I have definitely been critical of our secondary, but they played great yesterday.

The Passing yards are meaningless. The late TD doesn't even matter. The bottom line is that the Colts scored 24 points yesterday and it took 57 throws to do it. We avoided big plays, forced them into check downs, got off the field on 3rd down, and stiffened up noticeably on our side of the field.

The biggest two players on Defense were undoubtedly Mario and Okoye, but Eugene Wilson also played great, and all of the DBs tackled extremely well. And that was what ultimately allowed us to force them into the short stuff and punish manning for dropping back 60 times.

Great gameplan and even better execution.

I felt the DBs were coached to contain more than defend and to not get burned deep. Overall, they did very well at this. I don't know if that tactic changes as we face less-prolific passing teams but it was a good strategy with someone like Manning. The idea was to pressure Manning up front and then ask the secondary to concentrate on tackling the receiver rather than defending the pass so that you keep the gains to a minimum.

According John McClain,they played more press and man to man in the first half, once they got the first 3rd quarter TD, they went into more zone to keep the play in front of them.

They tackled well and they made Peyton work for little gains. It was an excellent game plan.

it really was. the stadium was crazy yesterday. can't imagine what it will be like when the cowboys are here in 2 weeks.

I am extremely happy with the win, but giving up 403 passing yards, even to Peyton Manning, does not mean the guys back there had a great day. That we won was great but we must improve in the secondary.

Wow, tough crowd here... Guess we should be getting on AJ for the lousy game he had. He definitely needs to improve on that subpar performance.

OMG, They held the Colts to 4 of 12 on 3rd down. That is huge. We gave up 44 yds rushing. The Colts only scored 24 points, and 7 of those were during garbage time.

IMO the secondary gave up one bad play and it was the 73 yd pass with time running out on the Colts. That play gave the Colts a light, but a dim light.

The Colts only ran the ball 10 times, that is total domination. If you force Peyton to throw 57 times again, I bet you have won again.

Our secondary did what they needed to do in order for us to win.

That is the key. The last few games we were picked APART by Peyton on third. All those throws to Dallas Clark.

Shut down the third down, and we win.

Very simplistic view here. Manning dropped back 60 times to accomplish that. We forced him to throw short all game and as a result he threw it 60 times and was hit more than I've ever seen him. The running game was removed by design to make him one dimensional and easier to hit.

Yards are meaningless. Points scored are all that matter. And the Colts had 24. That is below average for the Manning Colts. If you make the Peyton Manning Colts play below average, you had a good day. Especially if you played the whole game with a lead he threw all day while playing from behind.

We forced them short in the 2nd half and tackled. That was by design and it was well executed other than the one long pass when the game was already about done.

If you can't see that game as a good defensive performance just because of a meaningless passing yardage total, you are probably playing too much fantasy football.

But above all else, I know Peyton Manning is not happy with his performance despite throwing for 400 yards.

Half packed with Cowboys fans maybe?... LoL, I know ill be there and I hope those damn Boys fans stay out of our home.

To me, this was the play of the GAME, when Kubiak went for it on 4th & 1. It established some sort of 'Swagger' for the team. This didn't seem like a desperation play, like an Onside Kick to try to keep the ball out of Manning's hands. This was a "All In" putting all the chips in the middle of the table stand of confidence. Had we not been able to convert that 4th & 1, I'd hate to imagine the mood of the city.

http://bleacherreport.com/tb/b5V2b

"4th & 1, I-Formation, 3Q 10:04 IND 20
Foster runs right for 2 yards.
This is where it really starts to build. Gary Kubiak has never been afraid to go for it on 4th down, and he certainly was going for it here. Arian Foster immediately started signaling to go for it, and though it wasn’t on camera, I’m sure the rest of the team was motioning to the sideline in the much the same way.

Chris Myers and the right side of the O-Line immediately went backwards on this play, but did at least enough as to not allow any deep penetration outside of their shoulders. All Foster could do was either pound it inside and hope for a push, or bust it outside and get to the edge. He’s not known for his speed, but he wisely opted for the edge. Owen Daniels saved the day on this play with an effective, yet unspectacular block on Clint Session. Winston released Mathis just quickly enough to avoid a holding penalty, and Andre Johnson blocked Kelvin Hayden just barely long enough that he wasn’t able to get to Foster in time to knock him out of bounds before the first down marker."

I thought I noticed a lot of interesting alignments and movement along the defensive front. So, I went back and charted every play in the first half of the game. Here are the observations I thought were interesting:

In 41 plays:

Texans Defense played Nickel all 41 first half plays (a key to the game)

9 blitzes in 41 plays (always 5 rushing)

0 DB blitzes.

Texans played a 3-3 alignment on 6 plays. They blitzed 4 of 6 times out of that alignment and dropped 8 players into coverage twice. They never rushed 4 men when in the 3-3 defense (Nickel version of 3-4). CONTINUE AT TEXANS BULL BLOG

That is interesting we were in the nickel the whole time. Wonder what changed the the fourth quarter?

for play by play of whole game by quarter can look at http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/foo...laybyplay.html

From that I noticed defense gave up about 50, 100, 40 and then 250 yds passing by quarter. and 73 of the 250 was a touchdown. and 32 of the 250 was on the fumble we recovered. the two longest pass completions.