It certainly wasn't a thing of beauty, but there are signs of progress for the Houston Texans. The Texans lost 19-7 to the Kansas City Chiefs yesterday. Given that it was an exhibition game, the score hardly matters. The second half was staffed by guys who, two weeks from now, will be playing in the Canadian Football League or driving beer trucks. The important things are the lessons that can be taken away from the game, and there were no lack of them, accoring to the coaching staff.
After two weeks of doing their best impersonation of an established team, the Texans finally looked like exactly what they are -- an expansion club. Three Kris Brown field goals were the extent of the Texans' offense as far as scoring is concerned. The defense, while stingy when it needed to be, missed far too many tackles, some of which extended Kansas City drives and led to points.
"Up until today I had been proud of the way we played, really not beating ourselves," Texans coach Dom Capers said. "For whatever reason, we did the exact opposite. You have no chance if you have 18 or 19 penalties, dropped passes, missed tackles and make bad decisions."
As for the penalties, it was actually 19, Coach. Nevertheless, it was downright pathetic. The Texans allowed 101 yards -- the equivalent of a touchdown -- in penalties and were flagged nine more times than in their first two games combined.
"A game like this is going to make all of us take a look at ourselves," Texans cornerback Jason Simmons said. "This one hurts just like a regular-season game. It doesn't matter if this is the preseason or whatever. When you go out there, you're trying to compete, and we just made too many mistakes. If we show that this is the way we're going to play, then this is a setback. But if we get all the mistakes corrected, it's just a hurdle that we had to get over."
Now that the Texans have three exhibition games under their belt, I think it's becoming clear that they're not a playoff-caliber team- yet. Let's give them some time to develop and come together as a team. In the meantime, they sure look good in those uniforms, don't they??
