Incompletions: Texans-Steelers (Ho-Ho-Horrible)

Matt Weston

This game, like the entire season was predictable, and went exactly as expected. Really bad. Since Watson went down there was no doubt the Texans were going to be terrible. There was no doubt they were going to be terrible in this game.

They no longer had the defense to carry an impotent offense to wins. Without J.J. Watt and Whitney Mercilus to create a front seven with the ability to pulverize bones into soft granular dust they couldn’t cover up for a sad! secondary, one that was the best part of this team last season, quickly spoiled because of the loss of A.J. Bouye, the passing of time, and Kevin Johnson being really bad. The 2014-2016 model of football no longer existed.

They had to win games because of their offense. And without Watson they no longer could run the same Earth scorching offense. A playfake heavy, multi-option run game, that created easy downfield throws became a run up the middle, quick shotgun passing offense. An offense predictable, boring, and inefficient. There wasn’t much else to do though. Tom Savage, like I wrote about this summer, is a really bad quarterback, and could only scrape competent if he had a great offensive line in front of him that could give him eons to throw. The Texans didn’t have this. They had a revolving offensive line that had been a colander all season. The offense was going to be atrocious.

All of this happened. None of it is surprising. The Christmas day loss was just number eight out of the last nine, and seven out of eight since the team lost Watson.

During this run of expected incompetency there were some FUN moments: the Jaball Sheard strip sack after the team traded Duane Brown, Tom Savage getting strip sacked more often than Matt Schaub was pick sixed, D’onta Foreman’s break out Achilles tearing game, and yesterday’s DeAndre Hopkins’s volleyball catch. Those memories are special, memories I will forever hold in the chambers of my heart, memories that nobody can touch. But overall there was nothing redeemable about the last two months of football. It was a lost season.

So when the Texans did exactly what they were going to, get smashed by the Steelers and lose again, I didn’t care. Nobody should care. The only that matters is we woke up Monday morning with the streets empty and had a beautiful day with the people we care so much about.

The Only Highlight

Vega

It's one thing to have your season derailed by injury, but it takes a far greater degree if ineptitude to get progressively worse as the season moves on. As has been discussed ad nauseam, the offensive line and secondary have been mostly spared significant injury. Their failures are due to years of neglect. Simply put, there is only one thing that can be done, and that's to change the philosophy. That can't be done under the same leadership.

I was unable to watch the whole game due to family commitments, but it doesn't matter. I've seen this show before.

On the bright side, I got some sweet Astros gear for Christmas.

Uprooted Texan

I literally missed the first half of the game and frankly, I'm just as well glad I did. It sounds like I missed nothing worth watching and the only legitimately great part of the game was Nuk's catch.

In addition, I advise that Bill O'Brien, Rick Smith and their staff must be fired.

Brett Kollmann

I watched about a quarter of this game, went back to eating and drinking, and then checked the final score. I think I made the right decision.

Luke Beggs

I think we all collectively had better things to do today.

Rivers McCown

I took a nap instead of watching this game. I regret nothing.

Mike Bullock

Not sure what was more disappointing, the game or the Star Wars movie I watched earlier in the day... Maybe George Lucas can come run the Texans and return them to glory - or at least the prequel days where we know Episode 4-6 are coming soon.

bfMDf

Even with all the injuries, we fielded essentially the same team as we did for the opening game. The biggest exceptions are that T.J. Yates >> Tom Savage, and Stephen Anderson > C.J. Fierdoriwicz. That's how bad both the scheme and the roster are on that side of the ball.

You can make a lot of injury excuses on the defensive side of the ball, but aside from Deshaun Watson (who didn't start the first game because Savage was clearly the better choice [or not]), those same excuses do not apply to the offense or the special teams units.