What a game! What a day for Houston sports! Things I Loved: CJ Stroud! Everyone has already said all the things. The guy has been nothing short of amazing. SO much better than any of us could have expected straight out of the gate. And there is no reason to think he won't continue to get better. Offensive line - they weren't great, but this makeshift group of rag tag heroes shouldn't have been able to stonewall a stellar Steelers pass rush on sack count. Slowick's offense - I was thinking ahead of the game that the game plan needs to be quick hitting passes, screens and hopefully a modest run game. It seems like an obvious thing considering the line and the Steeler strengths, but obvious and the Texans haven't always gone together. And at the end of the day the Texans clearly out-coached the Steelers. That just doesn't happen with Houston football. Stroud is awesome, but this might be the single best reason to be excited for the future. Turnover battle - this team seems to be very good at taking care of the ball. A few fumbles to start the year but if they can maintain the ability to win or neutralize the turnover battle, there will be very few games that they aren't at least in a position to win. The Un-Texan type things - Several times this year something will go sideways and I'll get that feeling in my gut. That feeling the Texans have cultivated for years and years now. A single penalty, an overturned big play, a dropped pass that would have been a first down. In my mind I know that it isn't normal for other teams to almost always have their offensive drives stall out because of one small mistake, but it always felt like the Texans did. One holding call or missed block resulting in QB pressure and you could just count on an upcoming punt. The team just didn't have the talent/scheme/resolve to work through that kind of adversity. But this team does. They've already shown it. Hell, they scored that opening TD THREE times. How many previous Texans teams would have folded after ONE of those takebacks and just settled for the FG? It totally feels like the culture is changing and I think Demeco, Slowick and CJ are the biggest reasons for that. Guys believe, and they're playing like they believe. Things I didn't Love: Tackling is still an issue. Way too many times guys are laying their shoulder into people and not wrapping up. Fumbles - I know I put the turnover battle up above but there have been a few times our guys have put the ball on the ground and it really wasn't a result of something the other team did. I think Tank got benched returning punts for a little bit because he dropped one. He just lucked out that it didn't bounce far away and he could drop on it. But that's it, this game was such a complete domination. So excited to get to watch this team every week!
Im dying at the “don’t ****ing do it” how many times, especially with HOUSTON TEXANS FOOOOOOOOTTTTBALLLLLLLLLLLLL, do we see some clown returning try to house it from 5 yards deep and get smoked inside the 20. Ridiculous
right. what even is the value of these grades when schultz grades higher than stroud. i'm sure it's position-relative grading but still...if that performance by schultz was enough to hit 90 then stroud definitely did enough to hit 90.
That game was a pleasant surprise. As a long suffering Houston sports fan I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it really was a dominating performance for almost the entire game. I keep tempering my expectation with Stroud. Like, defenses will get enough tape on him to identify tendencies, or the offensive schemes that have worked for us the past two games will get figured out. But damn, the kid just keeps delivering. It's so far beyond what I expected that it's bordering on "too good to be true" territory. I suspect Stroud will come back down to earth at some point, but damn he's been fun to watch so far. And if he keeps progressing at this rate the rebuild just got significantly shorter.
The reason why I'm getting higher and higher on him is that the reason for his success is his ability to get the ball out quickly and hit targets with accurate passes with anticipation.....he throws receivers open, he makes throws well before receivers make their breaks....that's not something that is easy to stop. That's elite QB stuff. Hopefully it continues.
Slowiks offense the “obvious and Texans don’t always go together” had me rolling. That is so true and perfect. And the 3 TDs on the opening drive?! I’m pretty sure we went almost an entire season without an opening drive TD. We scored at least 2 on one drive yesterday.. so refreshing. And along those lines of something making us give up, that 4th and 1 stop when they were gaining a lot of momentum, that was something I haven’t seen in YEARS.
Bobrek would faint. After watching this angle of the screen, that was all on DP for not scoring. Side view looked like Dalton was just chillin'
My sole nitpick of the game is not going for the FG to put us up by 16. It requires 2 scores and 2 successful 2 point conversions just to tie at that point. Fans always want to go for it, but they never consider the momentum.
I wanted to just kick the field goal for those same reasons. My other nitpick is the 8 penalties. We have to play smarter in that aspect moving forward.
yeah weird decision once he hit the 20 yrd line to head towards a defender instead of just running straight into the open field ahead. maybe he thought he saw 55 closing in but dude was actually just falling on his ass
I do not disagree with you there, however. I felt based on the flow of the game. Texans were in complete control. I think going for it there was a good call. The Texans were moving the ball at will against Pittsburg plus you were in their territory. It’s one thing if it was a game that seemed like a grind for the offense to move the ball down the field….
