The Madden Preview predicts what I have been fearing all week since seeing the terrible performance against the Colts last week - that the Texans are going to get slaughtered by a Chargers team that is both the top offensive and top defensive team in the league statistically. In the Preview, the Texans look terrible in all parts of the game from defense, offense, special teams and play calling.
As usual, the lack of running early in the game and lack of defense puts the Texans in a passing situation early against a team with a very good pass rush. Even John Madden Football thinks Kubiak is a bad play caller, showing it with a pathetic display of play choice in the Preview. No running when the game was close, but when they got behind 31-10, they start running draws and dives all of a sudden more often than passing. Even when the score gets up to 45-10, you see Foster running for the majority of the drives. Just pathetic play calling that was eerily similar to what we saw in real life against the Colts.
Play calling wasn't the only area the Texans struggled. Other than one big 70 yard pass from Schaub to Johnson, the offense just couldn't get things going. A lot had to do with the terrible play calling, but the offensive line was no match for the Chargers pass rush who is able to get to Schaub for 3 sacks early in the 1st Quarter and continue the pressure throughout the game. Schaub gets very trigger happy from all the pressure and makes all kinds of terrible passes. He has to check down to and make safe throws through out the game as the receivers are rarely able to get open before the pressure gets to Schaub. When Schaub does get to throw deeper, Cason is all over his passes throughout the game nearly coming up with picks every time.
On defense the Texans looked consistent with their previous weeks of inability to stop anyone or anything from scoring. Bad secondary, bad pass rush. Bad everything. The only defenders that actually look like they are playing are Kareem Jackson and Brian Cushing who both come up with picks during the game. Other than those two passes, however, Philip Rivers is able to shred the Texans defense throwing for 346 yards and 5 TDs. He literally has all day to make passes as the Texans pass rush is virtually non-existent.
Perhaps the worst (if there can even be worse) performance in the game was the Texans special teams - specifically the return game. Steve Slaton manages to fumble twice on kick-off returns - both of which ended up in touchdowns for San Diego. (Thankfully in the real game Steve Slaton will not be returning kicks!)
Other notable items were that Kris Brown made a strong return to Houston nailing three Field Goals and 7 extra points for the Chargers. Walter also suddenly starts showing up in the Texans offense.
My soul is bleeding after sitting through this, I can only hope and pray that the real match-up is nothing like this. It appears that this game may be blown a little out of proportion by Madden. I actually expect the real game to be much closer than the Madden Preview. The real Kubiak will be able to adjust his game plan from last week and should be running more and making better play calls. In these simulations, a lot of the human elements of making a call are taken out. For example, it will always call a punt on 4th down even if it is 4th and inches in Chargers territory. And there was a lot of that in this Madden Preview.
The simulation also had Antonio Gates in the game, who should be sitting out in real life with a plantar fasciitis injury. I'm expecting something more like Chargers 35 to Texans 24 in the real game. We shall see.
Box Score
| Passing | |||||
| Player | Team | Att/Comp | Yards | TD | Int |
| Schaub | Texans | 27 of 41 | 405 | 3 | 2 |
| Rivers | Chargers | 23 of 36 | 346 | 5 | 2 |
| Rushing | |||||
| Player | Team | Att | Yards | AVG | TD |
| R. Mathews | Chargers | 23 | 104 | 4.5 | 1 |
| Foster | Texans | 15 | 48 | 3.1 | 0 |
| Sproles | Chargers | 4 | 38 | 9.5 | 0 |
| Tolbert | Chargers | 2 | 26 | 15.0 | 0 |
| Ward | Texans | 1 | 0 | 0.0 | 0 |
| Receiving | |||||
| Player | Team | Rec | Yards | AVG | TD |
| Walter | Texans | 6 | 97 | 16.1 | 1 |
| A.Gates | Chargers | 6 | 36 | 6.0 | 1 |
| P.Crayton | Chargers | 6 | 114 | 19.0 | 3 |
| G.Banks | Chargers | 5 | 134 | 26.8 | 1 |
| Foster | Texans | 4 | 26 | 6.5 | 0 |
| A.Johnson | Texans | 4 | 109 | 27.2 | 1 |
| Daniels | Texans | 4 | 64 | 16.0 | 0 |
| Dreessen | Texans | 3 | 69 | 23.0 | 1 |
| J.Jones | Texans | 3 | 30 | 10.0 | 0 |
| R.Mathews | Chargers | 3 | 26 | 8.6 | 0 |
| Leach | Texans | 2 | 7 | 3.5 | 0 |
| S.Ajirotutu | Chargers | 2 | 31 | 15.5 | 0 |
| Dickerson | Texans | 1 | 3 | 3 | 0 |
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