The Houston Texans travel to Carolina to face the Panthers after having a bye last week to extend their winning streak. With the Panthers being winless, Houston was heavily favored in today’s matchup. Some did this game as a trap game for the young and hungry Texans, Ari Alexander predicted this game could be a sneaky win for the Panthers. Other analysts and fans were certain that Houston would ruin Julius Pepper’s Panthers Ring of Honor induction.
Unfortunately, Ari was right on the Texans Fan Battle podcast, the Texans fell into the trap game. This wasn’t the same Houston team as we had seen before last week’s bye. Was the rest a factor? Too much rust? Or did the coaching fall short of preparations for the game?
Let’s dive into today’s game. First couple of drives both teams’ defenses executed their game plans and forced three-and-outs. Bobby Slowik led the CJ Stroud offense to a nice drive to put seven points on the board with an Andrew Beck run up the middle. Texans offense was a well-oiled machine, with Bobby Slowik mixing it up with some different plays, the offense was on a roll. Slowik has finally brought some of the 49ers playbook to his arsenal by adding Tank Dell to the running game. Offensive play calling kept the Panther’s defense on its heels, well for a short period.
After the first scoring drive by the offense, that well-oiled machine seemed to have a slipped gear. Play calls went from explosive to conservative with a lot of running plays. That decision would been brilliant if the offensive line didn’t fail when it came to run blocking. Dameon Pierce, Devin Singeltary, and Mike Boone all played well and ran with a purpose but had to fight for extra yards due to bad blocking. Texans ran for 110 yards for the entire game, 71 of which came off after contact. To add more the offensive line played flat in the passing game as well. Yes, they only allowed 2 sacks against the Panther’s defense but when the Panther’s defensive linemen disengaged, our linemen didn’t pursue and allowed 4 batted passes at the line of scrimmage. That’s not the worst of it. With an injured line, rookie standout Jarrett Patterson goes down with a knee injury. They were having swingman Micheal Dieter replace him at the center position.
The offense wasn’t the main reason for the Texans loss today. The defense has some costly miscues today that were small but impactful. Houston’s rush defense played their best game yet, wrapping up tackles and causing short gains. The pass rush was a different story. Even though the team had a total of six sacks, even more, were missed by poor tackling from the pass rushers. Many of Bryce Young’s passing yards came off of extended plays from breaking arm tackles.
I won’t say it was Demeco Ryans’ scheme that hurt us today but adding the poor tackling from the pass rush exploited this defense. Zone coverage is something the Texans do not need to play with an injured defensive secondary. When Bryce extended the play, the defensive backs blew the coverage taking their eyes off the receivers. Big plays were unnecessarily given up by the wrong coverage. Not only did the zone coverage allow big plays but also made Bryce Young look like a season vet out there.
Tally all the negatives from both sides of the ball, Texans still should have left Carolina with a victory. The factor that sealed the game was Houston’s penalties. Crucial points of the game on both sides of the ball caused penalties to either hinder their drive or prolong the time of the defense being on the field. The Texans committed 10 penalties for a tremendous 70 yards. The amount of yards isn’t the worst, like I said earlier, penalties at crucial times are what weaken this team.
This game was a tough one to watch, especially for the Texans to be heavily favored. Like every professional says “Move on to the next game.” Bet before we move to next week’s game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, tune into the Texans Fan Battle podcast as we recap more into this game.
Also before I sign off, the Texans did have some fans attend the game today. Christopher Remmington, a native Carolinian has been winless every time he attends a Texans game in Carolina. So if you see Christopher make sure you blame this loss on him!
