL holds was a theme for the crew yesterday because they pretty much ignored most of them.


It will never happen because the League doesn't care but for gods sake if the refs can't figure out how to be consistent applying the rules then adjust the rules to be more black and white and less of a judgement call. I don't care if that means going ultra conservative or ultra lax but the inconsistencies of how the same rules are applied in a single game by the very same crew are very frustrating.

And no I am not saying the refs stole the game. This is just a general observation that I would have made win or lose.

i always thought they annonced the wrong number on the Harry penalty and that was Byrd who was flagged.

There was bad calls on both sides. The Texans were screwed also.

In the second half, the refs gave a first down when Byrd launch himself and extended for the first but if you look at the replay his knee is down about 3 yards short.

They gave a first down to Harry at the end and IMO he didn’t get it.

and they missed a blatant trip by Dugger on the TE just before our last drive. Fortunately for us because otherwise it was a TD.

I will say the refs in the end were a non factor in this game.

 

[1960Pats]

Since Reiss brought it up on his Twitter.. this was also once again a game that was wrecked by a lack of consistency by the refs:

Cooks gains 44 on a pick that happens between the 32 and 33 yard line (i.e. slightly outside the 1 yard buffer):



At the same time Harry gets called on a ******** call that most likely was on Byrd with the contact happening exactly one yard beyond the LOS:



This turned a Burkhead first down at the Texans' 20 into a 2nd & 20.

In turn the refs ignored how blatantly Carl Davis was held on Watson's TD run instead of turning it into 2 & goal from like the 20. But at least missing OL holds was a theme for the crew yesterday because they pretty much ignored most of them.


It will never happen because the League doesn't care but for gods sake if the refs can't figure out how to be consistent applying the rules then adjust the rules to be more black and white and less of a judgement call. I don't care if that means going ultra conservative or ultra lax but the inconsistencies of how the same rules are applied in a single game by the very same crew are very frustrating.

And no I am not saying the refs stole the game. This is just a general observation that I would have made win or lose.

Exactly. The inconsistency of calls, from game to game and within games, is making the NYFL close to unwatchable. Every time there's a great play we have to wait to see if there's a flag, which usually comes.

On the flip side, the last two minutes of regulation in the GB/Indy game took at least a half hour because Indy, who was trying to hold a 3 point lead and was close to the red zone with the ball, took one penalty after another for what seemed like 10 straight plays. When they showed them on replay, lo and behold, they were all legit.

Because of that nonsense, Indy didn't run off any clock and gave the ball back to GB for an easy game-tying FG. Then when GB won the toss in OT and got the ball, it looked like they'd probably march right down the field again for the game-winner. Instead they fumbled on one of their first plays and Indy got a gift win.

 

[Nunchucks]

I'd like to add that I've seen Watson turn into a terrible qb when under pressure. Probably would have been better to blitz him rather than do what the patriots did yesterday.

 

[1960Pats]

I'd be the first one to throw blame Cam's way but this loss was all on the coaching.

Where does it say that because a team puts in a certain defense that the offense should just give up on running the ball? That's what Seattle did when The Butler Did It in the SB. It makes the offense too predictable.

And WTF is with the end runs on 3rd and short? There were a few examples of that, including the run that took out Burkhead. There was also a second and inches close to the red zone that screamed for a play action pass. Instead they ran a very obvious QB sneak, which btw Brady runs better than Cam, that barely made a first down.

On the following 1st down play, Cam fakes a handoff to Harry on a sweep, who then waved at the blitzing DB who ran right past him for a sack and a 10 yard loss. That left them with a 2nd and 20 and no chance at another 1st down or a game-tying TD.

I've always been a believer in the old axiom that coaches don't win games, players do. Coaches can only lose them. This game was another perfect example of that.

Edit: One other thing. Did I see the Pats only rushing three players in the red zone on one of Houston's TD's? WTF?

 

[PATSYLICIOUS]

Wonder what it’d take to get Watson here. Too bad bob is gone

 

[Kdo5]

Putting this on the defense first and foremost. Supposed to be an area of strength for this team and they got shredded by Watson. The offense is limited but they made plays and scored points. If the defense can't produce good games for us, we will not win. And they are regressing defensively. No turnovers is a killer.

 

[luuked]

Where does it say that because a team puts in a certain defense that the offense should just give up on running the ball? That's what Seattle did when The Butler Did It in the SB. It makes the offense too predictable.

Lazar cleared some of it up by now. What the Texans realized was how much we were pulling linemen in our run game and were sending blitzers through those gaps. Once they also had a handle on the crack toss run game we really didn't have much more in store that was particularly efficient. So switching to the pass game made a lot of sense and it was actually working relatively fine.

And WTF is with the end runs on 3rd and short? There were a few examples of that, including the run that took out Burkhead.

That's a pretty bad example. What was up with that play is that the Texans were playing for the QB sneak and were heavy inside. Going instead to the side was a good call. Just a bad outcome because the blocking didn't hold up.

On the following 1st down play, Cam fakes a handoff to Harry on a sweep, who then waved at the blitzing DB who ran right past him for a sack and a 10 yard loss. That left them with a 2nd and 20 and no chance at another 1st down or a game-tying TD.

That's not on Harry. He is doing his job and running his pattern (i.e. jet sweep).

Perry mentioned that Meyers and Izzo even pointed to Reid before that sack but in the end nobody picked him up:



Just another example of bad execution.

 

[1960Pats]

Wonder what it’d take to get Watson here. Too bad bob is gone

I heard an interesting take about BOB the other day. He was being criticized for having problems with his star players, like he did with Clowney and Hopkins. We saw a little of that here with Brady one time too. Since Bill's drafts have left us without star players maybe it'll work