For your reading pleasure, and to drive my point home, I offer a few links to some blog reports on the game, as well as some key quotes. Of course, none of these guys are experts like the coaches are; they are just average Joes who want the Texans to win (like me):
http://www.examiner.com/houston-texans- ... ay-callingThe Texans had huge success running the ball against the Colts a month ago but last night they inexplicably came out by passing the ball on the first four plays of the game. The trend continued throughout the game and contributed directly to the hole they dug for themselves..http://www.texansbullblog.com/quick-tho ... xans-news/The Texans were looking dominant on the ground again, too bad the coaches lost the game by refusing to use the run game. When your run game is this dominant, you can’t use the excuse “we were down by X points”. They could have killed the Colts on the ground.http://houston.sbnation.com/2010/11/2/1 ... nner-childYou might think that it'd be hard for an inner child to find a game plan on the internet, and I don't blame you. It does require somewhat of a suspension of disbelief. Then again, so did the fact that the Texans couldn't figure out how to run the damn ball all over the Colts after that was precisely how they won the first game. http://www.battleredblog.com/2010/11/2/ ... is-vizzini Now, a clever man would run the ball, because it worked so amazingly well in Week One when our teams met, and because he would know that only a great fool would consciously depart from what's already proven to work against your defense.http://www.examiner.com/houston-texans- ... prime-timeThe Texans play scripting was suspect, especially considering the success that Arian Foster had in week one. In the first quarter the Texans ran 9 passes (including the first four plays of the game) and 6 runs. Their second quarter play selection was 8 pass and 3 run. I guess Gary Kubiak thought they'd expect the run so he tried to outsmart them. The only one he continually outsmarts is himself.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And.....just for fun, go back and take a look at the Gametrax comments on Fox for the game. You will see several posts from some veteran members about how Houston's failure to call run plays was hurting them. I also probably threw up a dozen or more posts myself from the first drive on about horrible play calling. Not that I have any clue what I'm talking about, lol.
I too am glad Houston has a better team this year, and I am happy we have a decent team to talk about. But they absolutely could have, and they should have beat the Colts Monday night. Saying the Colts are a better team is not an excuse for this game. Houston instead beat themselves, and this time, it wasn't all on the defense. The defense did what it had been doing all year, and to some degree, arguably did better (if you use Manning's stats as a barometer) than in several games. But the official game turd needs to go to the offensive play calling on this one, which is indeed the coaches' fault.