Battle Red Blog
The high of obliterating the hapless Baltimore Ravens 44-10 can only last so long. But hopefully that spark carries on for the next several months.
Houston has rarely done well in nationally televised games, going 16-28 according to ChampsorChumps.us.
A lot of those loses are due to short weeks, where the team didn’t have enough time to prepare. Or coaching ineptitude by way of BO’B, David Culley. etc.
Now they have 1 of the 2 best coaches in Texans history, Demeco Ryans, and they’ve had 2 full weeks to prepare.
Meanwhile, their opponent on Monday Night Football, the Seattle Seahawks, are coming off a 20-12 win against the Jacksonville Jaguars in week 6.
The Texans and Seahawks have met in the regular season just 5 times to date, with the Fogbirds winning 4 of those matches. This time, the Texans bring Ryans, who was most recently the defensive coordinator of Seattle’s division rival, the San Francisco 49ers. Does this give H-Town an advantage? Probably not, but people will say it does.
Either way, if the Texans want to prove that their destruction of the Ravens wasn’t just taking advantage of a team currently spiraling into the dirt, this is the game to do it.
Seattle currently has the 10th ranked offensive in total yards gained, with 2138 (356.3 per game).
Houston currently has the 4th ranked defense, with 1329 total yards against (265.8 per game).
The Fogbirds defense sits at 13th place, with 1887 yards against (314.5 per game).
The Texans offense is 20th, with 1572 yards gained (314.4 per game).
Based on yardage alone, the edge goes to Houston. Unfortunately, that’s not a locked-down predictor of NFL outcomes.
This might be though:
Sam Darnold and Jaxon Smith-Njigba have been lighting opposing defenses on fire to the tune of 696 receiving yards for Smith-Njigba and 3 receiving touchdowns.
C.J. Stroud and Nico Collins are woefully behind in the yards/touchdowns stats, even though they’ve played 1 less game. 312 receiving yards and 3 touchdowns is hardly where most expected Collins to sit coming out of the bye week, but here we are.
Hopefully the week off did the team good and the extra days of preparation against Seattle will shine through on Monday night.
