Coming into the game the Colts needed their defense to step up, they will be the ones to win or lose this game. They played as well as they could possibly play until the end of the half. The Colts allowed the Texans to do whatever they want on their first drive (bailed out by interception). But for the rest of the half they were shut down. They shut the Texans running game down, which shuts their passing attack down as well. Everything was going perfect for this defense till the end of the half where they allowed a hail mary! Everything went downhill for the Colts defense after allowing this end of first half drive. I believe the Texans should have never gotten the ball at the end of the half, but I will get to that later. The second half was not so great for the Colts. The Texans have two players on their team who you say they are not beating me this week, Deandre Hopkins and Arian Foster, but somehow they always seems to be open on passing plays. Hopkins 11 catches for 169 and Foster 9 for 77 accounted for 68% of the Texans receiving yards. Finally when the Colts needed a big stop their defense stepped up. They double teamed Foster and Hopkins and the Texans had nowhere to go! Overall the Colts played a half of great defense and that was enough for them to get the win.
The Colts offense stepped up big time tonight, this all started with Frank Gore. After a tough first four weeks for Gore, he was able to whatever he wanted against this Texans defense, finishing with 22 carries for 98 yards and 1 TD. The offensive line, which was horrible all season, opened up huge holes for Gore all night. The Colts were able to get positive yards on most downs which set things up nicely for Hasselback. Hasselback played a perfect game of football. The Colts game plan combined with the Texans defense made life easy on Hasselback all night. The play calling put him in 2nd and shorts and 3rd and shorts all night. They called lots of quick throws and rolled him out when necessary, he was rarely pressured all game. The one bad throw he made all week was bailed out by a penalty on the Texans defense.
Coming into the game, this was the Texans game to lose. No Andrew Luck and Hasselback did not get to practice all week. Hasselback was even quoted before game saying he did not know if he could make it through 4 quarters. The Texans really needed their defense to finally step up, the Texans do not have the offense to win shootout games. This would be the final test for the Texans defense, if the Colts gash them, then they cannot be an elite defense.
I was not impressed with this Texans defense the entire game. Everyone likes to put all the blame on JJ Watt but I believe that is unfair. JJ Watt gets double teamed, chipped, or the Colts just run the offense away from him. Even when he is matched up one on one he is not winning those match ups, I think this has a lot to do with how hard he has to work while going up against those double teams. With JJ Watt getting double and triple teamed you would think this would lead to more sacks and tackles by the other Texans. This does not seem to be the case, nobody is steeping up and making plays for this defense. The Colts came into the game with a backup qb and a running attack which has been subpar this year. The Colts passing attack and rushing attack destroyed the Texans. Everyone knows how bad the Indianapolis oline is and they were able to open huge holes up each play for Gore and keep the Texans pass rush away from Hasselback. That says something about the Texans defense. On top of their horrible defense they committed penalties on key drives that gave the colts first downs. These penalties led to ten points by the Colts
The Texans finally got a full game from Arian Foster, although he left for a brief moment due to a concussion scare. He takes so much pressure off of each QB, not only on the ground but through the air as well. This made a huge difference all game, his 9 receptions for 77 yards shows this. The Colts were able to stuff the box all game due to the fact the Texans have no receivers beside Hopkins so Foster was not too successful through the ground. Unfortunately Foster still does not look like the elite RB he has been in the previous years, but he still is a hundred times better than any RB on that roster. His conditioning must not be up to what it was in previous years, he came off the field a lot. This was his first full game back, I believe he will be back to his elite self soon.
Outside of Foster and Hopkins this Texans offense is horrible. Their QB situation is horrible, but they did find their starter tonight. Unfortunately it was too little too late. Hoyer is not going to come in and erase a huge deficit to win you a game, but he is a guy who is a serviceable QB and hopefully shouldn't lose too many games for you. The Texans need to manage every game just like the Colts did. They need to be a running team first, so that their QB's can make easy short throws and this will open up the play action game. On their first drive its 2nd and 5 in plus territory, you need to run the ball here! Set up an easy 3rd down pass completion, but instead they throw a fade, next play interception. They started to set up easy throws for Hoyer in the second half by moving Hopkins all over the formation and letting Foster leak out. Unfortunately he made the bad throw that his counterpart Hasselback did not make all night.
Matt Hasselback does not look like a 40 year old man. This was about as perfect as you can ask your backup QB play, he did not make one mistake. The Colts offensive gameplan was perfect, they made one mistake. Which was at the end of the first half, they are up 10 on the road and get the ball back to start the 2nd half. So why try and go get more points? The Texan's offense was able to find some rhythm on that final drive of the half that the Colts should not have given them. Outside of that I believe the Colts should gain some confidence from this game. If they can run the ball when Luck returns that would be huge for them.
I do not see how the Texans win any games this year with that defense. Something needs to be figured out on that side of the ball because you cannot rely on the Texans offense to bail the defense out any game this year. The Texans can come away happy that they finally found their starting QB for the rest of the year. They also should be happy with how their offense looked with Foster.
Fantasy Analysis
If you are an Arian Foster or Deandre Hopkins owner you are a happy camper. Foster touched the ball 28 times and Deandre Hopkins caught 11 of 14 targets. Each will be elite options going forward, Hopkins could be a top three receiver rest of way. He should average 14-20 targets a game! I do not believe anyone needs to own Jalen Strong, he got lucky on a hail mary and then the Colts decided not to cover him on one play. It pains me to say this, but against the right defense, Brian Hoyer may be a streamable QB/sneaky DFS play, he threw for 263 and 1 TD's in one half (312 and 2 TD's with that hail mary). The Texans have a favorable next three opponents the Jaguars, Dolphins, and Titans.
In terms of the Colts fantasy news I think the main thing that should be noted is do not overeact to Andre Johnson. Revenge games are weird, I am sure the colts made it a big priority to get him involved. Sell high on this guy if anyone in your league is dumb enough to take him! Frank Gore finally looked like a decent fantasy option this week. Hopefully he keeps this up next week against a bad Patriots run defense. Hopefully we see a healthy Andrew Luck back for a shootout against the patriots.
