Bye Texans

Texans Brian Cushing out with season-ending injury yet again

The Texans have a bye week, but is it time to say bye to the season?

What’s left of the Texans? That seems to be what everyone is asking. Here’s my motto for the rest of the season:

One. Game. At. A. Time.

Sunday’s game against the undefeated Chiefs including Case Keenum’s performance and the rest of the moving parts FINALLY pulling their acts together was in fact encouraging, although it didn’t add to the positive side of the now 2-5 record. I don’t know about y’all but football looked fun again.

I can’t sit here and say the Texans still have a chance at the playoffs, at least not with a straight face, but it’s not completely out of the question. Crazier things have happened. Case in point: the Astros being the most profitable team in Major League Baseball even with three straight seasons of 100+ losses.

The good thing about Sunday in Arrowhead was that the Texans showed they had just a little bit of life left in them. They looked excited. They had heart. They had faith. They fought. All things we hadn’t seen much of in the past few weeks. The defense stepped up in the second half allowing just one field goal – all positives.

The other good thing is the team is headed into a much needed bye week. But is there any hope left for this team this season?

While fans have probably halted their searches for airfare deals to New York in February, we can still hope for an exciting eight weeks left of good football and improvement. At least I am. Because eight weeks of anything boring is, well…a waste of time.

If there is a chance, and that’s a Texas-sized if, time is as big of an enemy as the current 2-5 record. Each of the 32 teams are given 16 weeks to showcase how good they are on the field, and the Texans have squandered away five straight weeks by showing the world the complete opposite. And if we’re being honest, the first two wins weren’t really the All-Star indicators we had expected to see – you shouldn’t have to bust your tail to comeback like that.

Duane Brown and Texans Offense (AP Photo/Dave Einsel)

A few pieces to keep this season on the up and up:

1. Confidence. Our players have got to find this again. Our quarterback, whoever it is, needs confidence in the pocket. Confidence also comes from not being drilled into the ground on every other offensive play. Keenum was sacked on every third down in the fourth quarter (five total). Two of those were his own mistakes not reading the blitz, but as a rookie, the confidence and performance displayed by Case Keenum was spot-on.
2. Time management. I never thought I’d see a day where Andy Reid managed the clock better than his opponent, but Sunday in Arrowhead showed otherwise.
3. Fix the details. It’s too late to reinvent this wheel and this isn’t really a wheel that should need reinvention. I’d be hard-pressed to say that Kubiak is getting fired mid-season or that Schaub is getting traded, but it’s the details we need to focus on. Figuring out our running back situations in case we run into another game where both Foster and Tate are out.
4. Here’s another detail I’d like to see fixed: get Derrick Newton OFF THE FIELD.

Luckily these guys get to take next Sunday off (so I can focus solely on the Eagles and the improvements needed there), which includes four consecutive and much needed days off (mandated by new NFL rules). That also means fans can take a week off too.

Thank goodness.

The only person who shouldn’t take a break this week? Gary Kubiak.

I’m fine with having a conservative state when it comes to politics, but not when it comes to football. In the fourth quarter against the Chiefs, the Texans had four possessions. Guess how many points were scored off those four possessions? ZERO.

Next Sunday when Andrew Luck comes into Reliant, we need to capitalize on every possession to keep ourselves in the game, and we need to force turnovers like we did against the Chiefs.

And I think every single Texans fan cried a little on the inside on the Cushing injury. Not only because he’s such a loss to the defense we still desperately need, but because he’s fought so hard to come back and these are the seven games he came back for? Again, you hate seeing any player injured (yes, even a pick-six-throwing quarterback), and definitely good guys like Brian Cushing.

Technically the season’s not over, but I’m not going to send any of my hard-earned money to Vegas on the odds we’re currently running.

So next Sunday, after a week off for all of us, the Texans (and the jersey-burning fans) will yet again find themselves on national TV during primetime, lets at least try not to look like the Vikings. And at least Josh Freeman won’t be sporting a Texans jersey. See, there’s brightside yet again!