Broncos-Texans: The good, the bad and the ugly from Sunday’s win

The Broncos are now on a winning streak. They traveled to play the Texans on Sunday and put a whopping on the Houston defense, winning the game 38-24. Drew Lock was phenomenal against the Texans, becoming the first rookie quarterback in NFL history to throw for more than 300 yards and three touchdowns in his first road start.

Broncos head coach Vic Fangio had some fun when asked about Lock’s performance in his first road start.

“Ah, it was just okay (laughter). No, he played obviously very well. Made a great jump from week one to week two, which is what you’re hoping for. (I) thought he threw the ball much, much better than he did last week. And to do that on his first road start against a team that’s going to be in the playoffs, probably win their division, makes it even better,” Fangio said.

The Broncos are riding high after back-to-back wins, but there are still three games left in the season. Up next, this team is back on the road to take on the Chiefs. Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let’s take a look at the good, the bad and the ugly from Week 14 win.

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The Good

There is so much “good” from this Broncos game that I could spend all three sections of this article discussing different things that went well for Denver on Sunday. Instead, I’ll use this space to compliment the play of rookie tight end Noah Fant.

He’s had a good season statistically, especially for a rookie tight end, but there have been several times throughout this season where Fant has put together a disappointing performance. On Sunday, Fant was a bright spot for the Broncos offense – beginning on the first pass play of the game that went in his direction and he turned to run for a 48-yard gain. Fant finished the game against the Texans with a 4-113-1 stat line.

After the game, Lock talked about that first throw and what he saw.

“We were ready to rock and roll from the get go. I think technically the first play of the game was going to be a shot to Courtland (Sutton). And then I think it was (Bradley) Roby that fell off late on it; he was kind of doubling Courtland, so he ended up falling off late to where Noah (Fant) made that good catch. We put it behind him to stop the corner from taking the front. It was exciting to be a part of,” Lock said.

The passing game has to be more than just Sutton going forward. In order to play at a high level, it would greatly benefit the offense if Fant showed up and showed out like he did on Sunday.

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The Bad

I talked to Texans head coach Bill O’Brien last week and asked him how difficult it was to prepare for Lock since he only had one pro start. O’Brien admitted to me that it was incredibly difficult, but it was something the team had done earlier in the year when preparing for young quarterbacks like Gardner Minshew (Jaguars) or Kyle Allen (Panthers). The Texans coach also said that they were going to watch Lock’s college film to try and pick up some clues as to how to defend him.

That didn’t work. Lock had a historic day and the Texans defense looked powerless to stop him at times.

After the game, O’Brien commented on why Lock was so tough to defend.

“He played really well. He did a good job. They had a good plan. We had a hard time defending it. Give him a lot of credit. Drew (Lock) and his teammates and their coaching staff, they did a real good job,” O’Brien said.

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The Ugly

The Texans have made a flurry of moves earlier this year to improve their team – focusing on the offensive line and the secondary. At the end of August, the Texans traded the Dolphins for offensive tackle Laremy Tunsil. A first-round pick in the 2016 NFL draft, Tunsil was supposed to step in and be a quality player for the Texans O-line. Instead, Tunsil has now become the most heavily penalized player in the league.

After the game, O’Brien was blunt when talking about Tunsil drawing more penalties against the Broncos.

“Laremy’s played very well, but he’s had too many penalties. He would be the first one to tell you that. We’ve got to try to fix it. We’ve got to continue to try to help him to fix it. Nobody feels worse about that than him. He’s a great guy. He’s a great player, but we’ve got to fix that,” O’Brien said.

Now, Tunsil has 15 penalties on the year. The Texans have designs of winning their division and making a deep postseason run. They can’t do that if the offensive line doesn’t play better.

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