• ROBERTSON ON ODD SEASON.
After season seemed over, sloppy opponents push team to first-place tie in division
A month ago, I thought the Texans needed to run the table against the Giants, Colts, Cowboys and Bills to so much as contemplate a playoff a run after their 0-2 start.
Clearly lacking my hairs-on-fire sense of urgency, however, they promptly went out and lost to the Giants — their only win this season.
At home. With Eli Manning completing 25 of 29 passes. The season looked over.
Except it wasn’t. In Jacksonville come Sunday, they’ll be trying to break a three-way tie for first place in the AFC South.
Because Frank Reich stubbornly refused to punt.
Because Jason Garrett punted.
Because Nathan Peterman and Blake Bortles are Nathan Peterman and Blake Bortles.
And because Marcus Mariota isn’t the Marcus Mariota he was supposed to be.
The Texans have yet to play well start to finish in any game this season, a season in which they are 3-3 but could just as easily be 6-0 or 0-6. But they have been equal parts lucky and resilient — head coach Bill O’Brien used that word to describe them — and their opponents have proven to be benevolent or flat-out brain dead, or some combination of both.
As I typed this, J. J. Watt sent a tweet that read, “Find a way.” Continuing to encounter chumps will make it easier. While they couldn’t thwart the usually hapless Blaine Gabbert, who found a way to beat them 20-17 filling in Mariota for the Titans, they have since routinely capitalized since on their opponents’ physical and intellectual shortcomings.
Although Bills’ backup quarterback Peterman, having to take over after rookie starter Josh Allen left with an elbow injury, would throw a go-ahead touchdown pass to wide receiver Zay Jones early in the fourth quarter, he reverted to form. Impending disaster is a when, not an if, when that poor guy is under center.
In his first career start about 11 months ago, Peterman would throw only one fewer interception (five) than he did completions. In this season’s opener, five completions against only two picks represented progress, albeit not enough for Buffalo coach Sean McDermott to give him the hook and go with Allen the next week.
“It’s hard to play quarterback in this league,” Jones said in defense of Peterman on Sunday. “I’m proud of Nate. He came in and did the best he could. He didn’t want to throw that interception.”
Well, actually he threw two – both in the final minute and a half. Johnathan Joseph’s 28-yard pick-six broke a 13-13 tie and Kareem Jackson’s pick (no six necessary) ensured Peterman wouldn’t redeem himself. It wasn’t a fair fight. Joseph is in his 13th season, Jackson his ninth. Peterman hasn’t yet played in nine games and might never reach that milestone the way it’s going. The Texans should be counting their blessing that they wound up crossing paths with him before he disappears.
And that Bortles, who’s up to his old tricks again after impersonating a franchise quarterback in fits and spurts last season, is next on the Texans’ schedule, possibly followed by Brock Osweiler when the Dolphins come to NRG Stadium the following Thursday evening.
By halftime in Dallas, the Cowboys were drubbing Jacksonville 24-0 and Bortles had thrown for 35 yards (he wound up with 149 in a 40-7 drubbing). A week earlier, he complied 430 against Kansas City but also got intercepted four times in a 30-14 beat down. Mariota, in turn, couldn’t generate a touchdown against the Ravens on Sunday. Baltimore 21, Tenneesee 0.
As for Osweiler, despite his improbably pulling off an overtime victory over the Bears, I can’t tell you anything about his abundant inadequacies you haven’t already seen for yourself.
Anyway, the Texans sneaked away with their third victory in succession despite scoring only one offensive touchdown themselves, off a typically whoopinducing, Velcro-fingered endzone catch by wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins. They have but 11 on the season, only four more the Bills, who possess the NFL’s most impotent offense no matter which quarterback plays.
A mitigating factor was quarterback Deshaun Watson’s chest injury, suffered against the Cowboys. He went out and played with great courage — getting sacked seven more times to take over the NFL lead with 25, or four-plus per start — but he didn’t acquit himself well if the aesthetics mattered, throwing two picks of his own and losing a strip-sack fumble. One of the former and the latter led directly to 10 of Buffalo’s second-half points.
He protested that he was “fine” and that he didn’t want to use whatever exactly was wrong with him as an excuse. But he wasn’t fine and he’s not going to be if the punishment continues, which it will because there’s no easy fix for the Texans’ manpower-short offensive line. He was sacked seven times and hit 12 more times by the Bills.
At game’s end, Watson was the NFL “leader” in both categories.
Head’s up special-teams play, resulting in the recovery of a muffed punt that set up the Hopkins touchdown and a blocked punt that led to the first of Ka’imi Fairbairn’s two field goals, compensated somewhat for the Texans’ myriad offensive shortcomings, including their turning a first-and-goal at the Bills’ 1 into a fourth-and-goal back at the 8, requiring them to be happy with a 24-yard field goal. This after they had needed field goals of 21, 20 and 19 yards to squeak past the Cowboys 19-16.
The decisive fourth Fairbairn field goal of 36 yards followed Garrett’s decision to punt the ball away on fourth-and-1 at the Texans’ 42. Seven days earlier, Reich, rather than settle for the tie he was assured by punting from his own 43, had Andrew Luck attempt a pass. It fell incomplete. A 24-yard Watson-toHopkins completion followed before Fairbairn’s 37-yarder sent everybody home.
So the Texans have lost by seven to the Patriots, by three to the Titans and by five to the Giants, while beating the Colts and the Cowboys by three and the Bills by seven, on a defensive score.
The razor’s edge…
“I think that was a really important win right there,” O’Brien said Sunday, looking a bit like he’d seen a ghost. “But I also know we’re not going to be where we want to be unless we figure out this thing on offense.”
Good luck with that, given the O-line’s manpower shortcomings. Bortles at least figures to buy O'Brien and his assistants another week of head-scratching.