Other observations:
*The Houston Texans did a good job of coming off a hard loss to Arizona by rebounding and defeating the surprising Cincinnati Bengals. Matt Schaub went bananas, throwing for 392 yards and four touchdowns. He did have a couple of ill-advised throws, one that was intercepted and one that should have been intercepted by Jonathan Joseph, but it was still a good game against a Bengals defense that held Joe Flacco to 186 yards (1 TD, 2 INTs) last week.
*Andre Johnson was beast again for Houston, racking up 135 yards on eight catches, though he didn’t get into the endzone. Owen Daniels did most of the scoring, catching seven passes for 78 yards and a pair of touchdowns, including this spectacular one-handed catch (Though, we still prefer Andre’s three broken tackle score from last week):
*We weren’t that mad at Kubiak this week. He sort of listened to us. Steve Slaton got way too many carries (19 for a measly 43 yards) but Gary drew up six pass plays too him and Slaton caught all six passes for 102 yards and a touchdown. We aren’t sure if turning into the Reggie Bush type is a bad thing but that’s what it seems like for Slaton. He’s not that good in between the tackles, but he is extremely effective catching the ball out of the backfield with his speed. Chris Brown, who we kinda sorta said should be cut, was the more effective runner today, getting 45 yards on nine carries. He can stay on the team for another week.
*Our hat goes off to the Texans linebacking core in this game. DeMeco Ryans (12 tackles, 8 solo) and rookie Brian Cushing (9 tackles, 6 solo, 2 passes defended and an interception) did an excellent job shutting down Cedric Benson, who came into the game as the NFL’s leading rusher, holding him to just 44 yards on 16 carries.
*One more Texans nugget: We will be in attendance next week for the 49ers game covering Michael Crabtree. We see the Texans winning and Crabtree getting five grabs for 41 yards. Nothing spectacular, but it’s a start.
