Tom Brady and the New England Patriots will square off against Matt Schaub and the Houston Texans for the second time this season on Sunday. The Patriots demolished the Texans 42-14 in their first meeting this year.
About a month ago, these two teams met on Monday Night Football in Foxboro. The New England Patriots put a beat down on the Houston Texans, embarrassing them 42-14 on national television.
Since that game, the Texans lost two of their final three games in the regular season, closing out the season losing their final two games to Minnesota (at home) and at Indianapolis.
They barely beat the Cincinnati Bengals last week in the wildcard round 19-13. So what makes me or anybody else for that matter think that the Texans will come back and beat the Patriots this week?
You are right, absolutely nothing and here is why.
People have been trying to compare this Texans team to the 2010 New York Jets team that came back and beat the Patriots in the playoffs 28-21 after getting blown out by the Pats 45-3 earlier in the season on national television.
Here is the difference between the 2010 Jets and the 2012 Texans. First off, that Jets team had “balls” in my opinion. It was Rex Ryan’s second year as head coach and were still buying into Ryan’s swagger. They had already beaten the Patriots earlier in the year so they knew that they could beat the Patriots. They were also coming off of a huge upset win over Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts in Indianapolis.
This Texans team in my opinion, has no “balls.” Two weeks after their game with the Patriots, the Texans had an opportunity to wrap up the number one seed and home field advantage throughout the AFC playoffs and they lost to the Minnesota Vikings at home 23-6 and then lost the following week to division rival, Indianapolis as they “choked” away the number one seed, dropping to the third seed.
The Patriots were also without star tight end Rob Gronkowski in the team’s first meeting this year and New England still demolished the Texans. Now the Patriots offense will be fully healthy for the first time this season and will have both Aaron Hernandez and Gronkowski available this weekend. It will only make things more difficult for Houston to defend and I don’t think they will be able to stop Tom Brady and this offense.
So you can see why this team is not like that 2010 Jets team that had swagger. This Texans team is on the down swing, have no swagger and no “balls” and that is why the Houston Texans will not beat the New England Patriots this week. This will be a closer game but not all that close as the Patriots will win 35-17.
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