Romeo Crennel: HOH's Week 16 Golden Bull Award Recipient

A funny thing happened to the Houston Texans this past Sunday afternoon.

They beat the Baltimore Ravens!

In match up that likely few people thought that this team would be the favorite to win, they stood tall and took care of business.

It truly was the sweetest win of the season.

The stage was set with former Texans Gary Kubiak, Owen Daniels and Jacoby Jones all ready to do battle with their preceding team.

Joe Flacco & Co. was poised and obviously thought that the team would just lie down and let them steamroll to an easy win.

Not at NRG, not at the Texans’ house.

Not now, not ever!

It also marked the return of hometown favorite Case Keenum, who was ejected out the quarterback’s seat early this season when he lost the battle for the job when the Texans decided to acquire Ryan Mallett from the New England Patriots.

Dec 21, 2014; Houston, TX, USA; Houston Texans quarterback

Case Keenum

(7) attempts a pass during the first quarter against the Baltimore Ravens at NRG Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports

With the plethora of injuries that have beset our quarterbacks — Keenum suddenly became a viable option as he was quite comfortable with the system Bill O’Brien runs.

I’m happy O’Brien came to his senses and rescued him from the St. Louis Rams practice squad to start under center.

He didn’t set the world on fire but managed the game well enough to go 20-for-42 for 185 yards with one pick comitted by Darian Stewart, his first of the season by the way.

I knew coming out that first drive that Keenum was serious business about helping the team win as he always has.

The first drive of the game he completed four of six passes while helping the team march down the field for 63 yards in 4:27 with four first downs.

Although the team didn’t get in the end zone, they were close enough to kick the field goal and Randy Bullock comfortably banged in 35-yarder. He eventually go on to kick five more of those field goals scoring 18 of the Texans’ 25 points in one of his best efforts since being a member of the team.

Other aspects of the offense seemed to stall — the team was 7-for-21 on third-down efficiency — and they relied heavily on Bullock to put some points on the board.

But the defensive unit stepped it up a notch to level I thought couldn’t be reached.

Because of this, excellence deserves to be recognized — we started at the beginning of the season and on that type of basis continuously, we will honor an individual player that made the most impact in helping the team, despite whether it resulted in a win or a loss.

We’ve dubbed it House of Houston Golden Bull Award…

And this week’s Golden Bull Award goes to…

Romeo Crennel!

Yes, I’m breaking our past rules of honoring a player — sometimes rules are meant to be broken and this is certainly a worthy scenario.

I saw perhaps the best coaching job I’ve seen out of Crennel this season!

He game-planned for Flacco quite well as they applied intense pressure that made the one-time Super Bowl MVP look human.

The defense forced Flacco to have one of his worst football games in his career — he was 3-for-18 in passing the first half as the Texans had shut him out through two quarters.

The Ravens had to work extremely hard to get their eventual 13 points in the second half.

He ended up finishing 21-for-50 for 195 yards passing with two touchdowns and three interceptions.

Very un-Flacco-like…

That unit totally dominated and made up for the offensive shakiness that the team was displaying.

Kareem Jackson got two picks off of Flacco and A.J. Bouye was able to get one.

J.J. Watt and Jared Crick were able to get to Flacco and get one sack off of him each.

Dec 21, 2014; Houston, TX, USA; Baltimore Ravens quarterback

Joe Flacco

(5) is sacked by Houston Texans defensive end

Jared Crick

(93) during the second quarter at NRG Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports

That’s amazing considering that he doesn’t get sacked all that much — he had only 16 of them going into this game.

It was an all-out effort by the defense holding their opponent to some of the lowest offensive totals of the season.

They held the Ravens to just 178 yards passing and 33 yards rushing! Wow!

As prolific as Justin Forsett has been with the Ravens, he was only able to get 19 yards off 10 carries, way below his average per game.

For a unit that is No. 2 in the league in takeaways with 34 on the season in addition to being No. 6 in team defense, Crennel has done a solid job with this unit this season.

Although they have to improve their yards allowed with their pass defense — they’ve elevated to 24th allowing 252 yards per game from being near dead last — their rush defense is certainly on point and our defensive line is leading the charge.

Dec 21, 2014; Houston, TX, USA; Houston Texans defensive end

J.J. Watt

(99) rushes during the second quarter as Baltimore Ravens running back

Justin Forsett

(29) blocks at NRG Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports

The Texans are 11th in rush defense giving up about 104 yards per game by the way.

Crennel and the rest of his unit were prepared for what plays Kubiak was going to run and they were there to pounce on every opportunity that presented itself.

They shut down an offense that was ranked No. 6 going into the game!

Take a bow RAC and thanks for getting the utmost in potential out this defense this season.

Romeo Crennel: HOH’s Week 16 Golden Bull Award Recipient

By Brian K. Patterson | Dec 24, 2014