The homecoming for Texans head coach Gary Kubiak was bittersweet as his team
lost to the Denver Broncos 17-14 in Denver last night. The Texans are now
2-1 in preseason, but did set a new preseason franchise record as they brought
their total preseason points up to 65 in just three games. The previous
record was 56 points in four games set during last year's preseason.
The stage was set last night for the Texans to show the league what they are
all about this year as the team readied to play their first real challenge
during the preseason. The Denver Broncos were a 13-3 team last year, who
also made it as far as the AFC Championship game before losing to the eventual
winner of the Super Bowl, the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The first quarter saw no score as the Texans starters did battle against a
ferocious Broncos team. The Texans' defense is really what kept the team
in the game, while the offense sputtered all through the first half attempting
to get a score. During the second quarter, Broncos' RB Tatum Bell was
handed the ball and asked by his coach to put it over the line, which he did
successfully. On Denver's next drive, however, the Texans defense took a
stand and held Denver to a 23 yard field goal.
David Carr finally came alive on the final drive of the half. He
conducted a 16 play drive that took the Texans 69 yards in just over 4 minutes.
After some confusion regarding a new rule that says a team can not gain yards
after recovering a fumble, the Texans were forced by time constraints to kick a
29 yard field goal as the half ended.
Being that the starters for both teams played into the third quarter, I can
say that the Texans did pretty well to hold the Broncos to just a 10-3 lead at
the end of the half. Defense played spectacularly, shutting down the
Broncos offense in the red zone. The offense worked really hard to get
something produced, but still struggled to get points on the board. With
the effectiveness of Denver's secondary, the long pass just didn't seem to be an
option for Texans QB David Carr.
The third quarter was all Houston Texans. The Texans offense was able
to get within field goal range one more time during the third quarter, while the
Texans defense held the Broncos to just one first down the entire quarter.
The fourth quarter was the most exciting quarter offensively. Broncos
RB Cedric Cobbs was able to show some fancy footwork with a 26 yard sprint into
the endzone, giving the Broncos a 17-6 lead over the Texans. But the
Texans second and third string just wouldn't say die as they answered back with
a beautiful pass from Sage Rosenfels to WR Derrick Lewis in the right side of
the endzone. This was Lewis' second preseason receiving touchdown.
The Texans went for two after the touchdown, which brought the team to within
three points.
Overall, the Texans played a very good game last night. They have
really shown how far they have come since last year's embarrassment of a season.
They are a very defensive minded team, holding a playoff team to just 10 first
half points. Offense is still struggling under Carr, but Kubiak is
committed to making it work. Perhaps the killer last night for the Texas
were the 9 penalties for 47 yards, and the two turnovers. If the Texans
can fix the sloppy mistakes like that and generate a small amount of offense,
the team should be in good shape for the regular season.