Incompletions: Texans-Colts (Party Like It’s 2016)

Matt Weston:

I would like to take a moment to congratulate all of us. There are no bounds to the amount of loyalty the human spirit can have. To watch all eighteen games of last season, to suffer through 20-14 games every Sunday, to let all that time fall away, was a heroic effort. I have no idea how we did it, but we did.

This is all easy to see, now that we are out of it after Deshaun Watson dragged us out of the pit. We know what it is like to love a team with a great quarterback. The dysfunctional relationship is over. Sub 5.0 yards per attempt games are done. The quarterback can actually step away from a pass rush. He can throw the ball downfield. He can impact the run game. He can make spectacular plays that unhinge the jaw and leave the mouth agape like a Goldbat. We know how we are supposed to be treated. We can stay out with our friends past 10 p.m. without getting several texts asking us where we are at and what exactly we are doing. We don’t have to tiptoe around our words. We can have time to ourselves without feeling guilty. We can pick a restaurant without repercussions. The wind in our hair feels differently. Our mouth hurts from smiling so often. Stomachs are butterfly fields.

For now, all of that is over. Boring and stagnant. Hungover brain, numbed body, side-conversation-having football is back. We are trapped again.

Without Deshaun Watson, the Texans are done. They can’t run the ball as well because Watson’s athleticism helped spur the run game. Tom Savage holds onto the ball for forever and can’t do anything without seven seconds or more, something the Texans’ offensive line can’t give him, and even then he still looks like [Name Redactian]. So many of Savage’s throws were out of bounds and didn’t even give his receivers a chance. Others were bounced and inaccurate. A few almost lopped the heads off his teammates. Flat routes to the tight ends are a staple of Houston’s offense again as a way to create ‘easy throws’.

Worst of all, the Texans must have their offense be great. This defense doesn’t have the same level of talent without Whitney Mercilus and A.J. Bouye. It can’t carry the offense to wins like it did last year. If you give up 300+ yards to Jacoby Brissett, you might be an awful pass defense. From here on out, it’s going to be more of the same.

As bad as last year was, this year is going to be worse for the rest of 2017. Because unlike last year, we know what it’s like to watch an exciting football game. Our eyes have seen the glory of how the game of football should be played. It’s so beautiful. The feelings we should feel have been felt. To go from that to this every Sunday is a brain-bleeding calamity.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter. Tom Savage being quarterback isn’t going to change our lives. We are going to be the same lumps on the couch no matter what. This is just how we spend our Sunday afternoons. We are going to continue onwards into the great black unknown. This is life.

So bring on the disinterest and bust out the malt liquor. It’s time to party like it’s 2016, baby!

I Miss You:

Mood:

Diehard Chris:

The Houston Astros are 2017 World Series Champions.

Tom Savage miraculously did not turn into a good or even average quarterback. Somehow, he remains exactly as he was before—a bad quarterback behind a bad offensive line that cannot compete for a title in a weak division. Even against what we assumed was the worst this division had to offer in the Indianapolis Colts, Savage was a disaster.

This is the rest of 2017, in varying degrees. But we knew this as of about 3:50 PM on Thursday, November 2, 2017. I'd be lying if I said I watched this game with any anger, or really, any emotional investment whatsoever.

Who Do You Got?

Houston Texans 2016:

Capt Ron:

It was nearly impossible to get a beer at NRG Stadium yesterday, because the majority of the attendees were out of their seats socializing instead of watching that dumpster fire. There is still a half a season to play, and I don't see any light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. Houston is about to get a top-five pick in the third round of the 2018 NFL Draft.

I Love The Smell Of Schadenfreude In The Morning

Luke Beggs:

This is going to be a long season.

I can't think of a more soul-wrenching way to lose a game than what the Texans did yesterday. To openly defecate on the field for four quarters before briefly achieving competence and scoring to pull the game close, only to trip themselves up at the final hurdle. I've said it on multiple occasions, but this team often times embodies the idea of ''snatching defeat away from the jaws of victory''. The Texans have mastered the craft of self-sabotage, from the quarterback to the head coach.

I'm also beginning to enjoy the irony of a defensive scheme that puts priority on stopping the deep ball only to get burned once on a miscommunication and twice because they didn't realize that they had to tackle someone.

Ugh, kitten this season.

Come On:

Mike Bullock:

Well, at least it didn’t end with a Lamar Miller A-Gap failure yet again.

Now to set a countdown timer for the Age of Yates. Help us, T.J. Yates. You’re our only hope.

BFD:

Tom Savage:NFL QB::bfd:teen bikini model

With its current active roster, the Houston Texans are a talentless team led by an awful head coach. Deshaun Watson is so good and knowledgeable that he was able to single-handedly run his scheme, which he taught to Bill O'Brien, and teach O'Brien to not screw it up. Without Watson and with Tom Savage, who couldn't hit the broad side of a barn from 10 yards away, the offense and scheme returns to being straight trash.

Also, too, left tackles are important. See: the last play of the game.

The Texans were beaten at home by the worst team in football. That should tell you everything you need to know about the rest of the season.

MDC:

I predicted a loss in this game. In fact...

/checks predictions thread

I went Colts 24, Texans 6. This game was both slightly closer than I expected and not close at all.

No team would thrive with the scope of the injuries the Texans have suffered, but, at the same time, no team but Houston would be so stupid as to trot Tom Savage out there for a second go-round.

So, it is what it is. They are who we thought they were, and I'm no longer willing to claim that the Texans are clearly not the worst team in football as we sit here today.

Tim:

I’m just sad. Sad that in less than a week, we went from having perhaps the most exciting player in the NFL and a legitimate MVP candidate to Tom Savage. Savage was absolutely wretched in every possible way yesterday. To his credit, he acknowledged that, unlike a certain other former Texans quarterback who was almost as bad as Savage was yet believes he will still figure it all out.

There’s just no real reason to be excited about the 2017 Houston Texans anymore. They’ve been so unlucky when it comes to season-altering injuries, with the final and cruelest blow coming to the one player who had the power to put this team on his back and carry it to a playoff berth.

The Colts are an awful football team, and they just beat the Texans at NRG Stadium. It’s difficult to fathom Houston doing much more than maybe—MAYBE—surprising an opponent or two the rest of the way, and we don’t even have the tried and true coping mechanism of rationalizing the failure by looking forward to the 2018 NFL Draft.

I’m normally a relatively optimistic person, and I simply can’t find any hope at the moment when it comes to the Texans. Thus, I look at the remainder of the 2017 season as penance for the inevitable future pride and boasting that will accompany getting to watch Deshaun Watson as our franchise quarterback for the next decade.

The Only Way It Should End: