Week 15 – Houston Texans vs. Indianapolis Colts: Preview & Predictions

The 2-11 Houston Texans match up against the 8-5 Indianapolis Colts for the second time this season at Lucas Oil Stadium on Sunday, 12:00 p.m. CST.  You can catch the game on CBS.

And oh, what a week and a half it has been for the Texans.  Gary Kubiak was fired as the Head Coach of the Texans and now Wade Phillips takes over as Interim Head Coach.  Also Joe Marciano was (finally) fired as Special Teams Coach and there have been many other interesting shifts in the Texans coaching staff.  The Texans have begun their search for a new head coach and names like Lovie Smith, Ken Whisenhunt, Bill O’Brien and David Shaw are all being thrown into the mix for serious consideration.  Of course every now and then I hear ridiculous candidates like Ray Lewis and Norv Turner (courtesy of Travis Johnson on SportsRadio610).  My money is on Whisenhunt or O’Brien, but that discussion is for a later time in a different post.

In another (sort of, but not really) interesting development, Case Keenum was named the starter by Texans owner Bob McNair for the rest of the season.  This lead people to believe that Kubiak was fired because of his quarterback change from Keenum to Matt Schaub during last week’s game against the Jacksonville Jaguars.  I think it’s much simpler than that.  Kubiak’s firing had zero to do with any personnel change in the roster – he got fired because the Texans were having a historically bad season.  The loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars signified the official end to the Texans season because it mathematically eliminated us from playoff contention.  That’s all McNair was waiting for to start the process of change within the organization.

Keenum starting the rest of the season isn’t really all that shocking either.  They want him to finish out the year so that they can figure out what to do moving forward in the draft.  If he balls out (don’t hold your breath), then they might think differently about how to use their number one pick in the draft next year.  If he plays they way he’s been playing, then they know what their first priority is – getting a quarterback.  Personally I think no matter what happens with Keenum, they’re still drafting a Quarterback.  They just want to save face with all the Keenum-truthers out there by letting him play out the season so there’s no, “Oh he only played 7 games,” talk when they bring in his replacement.

Which brings us to their Week 15 match up against the Indianapolis Colts.  Clearly we’re all very familiar with the Texans issues, but the Colts have had their fair share of problems as well.  Andrew Luck hasn’t been playing very well, the entire team has been wrecked with injury after injury to key players, and their trade for Trent Richardson looks like the worst transaction of the year (or at least tied for 1st with the Texans pick-up of Ed Reed).  Despite all of their struggles, look for the Texans to struggle even more.  I don’t see Keenum (or any of our offense) doing much here.  He still can’t recognize a blitz or escape pressure well and he’s gonna get Andre Johnson killed over the middle someday.  The Texans defense will still be doing what they do best – getting pressure with J. J. Watt but giving up big plays down field.  Hopefully with the new coaching arrangements there will be much fewer penalties… hopefully.

This game could get ugly fast, and I’m not even talking about a routing of the Texans, I’m just talking about the fact that neither team is good right now.  It’s just a question of who is worse, and obviously right now the Texans probably take that cake.

Is this the game where the Texans snap their 11 game losing streak?  Nah.  The Texans have never won in Indianapolis and something tells me that that streak will live on this year.  Again, this team has done nothing this year to indicate that they’re capable of doing something (positive) that they’ve never done before in the past even when they were playing infinitely better than they are now.

The Colts will take this one, but I’m okay with it.  I want that #1 draft pick, no… I need it.  We all do.

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