Battle Red Blog
What was the good, bad, and ugly from the Texans 21-13 loss?
This is usually a next day feature here at Battle Red Blog. Having a Thursday night game affords me the advantage of running this on Monday while also having a few days to cool off following the defeat. Hopefully, this makes the analysis more dispassionate than it would have been on Friday morning.
This is just a reminder that we are looking at more than just the game between the Houston Texans and New York Jets. We are looking at the whole season and now that we are at the virtual halfway point, these things start to take on added significance. This is especially true when we see them happen multiple times.
Total Yards: Texans 322, Jets 293
Rushing: Texans 36/187, Jets 21/100
Passing: Texans 39/135, Jets 34/193
Sacks: Texans 2, Jets 8
Turnovers: Texans 1, Jets 1
Penalties: Texans 7/60, Jets 9/83
Time of Possession: Texans 33:42, Jets 26:18
Tytus Howard talked about how the Texans “let one slip away.” He must have been watching a different game than we were. Yes, the Texans gained more yards than the Jets, but that is the only area where they had a major advantage. The Jets were the ones committing stupid penalties at the worst possible time. The Jets were the team with a wide receiver that inexplicably dropped the ball before crossing the goal line. This game wasn’t one that slipped away.
Of course, Howard might be trying to deflect some of the blame from his unit. We will get there in due time though. This is still a 6-3 football team that still has a comfortable lead in the AFC South. All criticisms have to be offered with that idea in the background. Things could obviously be much worse.
I spent most of last season lamenting any time the Texans handed the ball off to a running back. I called them wasted downs and that was particularly true when Dameon Pierce was the running back. Thursday night might have been the best overall running effort of the season when you consider that they spent much of the second half behind and C.J. Stroud also got in on the fun.
Simply put, Joe Mixon just makes this a better football team. He has 609 yards rushing in six games this season. He is averaging nearly five yards a carry and has scored seven total touchdowns on the season. He had the Texans only touchdown in this game. Recent weeks have almost made this season a complete 180. You’d rather see the team running the football with Mixon than anything else.
I have to imagine that this looks more like the kind of football that DeMeco Ryans envisioned when he took the job in the first place. I don’t know if the run blocking is just THAT much better than the pass blocking or if Joe Mixon is just that good. I’m leaning...
