Colts vs Texans: Texans writer gives 3 reasons they could lose to the Colts on Sunday

The Texans are a team the Colts know pretty well. Since Andrew Luck took over under center, the Texans and Colts have jockeyed for the top of the AFC South. At least they did until last season. Injuries derailed both teams and allowed the Jaguars and Titans to supplant both teams and make their way to the playoffs.

This year, despite injury situations with both the Colts and Texans seemingly improved, both teams again find themselves trailing the Jaguars and Titans inside the division. This contest could have major implications for both teams in their quest to return to the top of the AFC South once again, and Chris Watkins of Battle Red Blog has been gracious enough to give us 3 reasons why the Texans are going to lose on Sunday, helping us better understand the team the Colts will face.

Super Genius Bill O’Brien is so great at coaching offense that the offense is actually terrible.

What’s that you say? That statement makes no sense? Well, neither does anything Bill O’Brien has done with this offense through three games. After all the play-action, throwing on the move, and so many other elements that made this offense hum last year - O’Brien hatched a brilliant plot in the offseason to overhaul the offense because he knew defenses would “have tape on” Deshaun Watson and plan their attacks accordingly.

The result has been a MADDENING hybrid of about 10% of last year’s offensive scheme + 90% of the garbage offense O’Brien had been trotting out in the pre-Deshaun era. Deshaun was the best play-action passer in the game last year. This year he’s barely had a chance to replicate it.

Sure, it may be that the offensive line is SO tragically bad that they can’t even execute boots and misdirection properly - but that also lies at the feet of Bill O’Brien, whose offensive line has gotten progressively WORSE since he took over as head coach in 2014.

AVERT YOUR EYES - this offensive line is GOD awful

Uninformed Texans fans gripe that the Texans failed to address the offensive line in the offseason. In reality, they failed to improve it, so far. They certainly addressed it to the tune of four new starters. The only starter who returned was center Nick Martin.

Seantrel Henderson suffered a season-ending ankle injury early in Week 1, but he was always going to get hurt and/or be replaced by rookie Martinas Rankin. I argue with any Texans fan who says the Henderson loss was a big one - either by injury or performance, this was always going to happen.

Julie’n Davenport has been a total disaster at RT - a position he moved to when Rankin replaced Henderson at LT. False starts, holding, and generally getting his head kicked in. It’s not like the Colts have a stable of premiere pass rushers - but they basically need to be able to line up and they will instantly have the advantage over Houston’s PUTRID line.

T.Y.Hilton torches the Houston Texans

Houston has a lot of question marks in the defensive backfield, specifically with cornerbacks. Hilton has destroyed bad Texans DBs and good ones alike, and since Houston’s pass rush hasn’t had much consistency against non-NY Giants opponents, I don’t see any real reason to think Hilton will fare any worse against the Texans than normal.