Having dealt with a family crisis the last few days, I wasn't exactly putting on my analysis hat the last couple of days for the Cardinals game.  In fact, I missed most of the game.  But it seems like the vast majority of the criticism throughout Texan blogosphere is brought to the running game, in particular Steve Slaton and the run blocking's inability to get yards inside and Gary Kubiak's refusal to stop calling inside runs.

While I understand the outrage here, I'm at least a little sympathetic to Kubiak because he simply hasn't ever had this problem in his coaching career.  With the Broncos, they had a running game that could churn out solid gains in it's sleep.  Running behind multiple Pro Bowl inside linemen like Mark Schlereth and Tom Nalen is a little different than running behind Chris Myers and Kasey Studdard, as we've discovered this year.  I've been shouting since about Week 2 that the running game with Steve Slaton needs to be focused more on draws and sweeps, with the screen PASS a big weapon too (thanks Beef).

The real problem for the Texans is that Kubiak builds his offense to run the play-action pass to perfection.  As I stated in a previous charting report on FMB, I think if we sorted the teams 10 biggest plays this season by yardage, about 8 or 9 of them would have come off the play-action pass.  To run the play-action pass effectively though, you sort of have to put up with running the ball up the middle and taking the results of that.  With past Broncos teams, and the last few years' Texans, running up the middle brings the Kubiak offense 3-4 yards.  This year it's taken us into a ton of 2nd and 9, 2nd and 8, 2nd and 11, and other unfavorable markers.  However, even despite the fact that the run game has been putrid, the play-action pass has been devastating.  Which brings you to the conundrum: how many carries can Kubiak sacrifice and still keep the PA passes as productive as they have been?  It's not as cut and dry as "running the ball doesn't work, run the ball less", because running the ball is working on one level.  Now you can say "teams will eventually play off our run and go into PA coverage," but if you keep giving teams 1 or 2 yard losses, which usually in the NFL are drive-enders if you can get them, they're going to keep playing to stop the run. 

So yes, the run game looks awful.  I can assure you from my tape that this is not Steve Slaton, but I know that's sort of a moot point.  But just how many plays are the Texans going to be able to cut from the run game and keep play-action working strong?  We're at 126 rushing and 115 passing, so about a 52/48 ratio.  Could the Texans offense succeed at 45/55?  Probably so.  But you can't completely abandon the run down to 40/60 or so and risk losing your biggest weapon.  I would like to see the Texans run more spread and *gulp* I'd love to see them run the no huddle every once in awhile.  With the traits we've emphasized in linemen and our personnel it works best to out-athleticism other teams. 

But I can't really see pinning the entire loss on Kubiak and the run game for a few reasons:

1) We're 4 games into the season coming into Arizona, waaaay before the point where we've reached a strong enough sample of games to really tell who is going to do what and who is good or bad (and yes, this is variable for NFL players, particularly depending on their health).  Especially when we're still trying to figure out what Studdard ultimately is, and now what Breisel's replacement will bring to the table.  I'm always preaching about how players need to make an immediate impact to be considered good, but it's clear the Texans don't have any better options in the middle.  They may be trying a sampling to see just what their guys are good at to better call plays later. Playcalling is a lot more complex than "lets run the best plays we have" early in the season, especially when you aren't used to your new personnel.  Perhaps someone up front is hiding an injury?  Chris Myers is clearly favoring his vag...well, you know what I mean.  We aren't privy to everything.

2) Chris Brown is not a goal line back.  I think we've all accepted that.  However, Chris Brown is not any worse of a goal line back than Slaton is either.  The Texans don't have a real goal line back.  The Texans don't have any interior offensive linemen who can create a push on the goal line.  So on that last sequence, I have no problems with Kubiak's play calling.  First play was a Slaton shovel (which I thought was excellent) to get to the goal line.  Second, run.  Third, the play-action set up off the run, which Schaub didn't execute.  Now, the fourth down call was weird to me, but not out of the question weird.  The real key is that the drive should've been over on third down, Kubiak did his job there and Schaub let him down.  Not that I'm driving the Sex Cannon for Prez bus or anything, but that was lack of execution.

3) This team is the sum of it's crappy parts.  We have our good parts, but we aren't good enough to make up for poor execution.  We can live with crappy safety play if we get a few breaks, but we can't have Matt Turk punting the Cardinals onto our 45 and still live with it.  We can live with Schaub making a few mistakes every game, but we have to stay away from penalties.  We can live with Jacoby Jones returning punts and muffing a few, but not when we can't stop the run.  The Texans have enough talent to hang with anyone in the league, but they can't overcome their weak points unless they execute 80-85% of the game properly, and they just don't do that consistently.  I don't think you can pin the loss on the run game just because they were the last ones on the field.  No question they were awful, but were they really any more awful than the TD drive with 50 seconds left when all you had to do was hold them out of the end zone?  Were they really any more awful than Schaub's throwing power on the comeback routes? 

I think the running game is a convenient target, due to both the lack of Slaton yards compared to last year and the fact that it's "holding back" the offense that was supposed to be our strong suit.  Nobody expected our defense to be great, so if they stink, that's fine.  But the running game?  That was supposed to be in good hands.  Well, it's not a great interior line at all, and they could tweak a few things, absolutely.  But you can't just ask Kubiak to destroy his entire system and do something completely different just because the inside running is bad, especially when it is working on one level.  The system has worked for years, so clearly it's not a design flaw so much as a personnel problem.  Chris Myers needs to go and we need to see what White, Caldwell, and any other street FAs we can think of can do on the field, that's the bottom line.