Patriots take care of Texans

It's weird. Without Rob Gronkowski and Danny Woodhead the Patriots and Tom Brady looked inconsistent passing the ball. Brady forced too many balls to Welker that bounced off his arm and Aaron Hernandez dropped a catch or two. Then I notice that Brady still threw for 344 yards and they scored 41 points.

Matt Schaub, Arian Foster, Daniel Manning and J.J. Watt all had really good games. After a slow start Foster was hard to stop the last three quarters. Schaub found and completed a lot of open passes to Johnson. Daniel Manning had three big kick returns that led to three Texans scores and 17 points. Watt and the Texans’ defensive line caused a lot of pressure on Brady. But the Texans wasted some opportunities, settling for just a field goal and four straight punts despite a poor start offensively by New England, and while the Texans gained 425 yards, it seemed like the Patriots defense was better than the Texans offense.

As they say, “next man up!” Losing Gronk and Woody left a void in the running and passing game, and those were both filled by Shane Vereen. Vereen was really the difference maker, picking up 124 yards and 3 touchdowns. Just another example of how Tom Brady makes everyone around him better and turns guys you’ve never heard of into big-time contributors.

Bill Belichick and Tom Brady had one of the strangest sequences at the end of the first half. In a 17-10 game, right after Houston scored their first touchdown, the Patriots got the ball back around the 20 with 1:09 left with two timeouts. They seemed to change their whole offensive gameplan, focused on what happens when we give the Texans the ball back. You have Tom Brady! Do something! It's like they had no faith in their ability to get a first down. As a result they didn't advance the ball at all, they didn't burn any of the Texans' three timeouts, and didn't burn any clock. They punted, a poor punt at that, and five plays later Houston was in field goal range before the half. A little more aggressive playcalling (or just smarter) and the Pats could have received the second half kickoff leading 20-10. Instead they led only 17-13.

It was a weird game. The Texans started it off with a 94 yard kickoff return. Gronk and Woody left in the opening plays of the game and the Pats punted twice to start. Brandon Lloyd was called for unsportsmanlike conduct for flipping the ball to the ref after a missed catch that took the Patriots out of the redzone. The Texans lone touchdown of the first half was questionable; it looked like Arian Foster was stopped inches short of the goal line and that would have set up 4th down. Then the goofy end of the first half that I just described. In the second half the Patriots defense forced a fumble but the ref said that a whistle had been blown for forward progress. New England still won comfortably 41-28, but it felt like it should have been 60-13. Seeing how the other elite quarterbacks fared (Peyton and Rodgers), the Patriots are happy to still be alive.

I picked: Patriots by 17. Outcome: Patriots by 13.