Heed lesson Raiders loss taught Texans
December 23
Houston Chronicle columnist Jerome Solomon
"Gary Kubiak’s Texans were cruising down a road they had never been on — driving under the influence of a month of solid play — and speeding.
They weaved and got caught, pulled over and ticketed by the sad sack Oakland Raiders.
Kubiak didn’t do enough to prevent it from happening.
The day after, Kubiak wasn’t in a good mood. That is understandable. It is hoped he and his team learned a lesson.
Perhaps the next time Kubiak sees the Texans not observing the law, he’ll do something about it so they won’t lose a game like the one they lost Sunday.
It was a foreseeable defeat. When some fool rolls past you doing 90 on I-45, are you surprised to see flashing lights two miles later?
Kubiak should have sensed last week that his squad had the “pedal to the settle” in preparing for the Raiders. He claims he wouldn’t do anything different in the preparation that led to his team’s lackluster performance.
“No, I’d prepare the same way,” he said at Monday’s news conference. “We prepare the same way for every game. We don’t change our routine very much — how we put in game plans, how we go about our work. We practice the same way from the standpoint of how we’ve been doing things the last six or seven weeks from a fresh standpoint. So I wouldn’t do anything different.”
Don’t worry. That’s mostly coachspeak. Kubiak is smarter than that.
I know a coach who has a notebook filled with what he told his team before and after losses, and before and after wins. I know another who has notes dating back 25 years on what was going on with his team at each point of the season. I know another who could recite for you, almost verbatim, each speech to his teams.
Adjustments needed
The good ones pay attention to what worked and didn’t work, what they caught and what they missed, and adjust.
Even Kubiak said it’s “a week-to-week business,” so it’s smart to approach each week the same — consistency is important — but one must also be ready to make changes when the message isn’t getting across. Perhaps the next time the Texans are on a four-game winning streak and facing a weak team, Kubiak won’t let the team talk about the previous week’s game. Publicly at least, the Texans didn’t seem concerned about the Raiders.
Kubiak at least admitted he would change some play calls because of the ones that didn’t work, but that isn’t a major concern. The Texans’ offense is too good to be worried about whether a play here or a play there didn’t work.
Whether you choose to run the ball or throw it on fourth-down-and-less-than-a-yard isn‘t a debate if you approach the week with a different attitude. Do that, and you’re not in a desperate situation needing a two-touchdown, fourth-quarter comeback against one of the league’s bottom feeders.
I had a nice little debate with a Texans player Monday about whose fault it was that the Texans failed to show up. As expected, the player said it was on the players.
“You can’t blame Gary for this one, man,” he said."
Link
Calendar
