Battle Red Blog
The preseason is mercifully over. The Houston Texans thoroughly dominated the Detroit Lions 26-7. So, for the second week in a row we will be doing a great, good, and bad. Before we get there, we will look at the overall numbers for the game. Following the first quarter, the game was never in doubt, but looking at the numbers over a long period of time tells us two things. First, we get to see trends of which numbers predict victory and defeat the most. Secondly, we get to see which numbers the Texans are good at and which ones they struggle with more often.
On the first count, a team can learn a lot by re-engineering the numbers to determine which ones actually correlate stronger with winning. If you are able to find that out then you are able to build your strategy and roster in such ways to create those results. The second count is somewhat related. We then can see if the Texans are good at doing those things or not.
Clint Stoerner on the Texans flagship station (610 AM) has a term he likes to use. He calls it “football horny.” I realize that kind of terminology will leave some folks feeling uncomfortable, but these kinds of numbers have to leave DeMeco Ryans feeling football horny. We have never seen a time of possession and total play differential as steep as this one. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it and at least never in the last decade.
There were no starters in this game, so we should pump the brakes on unbridled optimism, but we can chalk it up as a good sign. It goes to a common Bill O’Brienism (shudder) “complimentary football.” The offense and defense both have to be on top of their games in order for this to work. While we cannot extrapolate specifically about these two football teams in terms of predicting the future, we can say confidently that this is the type of football Ryans wants to see.
For the second week in a row, it is the defense. On the second drive of the game, the Lions marched the ball 85 yards down the field and scored what was then a go ahead touchdown. They never seriously threatened for the rest of the game. A part of that is that the Lions just didn’t get a lot of plays, but going three and out will do that to a team. On the rest of the game, they ran 26 plays and gained 101 yards. That is a remarkably dominating performance.
Granted, the usual caveats come into play here. Would they have done this against the Lions...
