Apparently I’m the only one who was bothered by the Vikings giving up 363 passing yards, almost half of them to tight end Owen Daniels on plays where he just sat down in the big gaping holes in the zone. Certainly the Vikings themselves are not the least bit bothered about their defensive performance. In fact, Brad Childress says it was all part of the plan to keep Andre Johnson from hurting them. “You didn’t want the ball to go over the top,” Childress said. “We could live with some of those that we could tackle and come up and hit. That takes a toll on tight ends, on Owen Daniels, on [Johnson], on all those guys. But we wanted to be able to rally to the ball and vise-tackle and hit those guys. We wanted to be able to hit the quarterback. That takes its toll. It took its toll on the first guy before halftime.”
Yeah, but here’s the problem – the Texans damn near won the game anyway. If Sage Rosenfels doesn’t make that dumb throw into double coverage that Madieu Williams picks off, and if the Texans manage to hold onto the second pass that bounced off Bernard Berrian and should’ve been a pick…well, it’s a different game. And today everyone’s screaming that the pass defense was too soft. Well sorry, but I’m gonna scream that it’s too soft even if they did win. I know Andre Johnson is a great player but isn’t there such a thing as over-compensation? Maybe I’m just way off base. I just know that, aesthetically, that kind of bend-but-don’t-break pass defense is hideous. Then again, ugliness seems to be Childress’s stock-and-trade. It would be easier to tolerate if the results were there more often.
