Texans roll over Cook, Raiders in wild-card win
The Houston Texans got exactly what they needed from quarterback Brock Osweiler and flexed their muscle on defense in a 27-14 playoff-opening win over the Oakland Raiders in Houston Saturday.
Here’s what we learned…
1. I, along with many others, predicted this might be the perfect forum for Jadeveon Clowney to re-emerge as a superstar — a status the general public has not bestowed upon him since his days at South Carolina. It was a safe bet seeing as Oakland’s offense was in tatters, but Clowney did not let us down. He did the things we expected, like blowing up shotgun run plays six yards in the backfield, and also the things that earned him the No. 1 pick in the draft back in 2014, like toy with a cut-blocking offensive lineman, pivot away from a pass rush to beat the screen pass and bat a pass in the air to himself and pick it off. His true value, though, was seen in the myriad personnel changes Oakland offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave had to make just to create a navigable pocket (more on that later).
2a. Raiders backup Matt McGloin was healthy enough to be the backup but, apparently, not healthy enough to come on in relief. This will puzzle Raiders fans who witnessed a plodding offense that was blanked on third downs until the 11-minute mark of the fourth quarter when they converted their first. I actually liked the way Musgrave treated Connor Cook and wondered what he might have done with a slightly more experienced player under center. On the first drive alone, he let him utilize an empty set and on other drives, he brought in a sixth offensive lineman to aid in protection and bolster the running game. By an unofficial count, I saw four totally different personnel groupings from the Raiders and two different variations of their standard three wideout, one tight end, one running back offense. Allowing Cook to go no-huddle was gutsy and paid off. Why didn’t they go back to it as much?
2b. This is not to say that Cook (18-of-45 passing, 161 yards, a touchdown and three interceptions) played poorly given the circumstances. The one fourth-quarter interception was a…