Texans game was a trap game - change my mind

[*PhilHos*]

(11-13-2023, 05:06 PM)Truck_1_0_1_ Wrote: I'm going to say it until I'm blue in the face, but this was the Mike White game.

Circumstances prior or injury reports or whatever, were irrelevant.

In both cases you had:

- Teams that were on the cusp of .500 or so
- 1st year, D-oriented coaches with hungry players and even hungrier staffs
- Unproven QBs (albeit Stroud has significantly more juice behind him than Mike White. If Stroud didn't have the Tampa game, he would be similarly ho hum, IMO)
- Below-par weapons (NYJ because they sucked, HOU due to injuries) that torched the team
- Late/no adjustments to the torching by Lou
- Just constant dink and dunk plays, leading to huge plays that shouldn't have happened, frustrating all of us to death.
- 3 turnovers by the opponent that we did nothing with in the end
- Referee calls (or non-calls, in HOU case) in pivotal moments that severely hampered the Bengals
- Over 500 yards of offense for both teams (511 for NYJ, 544 for Texans).

Mike White's longest pass was 26 yards, yet he threw for almost 10 YPA (9)
Stroud's longest pass was 34 yards (seemed like they were longer, doesn't it?), yet he also threw for almost 10 YPA (9.1)

The only real difference was that NYJ ran for 97 yards, while the Texans ran for 188... but the same things abounded: not so much missed tackles (thought that hurt us in both games), moreso just not being in the right position to make said tackle, that's what killed us in the run game.

We were 5-3 after that game (5-4 now) and then we had our lowest point of the year the following week, ending up 5-4 against the Browns.

Trap or not, there are too many similarities to the two games. Let's hope we rebound on Thursday like we did in '21.

I'll say this, I think the loss to the Texans will give the team extra motivation and will come out laser focused against the Ravens.