Let's talk about Houston

[BohBalmer]

Speaking of crowd noise. I hope its louder than the jets game. Al micheals during the broadcast during intros said he couldn't hear himself speak! Then first play ed reed strips the ball from samchise and the speakers on my Tv distorted.

[Stone]

Those message board snipets are pretty representative of how things are in Houston.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but they are obnoxious.

Anything can happen, but you'd swear the Texans were going to play the JV team from St Joe next Sunday, given their overconfidence.

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Im in Northwest Houston and It's the sad truth really. The fans on local radio, media/publications are talking so much noise (as is my father, brother, and, many friends). Most of it is illogical - deprived - naivete; which, in all fairness I understand being a onetime oiler fan myself. These people haven't had much to root for, (especially when the oilers were around). Honestly I'm trying to be happy for them but the Raven in me" is ready to watch the D put the hurt on Yates! If we shut down Foster like we did earlier this year he has to beat us with his arm - and he won't do that! Not a third string rookie. Rice runs wild. Pitta, Boldin and Smith make some big catches! Realistically, if we bring our A game we should beat this team down! They can have their Super Bowl the next 6 days.

[Rex Thunder]

In all honesty, the first game vs them was extremely tight, and while schaub was playing, Andre Johnson was not. It was a few key strikes thrown by flacco and a great catch by Torrey smith that won that first game vs the texans. Not a gimme by any stretch... If the offense doesn't make critical mistakes, we win though. Period.

If not, that means the defense, and foundation upon which we are built, didn't come to play, and we won't deserve it anyway.

[RavenScallywag]

I think we catch a huge break this year with Schaub and Mario Williams out. I'm also hearing Owen Daniels may not play, which would really be a tough break for them as well....

Let's first examine what happened in our first meeting this year...
1. No AJ. That was a big factor then, as they had Schaub playing. Walter and Jacoby Jones can still provide some tough matchups, but having AJ in the game is a HUGE boost for their passing offense. Even with timing off, he's a threat every play that demands a strong matchup.
2. We controlled the rush attack. Tate and Foster COMBINED for about 90 yards. Tate nearly had a TD but fumbled on the goal line, which Houston recovered.
3. We didn't create a turnover. I think this is important to note, because we limited them to two scores without converting a single turnover. Granted, we forced two fumbles, but they were recovered by Houston.
4. Aerial attack. Joe threw for 300+ yards. Boldin went off for 100+. Torrey had about 80 yards, including a huge 51 yard catch.
5. Rice rice rice. As you can expect, get Ray the ball, good things happen. 100+ yards on the ground, 60 yards through the air, on 28 touches. Funny enough, he had 0 TDs this game, as they went to Ricky, Joe (rushing).
6. CUNDIFF. 5 field goals. 3 40+ FGs.
7. Keep Joe clean, get to Texans QB. We had 4 sacks, they had two.

So, all those things considered, here's the keys this time.

1. AJ will play, and now has a week of play to help get him back to speed. His timing and connection with Yates is going to be improved next week. We need our best CB on top of him at all times. And maybe Ed Reed just shading to his side of the field at all times. The rushing attack is their biggest weapon, but we contained that. AJ is the X factor. He had a big game against us two years ago in Houston, and he was absent from our meeting this year, so we haven't shown we can lock him out.
2. Our run game must step up. At first glance, you'd say we shut down the pair before, we have such a strong run defense, no problem. But we got roughed up the last three games by the RBs we faced. Benson and Scott combined for 85 and a TD, Hillis had 112, Ryan Matthews had 90 and combined with Tolbert for 130. The biggest concern with Foster is his quickness to the edge. Just cue up a replay of the Scott run against the Bengals. We CAN NOT give that to Foster, because he will be GONE.
3. Receivers need to roll. Boldin needs to be ready to go this game. I really like what I'm hearing from him, he says now that he had the surgery, he's feeling the healthiest he's been all year. Hopefully it's not just a line. I'm praying Torrey does not hit the rookie wall in the playoffs. He's been a great complement to Boldin. If he struggles, we've seen that Lee Evans isn't up to the task of stepping up. And I think Dickson/Pitta are stronger now than they were right after the bye. Hopefully we can use all our weapons effectively to work over Houston's secondary wherever Joe sees a weakness
4. Roll with Rice. Again, and again, and again. If we fall behind by two scores, just keep giving it to Rice. We've seen what happens when we take the ball out of his hands.
5. I hope the healing time has gotten Cundiff right. Probably my biggest takeaway for why we won is that once we got into range, Ravens took care of the ball and let Cundiff drop 15 on the Texans. It's no coincidence the margin of victory was exactly the number of points Billy Cundiff put up.
6. Get to Yates quickly. Don't let him find AJ or Jones breaking free against our secondary. Make him rush his throws and be the rookie he is.

[Lee Van Cleef]

So what if their fans are confident, read this thread, our fans are saying some of the same things.

Big deal.

[Ravenboy2003]

I make a few trips a year to Houston for work. Last night I get this text from my counterpart down there who was at the game saying "If our defense plays like this next week, your Ravens are going down!".

I had to remind him that we ran the ball down their throats last time, completed a couple of long bombs, and beat them with Schaub at QB. I ain't skeered... Yates is not going to beat us.

[chicagoravensfan]

Obviously there aren't any bad teams in the 2nd round of the playoffs. You don't get to face the Browns or the Rams. And if the Texans hadn't gotten screwed with injuries they might've been the odds on favorite in the AFC -- but this is a dream match-up for the Ravens. Anything CAN happen but things couldn't have worked out better. At this point the Ravens are happy to be the 2 seed rather than the 1 seed.

Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using Tapatalk

[PeterB58]

The Texans' win was impressive (ANY playoff win is). However, this game was tied with 31 minutes to go, then the Texans made one game-changing play and the Bengals were powerless to stop their momentum (I wonder how the game would had played out if the Bengal safety didn't drop the pick-6, though).

The Texans will make some plays next week, but I don't see them being able to get on the same roll against the Ravens. In fact, I could see the Ravens capitalizing on a couple of Yates' mistakes and turning them one-dimensional.

It's the playoffs, anything can happen, but if the Ravens are focused, and take care of their business during the week, they should win next week.

[lovefootball]

Houston played the bengals like the Ravens played them last week. Ran the ball alot and made pacman look bad by torching him. If Ravens play without turnovers, the game should go well for them. Secondary will make the difference in this game.

[JustaslowZ06]

We beat them by 15, WITH Schaub at the helm. And that game was even more lopsided than the score, don't know where anyone is saying it was a close game. Watching the game yesterday Cinnci was handing them their arse until the third quarter and their own rookie QB making huge mistakes. Than they just shut down it seemed like.

Not to get too overconfident but we should easily win by 2 scores.

[HoustonRaven]

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Im in Northwest Houston and ...

Are you a member of the Houston Ravens fan group?

We meet every game day at Pub Fiction on Smith Street in Midtown.

[PeterB58]

We beat them by 15, WITH Schaub at the helm. And that game was even more lopsided than the score, don't know where anyone is saying it was a close game. Watching the game yesterday Cinnci was handing them their arse until the third quarter and their own rookie QB making huge mistakes. Than they just shut down it seemed like.

Not to get too overconfident but we should easily win by 2 scores.

The Ravens had a 16-14 lead going into the 4th quarter. That seems like a close game in my book, but your mileage may vary.

Can the Ravens win by 2 scores? Sure, especially if Yates makes some of the same fluttering passes over the middle. But by the same token, the Ravens could just as easily make some mistakes that turn the game in Houston's favor.

I am expecting a hard-fought game that will be close into the 4th quarter.