The Houston Texans are the newest franchise in the NFL, and have a couple of marque players that teams have to be mindful of.
The Texans have had limited success since their inception in 2002, but they are not a team to be taken lightly. Indeed, one could make a very strong argument that no team should be taken lightly when you are the six-time Super Bowl Champion Pittsburgh Steelers. Every team, and I mean every team, wants to beat the Steelers.
Recent History
There is very little history between these two teams, but the Steelers were one of only four wins the Texans got in their first season.
In the that game, on Dec. 8, 2002, the Texans won despite setting and all-time NFL record for fewest number of offensive yards by a winning team. The Texans managed only 46 yards of offense that day, but won the game rather handily, 24-6.
It seemed the Texans took a page out of the Steelers’ book that day as they scored 21 points on defense. Tommy “Gun” Maddox threw for 325 yards, but was picked twice. Both were returned for TDs. The Texans recovered a fumble and returned that for a touchdown, too.
In the two other meetings they have had, the Steelers have handled the Texans fairly easily. The Steelers won in 2005, 27-7, and won their latest meeting in 2008, 38-17.
The Texans are coming off a year that started well, but ended disappointingly. After taking an opening day win over division rival Indianapolis (only their second win against the Colts in 17 games), they went into their week 7 bye with a 4-2 record. There was talk of winning the division and a first-time appearance in the playoffs.
Unfortunately, the Texans would win only two games the rest of the season and while those wins were over the other two teams in their division, Tennessee and Jacksonville, a 6-10 record isn’t even good enough to make the playoffs in the NFC, to say nothing of the uber-competitive AFC.
Houston’s Offense vs. Pittsburgh’s Defense
The Texans are a very explosive team who were 9th in scoring offense in 2010. Two of the reasons for that are Arian Foster and Andre Johnson.
Foster is the Texans’ workhorse running back. He led the league with 16 rushing touchdowns and an average of 101.0 yards per game last year. He had an impressive 4.9 yards per carry. Those are very good numbers which had Houston in 7th place in the league for team rushing yards per game.
Of course, we all know that nobody ran on the Steelers’ top-ranked rushing defense last year, but if you sleep on Arian Foster, he will make you pay.
Here is the problem when playing the Texans, though: You have to stop Foster, but you can’t forget about Andre Johnson.
Johnson led the league in receiving yards per game with 93.5 and had 8 touchdowns. At 6’3″ and possessing a 40+ inch vertical leap, Johnson is a serious match-up problem for the Black and Gold. In his first meeting with the Steelers in 2005, which was not a great season for him as he suffered through injuries most of the year, Johnson was held to just 20 yards.
In 2008, however, he put up 112 yards on the Steelers. Fortunately, he was held without a score.
QB Matt Schaub was fifth in the league for passing yards per game and his completion percentage of 63.6% puts him in front of some big names in the NFL, like Matt Ryan in Atlanta, Michael Vick in Philadelphia, and some guy in Pittsburgh they call Big Ben.
Not much has changed in the Steelers’ secondary since 2008. If the Steelers don’t get some help in the defensive backfield, this could be a very long game for Citizens of The Nation.
Houston’s Defense vs. Pittsburgh’s Offense
Pittsburgh, as I have noted, had a very balanced offense in 2010. They were 12th in scoring, 11th in rushing yards per game and 14th in passing yards per game.
Saying the Texans need to improve their defense is like saying Lawrence Taylor like ’em young.
They were 29th in scoring defense. While they were a respectable 13th against the run (allowing more the 45 yards per game more than the Steelers), they were dead last against the pass.
What this means is that the Texans found themselves in a lot of shootouts and that is not a consistent way to win in the NFL.
I can’t figure out what the more amazing number is: The fact that they let seven teams score 30+ points on them, or that they shutout the Titans in week 12.
By way of comparison, the Steelers allowed only one team to score more than 30 on them in the regular season, but had no shutouts. Crazy game, isn’t?
About the only real playmaker for the Texans on defense is Bernard Pollard, who led the team in tackles and was fourth in the league for tackles for safeties.
It is the hallmark of a porous defense when a safety is leading the team in tackles. Moreover, he wasn’t even in the top 20 of the entire league in tackles. Plus, he had no interceptions nor any passes defensed.
So, what you have here is a defense whose most productive tackler plays in the defensive secondary and that man was not amongst the leaders in the NFL in tackles. On top of that, he was so busy making tackles, that he had no time for doing that which a safety is supposed to do: defend the pass and make picks.
Folks, that’s not good.
Look for the Texans to address this in the upcoming draft and/or free agency.
The Steelers should be able find plenty of ways to move the ball on offense, particularly with the crop of young talent they are developing at wide receiver.
Location, Location, Location
This will only be the second trip for the Black and Gold to Houston’s Reliant Stadium.
The team itself might be new, but you can be sure that fans of the Texans remember the battles between the Steelers and the Houston Oilers, before they moved to Tennessee. Pittsburgh usually got the best of those meetings, so you can expect the fans of the Texans to have no love for the Steelers when they roll in to town.
My Take
There are a couple of ways the Texans can win this game. One of them is for the defense to be so concerned with Arian Foster that they forget about Andre Johnson. In my opinion, this is the most likely scenario in which the Steelers lose.
The other way is through simple carelessness. The Steelers must be ready to play this game and cannot be looking forward to another team. If this game happens to take place in front of a division match-up, especially against the Ravens, this could very quickly become a trap game.
The Steelers will have to find a way to keep Johnson under control while not letting Foster run wild on them. This is usually done by intense pressure on the quarterback. The Texans did not give up a lot of sacks last year (20th in the league). Then again, they didn’t play the Steelers, who led the league in sacks.
With the Steelers’ newfound talent at wide receiver, a track-meet game is not the kiss of death it once was to the Steelers, but nobody wants to see a team running up and down the field on the Steel Curtain.
The draft will be an interesting time for both of these teams. Will the Texans address their dire needs on the defensive side of the ball? Will the Steelers address their needs in the defensive backfield, or will they continue to improve the offensive line?
On paper, I like the Steelers given that the Texans are nearly incapable of stopping a team from scoring at will, but even with Maddox throwing for more than 300 yards, and only attaining 46 yards of offense themselves, the Texans have beaten the Steelers that one time.
And as anyone who has ever watched the movie Little Giants knows, all it takes is that one time.