Not even close
Poor coaching decisions keep holding back team
Maybe there will come a point when Deshaun Watson throws down his helmet in pure frustration after another inexplicable fourth-down decision is sent in from the Texans’ sideline, then shouts for everyone to hear that he has had enough.
Far too many Texans fans are already there.
They have been since 2015. Or ’14, depending on your personal breaking point.
And they were forced to relive one of their worst
football memories again Sunday inside near-empty NRG Stadium.
I will not overreact to two losses against Super Bowl LV contenders during a crazy NFL season that is scheduled to last until, at least, Jan. 3 for the 2020 Texans. Winning the AFC South again is still possible for the reigning back-to-back division champs.
I also refuse, as a sports columnist working in Houston, to overlook the coaching decision that so painfully and perfectly captured the Texans’ 33-16 defeat to the Baltimore Ravens.
The Texans weren’t supposed to beat Lamar Jackson’s team.
But going for it on fourth-and-1 at your 34yard line as the second quarter approached, with Jackson’s squad already holding a lead and in control of the contest?
Absolutely unbelievable.
Or completely believable if you’re a long-suffering Texans fan and still have the pain of the “fake” punt in the 2019 playoffs inside Arrowhead Stadium against the eventual Super Bowl champion burned into your heart and brain.
Sunday marked the worst fourth-down decision since the worst fourth-down decision in Texans history.
The kicker?
When O’Brien explained this one after another lopsided defeat to a championship contender, he basically relied on the same weird answer he used after Patrick Mahomes’ Chiefs erased a 24-0 lead.
“We had a fourth-and-1 early in the game, and then the game was changed a little bit,” O’Brien said Sunday. “We punted that one and (the Ravens) went down and kicked a field goal. But they possessed the ball so, again, we felt like we needed possessions in the game.
“We decided to go for it. We put a play out there. They called timeout. We changed the play. The play didn’t work, and so we didn’t convert it. But that’s just the way it works. They did a better job than us on that, and we just need to work hard to improve.”
Little League teams work hard to improve.
NFL translation: The Texans’ head coach/general manager was afraid that his team wouldn’t be able to score enough points against a better team. So he went for it on fourth down before halftime on his team’s side of the field.
A few always loyal Texans backers will call that a bold strategy.
To me, it stinks again of panic and desperation. And I’ve been chronicling the Texans’ annual timemanagement/in-game strategy blunders in the O’Brien era since 2014.
In some ways, nothing has changed.
In other ways, the numbing repetition only makes the inexplicable worse.
“Look, it hurts. We wish — again, they did a better job on that one than us,” O’Brien said. “We had a good play there. We felt we had a couple good plays and we just didn’t get it done. I don’t think that lost the game. We were able to come back at the end of the half and cut the lead. But that definitely was one of the plays that hurt.”
It definitely didn’t help them win the game.
Getting within 20-10 at halftime also isn’t an accomplishment worth bragging about.
A high school or college coach would have been run out of town years ago with the same vague, it’s-not-that-big-of-a-deal answers.
The O’Brien-run Texans are simply 0-2 and will try harder next week.
“We have to get better quickly in all areas,” said O’Brien, with the 2-0 Pittsburgh Steelers waiting.
Thanks to silent stands, cardboard cutouts intentionally placed behind an end zone and tarpedoff sections, Week 2 in 2020 was officially the weirdest game in Texans history before it even began.
Then the Texans started Texans-ing, and it really got crazy.
Baltimore rushed for 230 yards. The Texans ran for just 51.
Watson was outplayed by Mahomes in Week 1 and
Jackson in Week 2.
The Texans’ offense swam in molasses.
Will Fuller didn’t have a catch against the Ravens because the Texans’ supposed new No. 1 wide receiver wasn’t even targeted. Little-seen Keke Coutee set up a Baltimore touchdown with a sudden fumble after taking a few steps.
Ex-Texan DeAndre Hopkins, traded last offseason by O’Brien, is 2-0 with Arizona. He has 22 catches for 219 yards and a TD with his new team.
The Texans were only 3-of-9 on third down and turned the ball over twice, while the Ravens played almost four full quarters of clean football in a 17-point victory that wasn’t that close.
There are, obviously, many reasons the Texans are 0-2.
“It’s the mental mistakes that we have to really clean up because the teams that really did that well, they won for the most part,” O’Brien said last week, referring to what stood out overall from Week 1. “We’re working hard on that this week to clean a lot of that up.”
You knew it as soon as another failed fourth down was called in from the sideline way too early.
The Texans weren’t winning another big game on Sunday.
Because the other team wasn’t just better. The opponent was also smarter than O’Brien’s team when a victory and loss were being defined.