Notes from Game Charting: Texans-BESF’s, Week 2, Half 2
We had the big precursor here last week, but now I need to admit something else: I can never be objective about the BESF’s. For those of you who somehow wind up reading this that aren’t Texans fans, this should better explain the moniker BESF’s, or Baby Eating Sister F*ckers. Because I acknowledge in advance that I am completely biased against them, for obvious reasons, I am not going to spend a lot of time praising them or disparaging them. I am going to focus on them even less than I normally would focus on the other team.
The first subject I want to address is the failures of the Texans run game and the long-term prospects of Steve Slaton. The following are some run-game observations:
-Overall, like last week, I didn’t think the offensive line was to blame. I wouldn’t say they were steady, I wouldn’t say they were great, I wouldn’t say they were bad. They were there, they didn’t do too much wrong, but nobody made any huge plays run blocking. The interesting thing is that the zone blocking scheme will often send someone to the second level, but the blockers that the Texans send to cover the slack are often guys that just aren’t good run blockers. Vonta Leach can hit with the best of them, even if he did have an off-game in Tennessee. Owen Daniels is a liability as a blocker, and I am less than impressed with Joel Dreesen in that area as well.
The other thing is that often, the Texans will motion a wide reciever under the line, squeezing him in off-tackle. Naturally, this is not Andre Johnson. I have seen this move at least 9-10 times in two charted halves and have only seen it not be a run once. On every one of these plays, Andre Davis or Jacoby Jones has been completely overwhelmed. I think Kevin Walter’s return will boost the Texans in more areas than you might think. Also, the net result of these plays has to be either low single digits yards or negative yards. The most yards I’ve seen them gain on one of these plays is 4.
- I addressed Slaton’s weight in the comments at Houston Diehards, but despite the fact that I hate the idea of making him gain weight, I don’t think he physically is looking or doing anything incredibly different. He definitely looks a little slower on film than he did last year, but he’s also having to make a lot of cuts behind the line of scrimmage. More on this in a second. I also don’t buy his sudden fumbleitis as a concern; history is littered with backs who have seen their fumbles come in a small stretch and it ended up being a small sample size fluke. To put it another way, as a fantasy football owner, I think he’s a decent buy-low. Then again, since I picked LaDanian Tomlinson, my fantasy season is already pretty much over.
- Since the BESF’s were actually sending 4 at Schaub most of the time, giving him time to breathe, the play action pass was a HUGE weapon for the Texans. They ran it 6 times in the second half, and here were the results: The sideline Andre Johnson catch that was mistakenly ruled out of bounds, the one yard TD to Daniels, the 40 yard coulda been bomb/pass interference to Johnson that had Cortland Finnegan beating his chest for little reason, the 45 yard Jacoby Jones catch on a blown coverage, and two plays where Schaub was hit in motion on the throw that were incompletes. Usually though, if you get burned on a PA or three, you make an adjustment and the run game opens up, but it never really did. Which leads me to…
- This is the part where I start coming off as a little paranoid, but follow me for a moment here. I think there’s a chance that the Texans are tipping run to the defense, or at least they were last week. Between the WR under tackle numbers, which I am inclined to not believe are purely coincidental given the number of plays they were defeated on, the fact that the BESF’s seemed to have sniffed the run out completely on a few plays where they brought all three linebackers up to the line, and the fact that play action was so successful, I think you can build a pretty compelling case for it. I didn’t specifically see any giveaways on the tape, but I wasn’t actually looking for them because my paranoia wasn’t fully built until the fourth quarter. The reason this is plausible to me is that I actually have charted it happening before to the Gary Kubiak-run Texans, back in 2007 against the Jaguars. Rashean Mathis read Andre Johnson like a book; when his hands were down, it was a run. When his hands were up, it was a pass. Thus, a cornerback somehow finished with 8 tackles and the Texans gained 61 whole yards on the ground.
If I were running the Texans offense, I’d start next game up with a heavy dose of Slaton screens and runs off-tackle and away from Owen Daniels. If Slaton can’t gain yards off those, then I’ll officially be worried. Either way, they need to get a lot less predictable in the run game.
- Defensively, Alan Burge took care of me describing the one touchdown I’d have to describe charting-wise. I’m gonna come out and say that I just don’t think the Texans scheme is a good match for it’s personnel right now when they bring nine or ten guys up to the line of scrimmage. First of all, other than Mario Williams, DeMeco Ryans and maybe Xavier Adibi, the Texans don’t have anyone who moves well enough sideline-to-sideline to recover from a blitz call and go get a tackle. Secondly, the closer you move the guys who rely on quickness for their tackles to the line, the less time they have to get by a blocker. Thirdly, there is not a single sure tackler in the entire secondary, so you’re just begging for results like the 91-yarder. Even John Busing, who I was starting to think highly of in that area, took a few poor routes in this system. If the Texans had better tacklers in the secondary (read: actual safeties), I’d consider this a lot smarter than I do right now. As it is, it’s more akin to Russian Roulette. And don’t think Maurice Jones-Drew is going to handle it any differently than Chris Johnson did if they keep it up. It’s especially vulnerable to the spread draw, and the BESF’s would’ve easily converted their 3rd and 4 in the fourth quarter with it had BESF guard Eugene Amano not been pushed right into Johnson’s face by Antonio Smith.
Has Frank Bush made the defense more aggressive? Yes. But this is reckless aggression. The Texans keep blowing coverages in it (both Stuckey’s TD and the Invisible Chris Johnson play came out of it). In fairness to Bush, his regular blitzes have been pretty impressive, except for the parts where he makes Mario Williams play a short zone. If he took out 75% of the big fronts for overload five man rushes, I think he’d be on to something. I also don’t expect him to change his ways, so you’d better get used to that ulcer in your stomach. [Waits.] [Waits.] [Decides against political commentary.]
- Kasey Studdard did not show well on the second-half tape and the interior line is now down to zero players I’d consider trust-worthy. Before he got kicked out of the game, Tony Brown ate him alive on both runs and passes. As much as I hate to say it, I think any five man rush is going to stifle the Texans unless Slaton can pick the free man up, because between those three guys, you can rely on them blocking only two players. Prediction: One way or another, Antoine Caldwell will be in the starting lineup after the bye if he’s healthy.
- Okay, lets hit some more positives before everyone wants to torch my house down. Brian Cushing is already the best run stop outside backer the Texans have. If you give him space, he’s going to deliver a blow. Antonio Smith and Fred Bennett continue to get waaay too much blame for the Texans problems, Smith in particular had a great second half. Dunta Robinson, despite being a huge tool for his shoe stunt, has backed it up pretty well thus far. Although it’s not like shutting down Justin Gage makes you a $10 million a year man. I’ll be very interested to see how he plays against the Cardinals in Week 5 since that’s arguably the next time the Texans will face a wide receiver that can burn anyone. If you want to pick on poor defensive performances, I’d stick with the NT rotation, Zac Diles, and the non-Eugene Wilson safety.
- Alge Crumpler is not a tight end, he’s a mini-van.
- I was very impressed with David Stewart’s run blocking. He had a few plays where he was able to seal his man off for countless seconds. On the other hand, Ahmad Hall actually got so out of position pass blocking that he let Zac Diles beat him on a second-effort push.
While this was an awesome game for the Texans to win, this is a little bit of the opposite of last week. The Texans got all the fumble luck, barely won a game that they had countless reasons to have lost, and because it was exciting people are riding high on it and thinking things like “I thought we’d be 1-1 after the first week, but I didn’t think we’d be able to take down Tennessee! This is even better!” Not so much. While I was talking everyone off the ledge after last week, I’d like to remind you all this week that wins are not made equal and that was a pretty lucky win. I think it’s likely that the Texans come out of Sunday’s game 2-1, but any time John Henderson versus Chris Myers and Maurice Jones-Drew versus Frank Bush’s scheme are key matchups, I wouldn’t feel too assured of a win. Especially given how close the Jags and Texans games usually are.
