While we could sit here and play the blame game, which I’m sure myself and many other fans will do in the off season, I’d like to look at some positive.

First the defense.  After last seasons miserable excuse for a defense we made a new hire in DC, Mr. Frank Bush. Frank Bush’s defense had a rocky start, but as it started to gel with the hardcore tendencies of Brian Cushing and the acquisition of Bernard Pollard. The linebacking core was amazing and as the year went on the defense only got better.

Second, Matt Schaub started 16 games and silenced all doubters. With a little more leadership and charisma the guy should be a pro bowler next year.

Third Arian Foster. The main reason we even won the game against the Pats was the rushing effort on the new guy. He might not be the answer but he was a Godsend for the closing of our first winning record.

The season shouldn’t have ended like this yes. (Relying on other teams to win games instead of letting our record speak for itself.) We only have to look at the first game of the season and think that if we would have beat the lowly Jets we would be in the playoffs right now.

As for playoffs, we in Houston can but dream. But the AFC wildcard chase is more crowded than an elevator holding the Patriots offensive line. This might be the best last week of the season in a while. I can’t wait to watch some hardcore, heartfelt football on Sunday.

For those people hoping Belichick will play a soft game against the Texans on Sunday can keep dreaming. There’s no way Mean Ol’ Belichick is going to let another playoff contender just waltz their way to a win. Maybe he might rest the starters if they’re ahead but probably in the fourth quarter. People claim he did it in Miami a couple years back but Miami wasn’t going to the playoffs and Nick Saban is part of the Belichick mafia. Gary Kubiak won’t be so lucky. Kubiak is going to have to outwit the Pats. He’s going to have to play aggressive. He’s going to have to prove that he’s the coach that can lead this team into the playoffs. This is the defining moment of Kubiak’s coaching career in Houston. Houston fans will remember this game win or lose. If he losses, he might be back next season as head coach but no one will respect him and the whole season would be just waiting for him to mess up to kick him out of town. If he wins, he lives to see another day and he might be a hero if we sneak into that last wildcard spot.

Indy over Buffalo.

New Orleans over Carolina.

Cleveland over Jacksonville.

Houston over New England.

Minnesota over Giants.

San Fran over St. Louis.

Atlanta over Tampa Bay.

Pittsburgh over Miami.

Chicago over Detroit.

Philly over Dallas.

Kansas City over Denver.

Baltimore over Oakland.

Tennessee over Seattle.

San Diego over Washington.

Green Bay over Arizona.

Cincinnati over Jets.

I want to leave you with a clip from quite possibly my favorite Christmas movie. Enjoy Michael Caine flex his acting muscle around felt. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, take care.

This season has been full of heartache and indigestion for me. All of our losses have been winable. All of our losses have been within 7 points. (With the exception of the Colts loss last week, we lost by 8.) I keep coming back to this because it is my biggest complaint: Gary Kubiak is a bad game manager. He might be an ok player manager (I doubt it though, look at all of the penalties) but he cannot manage a game to save his life. Stupid play calls (A Chris Brown option…what?), poor clock management (not taking a timeout in the fourth quarter of the first Indy game) and settling for field goals when a touchdown will win the game (has anyone told Coach that we have a potent offense?) Say what you want, but Kubiak should instill confidence in our offense by putting the game on their shoulders. Let Schaub take us to the promise land and win a game with some big passes. That’s telling your offense, ‘I believe in you guys, win the game for us.’ Trying to tie the game instead of winning it is saying, ‘Our offense can’t score, let’s just settle for three.’

But then again, maybe that was a good decision. Poor Kris Brown is on suicide watch. Kris Brown is an original Texans and has been a clutch kicker his entire career. But putting so much pressure on a kicker when he’s in a bit of a slump is making him the scapegoat and writing him a ticket out of town. Maybe Kubiak wanted a scapegoat for the season. I’d hate to see Kris Brown have a Brad Lidge meltdown of confidence but that could happen. Brown might be in another jersey soon even though these games shouldn’t have been on him to begin with.

And speaking of men named Kris Brown, let’s move on to the other: Chris Brown. What a stupid option play to call. Every Texan fan died a little bit when that play was called. You never, never, never let a running back have an option of throwing the ball…because they’ll THROW IT. 99.9 % of the time a running back will go with the option to throw instead of run because it’s in all of our natures to want to be the quarterback. We aren’t a wildkat team, Kubiak. Did you call that play on a dare?

Here’s a dare: Andre Johnson, I dare you to stick around. Andre said in an interview earlier this season that he wanted to stick around and make this team great. Andre Johnson is the best receiver in the league. He’s tough, has great hands, unselfish, not a media hog, or a lunatic, and he’s fast! That’s the perfect receiver for a franchise. I’ve heard so much talk nationally and locally about Johnson’s future. I believe Andre when he says he wants to stick around, but we have to prove that we want to be a winning team.

Gary Kubiak wants to coach a winning team, but I don’t think he’s a head coach. He’s not a bad coach. Gary Kubiak brought the Texans into contention. The Texans can compete with any team. The thing is the Texans beat themselves. Gary Kubiak is vanilla. He’s mediocre. And because he’s mediocre the player are mediocre. The Texans might be the biggest group of underachievers this year. I don’t see Kubiak turning this around. We need to move on. Which is ridiculous of me to say because I subscribe to the give the coach a chance to get his system going philosophy.

I just don’t see this working out. I see a good offense system. I see a defense that’s improving. But I do not see the leadership that takes it to the next level. I’m afraid we suck this year, again. We’re worse than a bad team, we’re a good team that can’t play like a good team.

Texans Notes

First and foremost I’m about to jump on the get Kubiak out of town bandwagon. I believe in patience with a guy but he is way too vanilla. This guy had a good amount of time and two timeouts towards the end of the game. Kris Brown missed a game tying field goal in Indy and missed one earlier in the night. DON’T LET THE GAME REST ON HIS SHOULDERS! Kris Brown needs to work through some things and it isn’t the time to let him work them out.

We can talk about a couple of bad calls by refs, or how the defense played decent. We could talk about Owen Daniels being injured or the fact that both of our offensive guards are reserves. We can make all sorts of excuses as to why we didn’t win this game. We can talk about the two missed field goals by Kris Brown and how with those we would have won. But this is not the first close game we’ve lost. We’ve lost two many close games. Kubiak cannot coach the team win the game is on the line. He is not a good game manager and he doesn’t go for the jugular when he has to. This last game he should have went for it to prove that we are a confident team. That we believe we can win games. This is no time to be vanilla.

This team has no personality. That’s why we’ve been labeled as a finesse team. Kubiak brought a great offense to Houston but he lacks game management, passion and leadership. Everyone will hate Kris Brown for this one but this one’s on Kubiak.

I blame this wacky week on evil forces. Tampa brought back the orange julius jerseys, started a rookie and found a way to win. If that doesn’t tell you foul play was involved I don’t know what will.

This one is going to be interesting. Just from preconceived notions one might think that Baltimore has the stronger defense of the two. So far this season Denver has had a stingier defense. While the Broncos are off to a great season and look better on paper, I think the Ravens will win this one. The Ravens offense is pretty potent and I think this is the toughest challenge Denver has faced this season.

Houston over Buffalo

This game is a must win for Houston. If the Texans lose this game it will prove that they are not ready to be a playoff contender. Right now the Texans are on fire and the Bills have been a fringe team. If the Texans can keep their fire from the last couple of weeks they will win, if they don’t they’ll be the same Texans we saw last year…

Cleveland looses to Chicago

I thought about picking the Browns because  that would be shocking and I’m not sold on Chicago winning this game…but these are the Browns.

Dallas should beat Seattle

The thing is they should. Dallas had a great game last week against Atlanta. Their offense looked good and their defense seemed solid. But these are two flaky teams and it might be the battle of whoever makes less mistakes wins.

Miami over the Jets

The Dolphins almost beat the Saints last week. They completely fell apart but the fact remains that the Dolphins can be spectacular. The Jets are still finding their way. I would be surprised if Mark Sanchez has another bad game and Miami has a stellar offensive game. This game will most likely be close and is a must win for the Jets, but I’m just not too sure about the Jets being for real.

Indy beats San Fran

I want San Francisco to win so badly. If my Texans are to make anything of this season, Indy needs to chill out sooner or later. But the Colts are amazing. Unless Alex Smith can match Peyton Manning the ‘Niners are done for. Who would you pick first if you were playing flag football Smith or Manning?

Giants over Philly

The Eagles need a win but I think the Giants will be too much for them. The Giants can light up the board offensively and their defense is no joke. While the Eagles look like their still trying to get into a good flow.

St. Louis falls behind Detroit

Let’s just call this the most uninteresting game of football ever played. Ok, it isn’t that bad, but it’s like watching a WNBA game. Alright, I’m sorry ladies. This game should be won by Detroit because they have a little more talent. I think the most important thing to come out of this game will be the fact that the Lions will prove they are not the worst team in the NFL anymore. Now their around second or third worst. Movin’ on up.

Oakland loses to San Diego

The last time these teams met we wondered if Oakland was a serious team. Now we no longer wonder, we know that their bad. San Diego seems to be getting their act together and should win this one easily.

The Titans beat the Jags

The Titans should beat the Jags. They have home field advantage and are angry. This should be a good game. I think the Titans finally win and Vince Young will get too much credit for it.

Minnesota losses to Green Bay

That’s right. Listen to this: on paper Green Bay has a better offense in yards per game and a better defense in yards allowed per game. Green Bay’s defense has been looking tougher and they do not want to lose to Favre at home. I’m going with Green Bay in this over-publicized game.

Arizona over Carolina

The Cards are back on the rise and Carolina is struggling to just keep their heads above water. This should be a simple win for Arizona.

The Saints beat the Falcons

The Saints are amazing this year. The Falcons are a contender but I just can’t see them beating the Saints, especially after losses to the Cowboys. Saints remain undefeated.

This week I improved…but only to .500. I went 7-7 which makes my record to date 56-34 and I went down to 62 %. Bummer. There were a couple shockers I thought. I mean Oakland won a game. I’m glad Houston won but I almost knew as I was writing that Cincinnati would win that Houston would win because if Cincinnati should win a game they don’t and Houston only wins on even numbered weeks so. Well I want to forget about this mediocre week and focus on the next.

Oh brother those Texans need to stop giving up the big run. That defense that I thought was going to be different is slowly going back down that same road…only time will tell. Hopefully for the Texans time will tell before the season is over.

Wow, I was wrong about the Titans bouncing back and beating the way-too-popular Jets. I thought the Titans would smack ‘em around. And right now someone needs to take that team down a notch.

However I was right going with the Bengals over the Steelers. That seemed like a ESP call on my part. This was by far the toughest week to pick. So many teams seemed close on paper and it was tough. Man oh man this week was tough. Not only to pick but as a Texans fan. Oh well, at least the Houston Cougars gave me a good game. If you didn’t see that game, you missed out on some amazing college football. The Coogs will be tough in the future, I hope they can finish and have a solid season.

First of all, my Texans went and fought hard against the Titans. We came away with a victory and Titans fans…I don’t want to hear about the officiating because those calls were legit. It stinks when the calls don’t go your way but that’s how it goes some times. When you look at the numbers that was a tough, gritty football game and both teams could have won it at some point. It makes me angry that this game has little to no national recognition. It was a great game and both teams played well, why does no one care outside of Houston and Tennessee? Titans, good game. I hope this helps out in making this rivalry less lopsided. See you on primetime for MNF!

Tony Romo is a chump. Okay, he’s not a total chump but I think he’s one of the most over-rated QB of the decade. Dallas is a good team and will have a good season but the Texan in me likes to see them lose.

Peyton Manning and the Colts had a good Monday Night outing. I mean, so did the Dolphins but they choked in the end. I’m sure The Big Tuna is not going to be happy about the clock management in the end. If you haven’t been watching fourth quarters this week you need to start paying attention. Man, I’m so stoked about football I’m not even checking my grammar. It’s about to get conversational and ghetto in this blog.

What about the Jets? I know that everyone jumped on the Jets bandwaggon, but after last week I believed in their defense. That is some tough stuff. The Jets are going to have some offense troubles as time goes on but my money is that their defense will be consistent.

Well, it’s getting late and I haven’t said much. Plus I don’t feel like proofreading…where’s that publish button…