The Texans scored a touchdown with 2:04 remaining in the fourth quarter on Monday night, bringing the score to 27-19 and giving them a chance to send the game into overtime — if they could get the ball back. But they never did, thanks in large part to burning the two-minute warning on the ensuing kickoff.
By this point, every coach in the NFL should know that in such a situation, the smart play is to kick the ball out of bounds, which doesn’t take any time off the clock and will result in the clock stopping for the two-minute warning after the first play of the drive. But that’s not what the Texans did: Houston kicked off deep, Seattle burned six seconds off the clock on the return, and the two-minute warning was gone.
So why didn’t Texans coach DeMeco Ryans tell kicker Ka’imi Fairbairn to kick off out of bounds? Ryans said after the game that he did, but Fairbairn didn’t do it.
“The plan at the end of the game was kicking the ball out of bounds so we could utilize the two minute,” Ryans said. “We did not execute it. Just goes to the entire game, frustrating that we’re not executing the things we’re coached to do.”
Ryans is putting the blame on his players not executing what they’re coached to do, but it’s ultimately on the head coach to make sure the coaching is getting through — and to put different players on the field if the players he’s putting out there aren’t listening. After winning the AFC South in each of his first two seasons as head coach, Ryans has the Texans at 2-4 and 3.5 games behind the Colts in the division. It’s his job to get things turned around, in a hurry.