Post-Game Thread: That's So Texans -- Ravens 34, Texans 28

I take great pride in being an analyst above all else. The problem with that, in this case, is that you don't really need an analyst to tell you the problems with the Texans at this point. Every game is, as our blog tagline aptly notes, a roller coaster. 

There's just nothing new to say about the Texans at this point on a macro level. They're a team with a good offense that struggles early in the game, a bad defense (albeit one that had its best game against a non-Rusty Smith led team tonight), and bad special teams. Writers have ran the joke about a Texans failure mad libs into the ground to the point where it's almost embedded in the heads of this team's fans that the Texans will lose any close game they played in. 

So what do we have? A 5-8 team with four gutwrenching losses. But what do we really have? A team that doesn't change.

A team that continues to have problems blocking for its quarterback, a team that continues to shoot itself in the foot at inopportune times, a team that continues to allow 3rd-and-longs to be completed on it's defense with startling regularity, a team that bungles playcalls, a team that wastes timeouts left and right, a team that battles but comes up short. The script changes a bit from game-to-game, sure. Sometimes it isn't completely devastating, sometimes the defense plays a little better, sometimes the offense plays a little better. 

I was a creative writing major. One of the things that they drill into our heads (yes, they teach us things in these classes!) is that to have a story, you need change.

The Texans are a team without a story. The Texans defy storylines. Gary Kubiak gets up to his post-game press conference every week and shrugs, says it's on him, and thanks the reporters. For a team with so many dramatic losses, both on the field and personnel-wise, you'd think that there would be a force enacting change on them from somewhere. 

But there isn't. The Texans are just there. In a quasi-state of flux between good and bad. Waiting to see how they'll bungle the next close game they play.

I'm not surprised the pick was thrown, I'm not surprised the team lost. I just mouthed the words "That's so Texans," and started writing the hardest piece a writer can write: the one where you have no story. 

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