Battle Red Blog
All football games have context. The context for this game blew up when the Jacksonville Jaguars defeated the Tennessee Titans 41-7 to clinch the AFC South division. A very sarcastic thank you to the folks from Possum Holler for showing up and playing a competitive football game there. It’s good to know they weren’t phoning it in (eye roll). At any rate, the Texans clearly were not trying their best because of those results, so it is hard to reach any conclusions from this game individually.
However, we always look at the numbers because the numbers themselves can tell us a great deal about winning and losing in general. Over the course of 17 games we will see patterns from the Texans specifically and from teams that win and lose. Afterwards, we will look at the great, good, and bad as we always do in Texans victories.
For the third week in a row, the officials played a major role in the game. Perhaps, with an officials’ labor contract looming, they felt they needed to make their presence known. In this case, they tossed Alec Pierce from the game for bumping the back judge. Technically, he did make contact with the official, but he did not intend to bump him and the ejection is one of the weakest calls I have seen in years. The Texans had no answer for Pierce throughout the day, so his ejection did more to slow down the Colts offense than anything the Texans backups were doing.
Obviously, that is a little bit of commentary in a feature that should be about the numbers. The numbers have shown what they have shown all season. The key to winning football games is winning the turnover battle. Take away those turnovers and the Colts win the game and win it easily. The strip sack in the first half led directly to an easy touchdown and the interception in the second half led to a field goal. Throw in a meaningless touchdown at the end and the Texans defense was responsible for 16 of the team’s 38 points.
Give DeMeco Ryans and his staff some credit. Trying to win a football game while resting key players is a tightrope that most teams are unable to manage. It is a difficult decision as well. Regardless of wins and losses, you want to feel like you have momentum going into the playoffs. I’m not sure if the Texans can feel great about the win, but they have had numerous games in this nine game winning streak that didn’t feel fantastic. So, in a...
