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The Battle Red Express: First Quarter Wrap-Up
Throughout the XML in the pre-season, many picked the Houston Texans as a sexy pick to take the AFC South crown in the 2011 season. So far, so good for those who've put their faith in them.
The Texans have shot out the gate hot, starting their season at a record of 4-0. It started with their big time win to start the season against Indy (55-35). But after that, they had to face a tough two game road test.
First up, the Miami Dolphins, who came off of a disappointing loss on the Monday Night opener of the season. It was clear they were looking to bounce back off of the divisional loss. What wasn't clear was what was wrong with Drew Brees on this day. Five Miami turnovers, including three interceptions, and a sack-fumble-recovery for a touchdown doomed the dolphins as the Texans rolled 41-7. Houston benefitted from a good day from Matt Schaub, completing 8 of his 12 passes. But he benefited from the short fields his defense provided him. Andre Johnson caught one of Schaubs 2 touchdowns, (Owen Daniels caught the other). Arian Foster was kept in check against a rather good front seven. Rookie OLB Brooks Reed recorded his first career sack and forced fumble, which was then returned for a late touchdown by SS Glover Quin. Danieal Manning added to his interception total, nabbing two more in the game (4 on the season to this point).
The second game of the two game road trip took the Texans to the SuperDome in New Orleans to visit a 1-1 Saints team coming off of a good bounce back win against the Bears. Unlike their first two games, where the Texans put up over a combined 90 points, the Saints defense played stingy. But the Texans proved they could play stingy as well. The defense held the Saints offense to just 1 third down conversion on 7 attempts, as well as causing QB Chad Henne to complete less than 50 percent of his passes. They also benefitted from two missed field goals by Saints K John Kasay. Offensively, the Texans weren't as sharp as they were in previous weeks. Schaub threw his first pick of the season, but in the end, didn't pay for it. Foster and the offensive line faced another big time front seven and remained silent in this affair, being held to just 39 yards on 15 attempts. But he scored a touchdown in his third straight game, as did WR Andre Johnson. "It was good to know we could win a different type of game," spoke the star receiver Andre Johnson, referencing how the game played out. "It was a hostile environment, and both defenses were playing tough, but it was good to know we could do enough offensively to win in this kind of game."
Following the two game road trip, the team returned home to face the 2-1 Pittsburgh Steelers. Pittsburgh was coming off of an extremely disappointing loss to an 0-2 Colts team that the Texans defeated back in Week 1. So with them likely angry, it almost didn't make sense that the Texans would return home to a Battle Red-Out. But indeed they did as they rolled over the Steelers 31-3. The Texans defense impressed again, forcing 6 turnovers, 5 of them being interceptions. Danieal Manning snatched one of those 5 interceptions to tie the league lead with 5 interceptions. The return of CB Johnathan Joseph also proved to be a welcome sight to the defense as well. He held WR Mike Wallace catchless in the game, recording two pass-breakups on him. The offense continued to benefit from short fields. Though the run game got stuffed again, Foster recorded another touchdown for the 4th straight game. Andre Johnson also recorded a touchdown for the 4th straight game.
So with the season a quarter of the way through, who have been the biggest impact players for this 4-0 Houston Texans team? We have three impact players we want to point out.
First: FS Danieal Manning was brought in as a free agent, previously with the Bears. He isn't the greatest tackler, and he isn't the quarterback of the defense, but his speed and ability to find the ball while its in the air makes him the most valuable playmaker on the defense. Texans fans were worried that the 3 games CB Johnathan Joseph would miss would cause a huge hole to be exposed in the defense. And while CBs Jason Allen, Brandon Harris, and Brice McCain should be credited for stepping up their levels of play, it's Manning who has made the most drastic plays in the secondary, and may be part the reason for the success those corners had while Joseph was gone. Now that Joseph is back, he's proved that he may even reap more benefits with one side of the field being handled. He's tied for the league lead in interceptions with five, and we're impressed with what he's brought to this team in just his first season.
Second: HB Arian Foster rushed for 307 yards in the first game of the season against the Colts. Since then, he's only accumulated 150 rush yards in 3 games combined. While this is disappointing, there's been two upsides to this that has made Foster our first quarter of the season offensive mvp. One, he's still scoring touchdowns. He has at least one touchdown in each of the four games this season, which means he's not getting his head down about becoming a big time focus of opposing defenses, and he's contributing to the offense by putting up points in that manner. But the most important upside is how much the play-action pass has benefited. With teams seeing the tape from his rushing field day in week 1, every defense is focused on stopping Foster. Schaub, Johnson, and the rest of the offense have been able to feed off of this with big play action plays left and right through the first four weeks. Expect teams to continue to be forced to either stop Foster, or stop the play-action game.
Lastly: K Neil Rackers and P Matt Dodge are the unsung heroes of the team, playing big roles oh so quietly. Rackers leads the XML in kicking points. On top of that, he's a perfect 7 for 7 on the season, with a long of 47. Dodge on the other hand, has been doing kickoffs and punts. Punting, Dodge is in the top half of the league with an average of 46.3 yards a punt, placing three of them inside the 20 yard line. On kickoffs, his strong leg has been extremely useful causing multiple touchbacks, and constantly having opponents starting from their 20 or less. The team has yet to allow a punt return for more than 5 yards, or a kick off return for more than 32 yards. While these statistics may not blow the casual fan out of the water, they matter because they set the defense up with a lot of field to work with, which has helped lead to the success the defense has had thus far this season.
While the Houston Texans (4-0, 1-0) and their fans are excited, a rough patch of the schedule is on its way before the week 11 bye. Next up is a home game against Rookie QB Terrelle Pryor and his Oakland Raiders (2-2, 0-1). If they can manage to slow down the speedy Raiders, they'll have to follow it up with trips to Baltimore and Tennessee, home games against the Jaguars and Browns, and a road game against the Buccaneers, all before the bye week.
