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By Morgan Smith
Beating the Houston Texans is hard enough, and even harder when you are missing offensive weapons. The Patriots will be short handed going into this matchup vs the Texans. WR Edelman broke his foot, and is done for the season, but the biggest loss was suffered against the Colts when tight end Rob Gronkowski was injured, and will miss a few more weeks.
Gronkowski’s loss is the worst loss for the Patriots when it comes to weapons since he stretches the field, and is the Patriots best red zone threat. The Patriots can still score, and still have weapons, but none of them come close to Gronkowski. Tom Brady still plays QB for New England which means the Patriots can still score, and score a lot. Something has to give for both teams.
Houston is undefeated this season on the road, and the Patriots have won their past 19 home December games in the past decade.The Texans have been exposed a little more then they are use to in recent weeks. They had to go to over time in shoot outs to win versus the Jaguars and the Lions.
The Texans couldn’t generate consist pressure on the opposing QB and both Chad Henne and Matthew Stafford picked apart the Texans secondary. The one loss the Texans suffered was at home vs the Packers when Aaron Rodgers went off on them scoring 40+ points since they gave him the time to do so. Tom Brady with pressure is good, Tom Brady with time is great. That brings me to the number one thing New England has to do which is protect Brady.
The Texans love to blitz so New England has to protect Brady much better then they did against the Dolphins, and Brady’s reciver’s has to get open for the quick passes. If the Patriots can’t protect Brady then New England isn’t going to win. Brady, of course, can help matters with quick short passes. When the Texans blitz look for Brady to shift the offense into a quick pass or a screen pass to Wes Welker. To beat the blitz the Patriots will throw short quick passes all game long.
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