HOUSTON (AP) -Houston coach Gary Kubiak thinks his defense regressed to its poor form from early last season in Saturday night’s 38-20 loss to New Orleans.
The Saints’ offense manhandled the Texans, rushing for 198 yards and gaining 409 yards overall. Houston’s defenders missed numerous tackles, especially on third downs, and allowed New Orleans 40 minutes of possession time.
Houston opens the regular season against Indianapolis on Sept. 12, giving Kubiak only three weeks to shore up the problems.
“It wasn’t good. We got pushed around,” Kubiak said Sunday. “Our attention to detail, our effort at times, it’s not near what it needs to be for us to get ready to play Indianapolis here in a couple weeks. Obviously, we’ve got some things to fix and some issues to attend to and we’ll do that.”
Saints went 8-for-16 on third downs on Saturday night – 6-for-9 in the first half, when they built a 28-10 lead against most of the Texans’ top defensive unit.
“It’s not like we gave up a big play or anything,” Kubiak said. “They just kept pounding away. They converted many third down-and-6, -7 and 8-yard situations with simple draw plays and those type of things. We couldn’t get off the field. We helped them one time with a penalty.
“I don’t think it was anything they were doing,” he said. “I just don’t think we were doing what we do very good.”
The Texans had one of the NFL’s worst defenses through the first three games of last season, giving up 437 total yards, 205 rushing yards and 28.7 points per game. Over the last 13 games, they ranked as one of the league’s stingiest units, allowing just 299 total yards, 84.3 rushing yards and 19 points per game.
Kubiak promised a long film session with his defensive players on Monday to remind them of how they turned things around in 2009.
“Well, first thing we did was stop the run,” Kubiak said. “So it starts with that. If you don’t stop the run in this league, you’re going to be on the field for a long time and it makes it difficult. To me, that was the big regression (Saturday) night. It was just them having run the ball so well against us, and also not being able to get off the field.”
The defense also sustained a key injury.
Danny Clark, a frontrunner to start the season at strongside linebacker while Brian Cushing serves his four-game suspension, sprained his knee in the game and is questionable for Saturday’s game against Dallas.
The Texans were already missing Xavier Adibi (groin), another leading candidate to take Cushing’s role. Kubiak said Sunday that Adibi’s recovery is taking longer than expected.
“We’re getting down to decision time with the Cushing situation and if Danny’s not available, that continues to put some pressure on which way we go from that standpoint,” Kubiak said.
Trindon Holliday fumbled a punt, and Kubiak said the rookie from LSU is still bothered by a thumb injury. Jacoby Jones, Steve Slaton, rookie Sherrick McManis and Jeremiah Johnson looked comfortable fielding kicks later in the game, Kubiak said.
“With Trindon’s issue, obviously we’ve got to lock in on who will be our next guy,” Kubiak said.
Kubiak said his starters will play three quarters against Dallas on Saturday.
“We’ll see where we’re at,” Kubiak said. “We need to respond. We need to play a lot better than we did (Saturday) night.”
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