2012 NFL season outlook: Houston Texans set themselves higher standards-NFL Feature – Part Two
The Houston Texans are coming out into the 2012 National Football League (NFL) season with an aim to go above or at least match the heights and standards they had set themselves a season earlier.
There will not be any excuse for them if they fail themselves for any reason. They should be mindful of the fact that there should be little consideration of the notion that Texans are an emerging or an inexperienced side to get away with any failing.
The management will not have a chance to avoid the backlash from their fans, at least. They expect their team to perform better than last year.
Texans have made to playoff, won the divisional title and were on the course to the AFC championship. This is what they have already achieved a year earlier and for this year there will be new targets before them.
As earlier noted, the task of achieving newer heights will not be easy for Texans. There are a number of positives and negatives to it.
First, apart from their injury woes, Texans were lucky to have seen their competitors in the AFC South tumbling down miserably and consistently.
Take the Indianapolis Colts, for example. They were Super Bowl contenders before start of the season. Yet they ended up at the bottom of the league’s points table.
They could manage to record only two wins. Those two had come after their being closer to the verge of becoming the only second side in the league history to remain without a win in a season.
Luckily, they managed to pull off victories in their 14th and 15th games of the season, and escaped the worst scenario. Colts had started the season on losing note and ended on the same, leaving only two wins in between the two ends.
So this must be a blessing in disguise for Texans. No doubt, Texans had injury problems of their own, they successfully avoided to look as miserable as the Indianapolis Colts.
It was for the first that Colts were without the star quarterback, Peyton Manning, and could not managed wins in his absence.
Second, the Jacksonville Jaguars who were rated slightly better than Colts, had almost similar issues that Texans were confronted with.
They were without their main quarterback and had to rely on the rookie, Blaine Gabbert, but he was not as lucky and probably talented as Texans’ rookie, T.J. Yates.
Yet Gabbert has had the support from the head coach, Del Rio. He backed the player throughout in spite of his consistent failings on the starting position.
At the end, the owner, Wayne Weaver, who before start of the season had given the coach the target of taking the team to the playoffs, sacked him.
Before doing that he also sold the club to its present owner, the Pakistan-born American businessman, Shahid Khan.
The instability at Jaguars proved helpful for their competitors. Texans came out as the main beneficiaries of it. So, apart from Colts, Texans cause was aided by Jaguars woes.
With these two sides performing miserably on the field, the Tennessee Titans were left to be the only competitive outfit in front of Texans. It however did not affect the chances of Texans going into playoffs.
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