The Texans made a number of critical mistakes in their 20-20 tie with the Colts week one.
While Texans head coach Lovie Smith might excuse many of those mistakes and poor play calls away in front of the cameras and microphones, veteran center Justin Britt understands that any miscommunication falls on him.
"If there is a communication error, it starts with me being the voice of the o-line," Britt said. "The guy who sets it all. I false started for something that shouldn't have happened. I was late on a snap and Tytus (Howard) false started, and again, that shouldn't have happened. Just things like that. Just do better next time."
With the Texans still leading the Colts 20-6 in the fourth quarter Sunday, Davis Mills was blind-sided by Colts linebacker EJ Speed, who came free, blasting Mills from behind, jarring the ball lose.
DeForest Buckner recovered and four plays later, the Colts had made it a one touchdown game, 20-13 with less than eight minutes remaining in regulation.
In regard to that particular play, a frustrated Laremy Tunsil said after the game that whatever happened on that snap, can't again.
"We gotta watch the film and see. If there was a miscommunication, you can't point fingers nowhere. We just gotta get it right, we gotta fix them, we gotta get ready for the Denver Broncos and try to get a W there," Tunsil said.
The Texans chose not to play Tunsil or Britt during the preseason. The reasons being, have been left unsaid, but not unquestioned.
Continuity is something that is widely talked about and discussed in regard to all positions, as finding a chemistry is an obvious and vital part of team success, particularly on the offensive line.
However, Britt wouldn't commit to the idea that not playing in the preseason contributed to the mistakes made week one.
"I think continuity is super important on the o-line. I don't know if having to play preseason games altogether for 10-20 plays a game will make it magically appear. I think that's something you just kind of get throughout camp. It's not like we don't have it," Britt said. "It's Week 1, we didn't lose. There's definitely things we can improve on but I'm sure there's a lot of things we can grow from, take and grow from the positives. Onward and upward. Our goal is to go 1-0 versus the next opponent."
Coaches and veterans in particular will generally protect each other and the decisions made.
It's hard to sell that continuity, complete trust and understanding can be built within training camp alone, when in the same breath coaches and players will die upon the same hill, making an argument that certain things quite simply be replicated in practice like game intensity or tackling for that matter.
Every rep a player at any position can get is important.
Nevermind the fact that Sunday was the first time any of them had played together for a significant amount of time, including training camp practices.
Rookie left guard Kenyon Green made his regular season debut on the third series and wound up playing 54% of the snaps.
The Texans have chosen to use regular season games to play catch up, and it might've cost them an opportunity to pull off one of the biggest upsets in the league week one.
As Lovie Smith told the media Monday afternoon in regards to his decision to punt on the fourth and three in overtime, "We'll see how it turns out the rest of the year on that decision."
