Incompletions: Texans v. Seahawks (Service For Others)

MATT WESTON:

When you’re a child, you first explore the elementary aspects of life. The way things feel immediately. It’s about consumption. New video games and movies, sweet treats, basketballs and jerseys, without a frontal lobe, instant gratification is what matters. As you evolve and mature into a person, shedding the newness of life, when the clock has spun around so many times, the individual is able to spelunk into the deeper aspects of life. Those parts of the brain that have never been connected are sewn together. Money today is put away for the future. Love, compassion, selflessness, dedication, these bigger words that were on posters are the main components of one life. You live for others instead of your own feelings.

This time of year is about the giving not the getting, whereas in the early stages of life, it was all about who has the biggest Christmas under the tree. Bikes, moonshoes, Nintendo DSs, ooze colored cases, have evolved into underwear, flannel shirts, hot dog toasters, and half priced books. The things you do, and purchase for others, and the time spent with them, is what is important, it’s what fills the soul full of bright merry, it isn’t what is under paper attached to your name.

The Houston Texans know this better than anyone else. This season they showed the Jacksonville Jaguars that Urban Myer is a horrendous head coach, allowed the Cleveland Browns to get their first win of the season, made it possible for the Carolina Panthers to believe Sam Darnold is a franchise quarterback, resuscitated the New England Patriots season with a fake-fake punt, gave J.J. Watt and DeAndre Hopkins the revenge they didn’t even want, continued to allow the Indianapolis to win games with sub 225 yard passing performances, gave Zach Wilson his first win as a professional quarterback, and this week, made it feasible for Rashaad Penny to get his career back and for Russell Wilson to get his passing game back on the tracks.

The Texans aren’t a punching bag. No. They merely live and provide service to others. This season is not about them, their own goals, their own desires, their own ideas of reality. Infantile and futile, these things are for less evolved franchises. No. The Texans are here so others can live the life they want to live, where they carry the water for them, dry off their brow, and ensure that the their ideas become truths in this world.

QUICK, SOMEONE CHECK TO SEE IF I’M WET:

L4BLITZER:

At some point, if the team keeps doing the same things and ends up on the wrong end of double digit losses, you just don’t have a lot of new insight to add. So it goes today. Not that the Texans didn’t have their chances. They entered the fourth quarter only down six and had a few chances to try to cut into that lead. Yet, they didn’t, Seattle took control in the fourth, and the Texans yet again get blasted by an embarrassing margin.

Earlier in the game, the team had a chance to assert themselves offensively. Yet, with the ball at the half yard line, the team found a way to derp that up. Poor running play execution plus untimely penalties ended a gift of a drive with a field goal. Wash, rinse, repeat. The second half is yet again a time of no offensive production. Since coming off the bye, the team has managed to score a whopping ten total second half points in four games, and those all came in the Titans game, and the touchdown was on a short, short field.

The penalties. With all of the emphasis on discipline and following team rules, you might think that might translate to the field. You would be so, so wrong. While Seattle actually had more penalties (eight to six) the Texans are not a team that has the ability to overcome those. Culture and discipline are nice, but if they don’t translate on to the field, the concepts are worthless.

Yet the worst part of this game is that we have hit peak apathy for Houston fandom. When you can hear audible chants for the road team dominate the broadcast over TV and radio, you are not in a good place as a team. Even in the worst days of ‘05 and ‘13, when fans booed the Texans so hard that the Texans offense had to go to a silent count at home, at least the home fans had passion and cared. They do not now. Maybe McEasterby will spin the attendance figures and money from the visiting fans as proof of financial success, but that would be fool’s gold. The apathy hasn’t been this bad since the last days of the Oilers.

Note to the McNair family: That ain’t a good thing.

OHHHHH YEAH, IT’S THE STUPOR BOWL:

MIKE BULLOCK:

The All Field Goal Offense set a new record with a 61-yard field goal. Davis Mills has most likely shown enough to be the starter for the next few years, simply because the Texans have far too many holes all over the rest of the roster to worry about the most important position on the field - at least he’s better than Tom Savage. And, there was a Nico Collins sighting. Yay!

Ok, that’s about all the positives I could find.

The defense is hot garbage, calling any part of this team “a running game” is a misnomer and clearly getting rid of Zach Cunningham didn’t help anything. The real tragedy is the inability to speed up time so the off-season gets here and we can really see what Nick Caserio is capable of, because boy does he have his work cut out for him. Trying to rebuild this team with $35 million in dead cap space, no real viable stars on the roster to build around and the continued deleterious impact of Jack Easterby means Caserio has an uphill battle that more resembles mountain climbing than a walk in the park.

A friend asked me the other day if I was still a Texans fan, or if I’d given up and started rooting for another team. Before I could think about it I found myself saying “No, I still follow the Texans but by the time I’m done paying attention to them on gameday, I don’t have it in me to care about anything else NFL related.” Watching this game just further cements that gut-level reply. That’s right, the Texans games have become another chore on my To-Do list of things I just want to be done with. Thanks Cal! Appreciate you taking our lifetime passion and defecating it into the dumpster fire you preside over. Good job!

ZERO SNAPS? COME ON, TIM KELLY!:

BIGFATDRUNK:

Early on, this game was giving me flashbacks of the Patriots game.

Davis Mills started hot, going 14/14 before throwing his first incompletion. In that first quarter plus, he was red hot! Mills didn’t do a thing again until trash time, finishing 19/35 after his start, then just 6.8 y/a total for the game.

Just like the Patriots game, Mills stood on his head, and he still didn’t do a whole lot in the points column. Ka’imi Fairbairn’s 61-yard field goal were the last points of the game.

On the defensive side of the ball, the Texans gave up a whopping 6.7 yards per carry and 7.9 yards per play overall. It was a gash-worthy performance full of easy yards for the Seahawks.

Even at 33-13, this game never seemed that close after the first quarter. After Mills balled out in the first half, the Texans were still down 16-13 after Fairbairn’s Texans record setting kick. The Texans were shutout in the second half, yet more quarterly goose-eggs that best symbolize Mills’ offensive output.

The Seahawks are now 5-8 after blowing out the Texans are Sunday. The Texans have a long, long way to improve to even suck.

AT LEAST WE’RE NOT THE JAGUARS!:

MATT ROBINSON:

This was a game I found surprisingly competitive in the first quarter. Whatever lessons Tim Kelly needed to learn from his terrible game plan against the New York Jets he at least made an effort to course correct for the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday.

Unfortunately once his first fifteen plays were out of the way there was nothing more to pull from his hat aside from the same generic concepts we have seen all season. Treasure these Brevin Jordan and Nico Collins splash plays like the gifts that they are as they are spread apart by far too much time and disastrous pocket management.

As for the defense a unit an already thin group got a lot thinner after Kamu Grugier-Hill, and Justin Reid went out respectively. Most notably because those two were the best tacklers on the roster as Rashaad Penny was having the game of his career against Houston’s porous defense. But hey at least that 61 field goal totally justifies Kai’imi Fairbairn’s top five kicker salary right?

HIGHLIGHT OF THE YEAR: