(SportsRadio 610) - Finally, someone with the Texans had a better explanation for their poor performance beyond penalties and turnovers.
All head coach David Culley can tell you is that they need to do a better job taking care of the ball and eliminating mental errors, which lead to drive-killing penalties, or keep their defense on the field longer than necessary.
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Nevermind the Texans losing to the Dolphins despite winning the turnover battle, and in many other cases, simply not scoring enough points to be competitive in a game.
Beyond the penalties, there is a lack of attention to detail that is striking for such a veteran team.
General manager Nick Caserio built this roster largely short-term veterans who have been around the league. Yet Houston is tied for the eighth-most penalized team in the NFL, though it's cost them the 12th most yards.
Why do they have these issues?
"That’s a question that’s kind of eluded me," Texans wide receiver Chris Conley told reporters Monday. "It’s not a lack of hard work. It might be a lack of attention to detail. It might be a little bit too much anticipation, guys eager to go out and make a play and anticipating things to the point where they do something out of character. It might be that. I can only speak for myself, that’s something that’s happened to me before.
"But ultimately, it comes down us looking at each other and saying, ‘Hey, I’m going to play the best game soundly that I can play. That’s all I can promise.’ And then I have to rely on my teammates to do the same."
The Texans boast the league's least-efficient offense, according to Football Outsider's value over average metric.
In practice, players are holding each other accountable when they take bad angles or false start, Conley said. They are trying to emphasize the details more than ever. Conley said it's "definitely a lot more player-driven."
Conley, the seventh-year wide receiver out of Georgia who has 10 catches for 196 yards and a touchdown on the season, was asked how he could help quarterback Tyrod Taylor bounce back from a three-interception performance in the Dolphins loss.
"Being efficient. I think being efficient is something that we’ve really looked at in self-scout over this week that we’ve been off. We’ve looked at our inefficiencies on ‘give me’ plays. Say a team is playing zone coverage, we have a ‘give me’ where someone’s sitting right in the zone, exactly where they need to be at five or six yards, and it’s a ‘give me’ play where the quarterback can get the ball out of his hands quickly, we get five, seven yards a pop. There’s been a lot of inconsistency on those routes run. Sometimes the route, if it’s supposed to be in between the hashes, sometimes it’s hugging the hash, sometimes it’s in between the hashes, sometimes it’s offset to the left. Right now, there’s a little bit of hesitation, not only from Tyrod (Taylor), but there was hesitation from Davis (Mills), too, about throwing that ball maybe a hitch extra when it should be a timing throw.
"Really, that’s onus on as receivers, backs, tight ends, to be more consistent. It’s not about just running the right route in an option. It’s about being at the right spot at the right time."
