Pep Hamilton says Texans must find ways to ‘stay out of obvious passing situations’

Coaching in the NFL isn’t as complicated as it appears to be with the color-coordinated, laminated play-call sheets, headsets, and gridiron technobabble uttered over headsets every practice and game day.

“It’s always our goal as offensive coaches, we always talk about putting our players in the best position to be successful,” offensive coordinator Pep Hamilton said. “Even deeper than that is really just situational football.”

Getting from point A to point B is the challenge, and the Houston Texans have had more failures than successes in this endeavor throughout the 2022 season, as evidenced by their 2-13-1 record.

According to Hamilton, part of the coaches’ job is to also ensure the players are in good situations throughout the game.

“There’s going to come a time in the game where it’s not about necessarily just trying to create a matchup,” said Hamilton. “It’s about us putting our guys in a better position to have an advantage before the ball is snapped. If that’s using two quarterbacks, if that’s using smoke and mirrors, if that’s running the fumblerooski, whatever it is we need to do to mitigate the time where we’re playing from behind or it’s an obvious passing situations, that we do that.”

The Texans are tied for the 15th-lowest yards gained per first down at 5.1. Houston descends to being tied with the Los Angeles Rams for the lowest yards gained per second down at 4.3, and it doesn’t help matters when their 7.9 average yards to go on second down is also tied for the 10th-most in the NFL.

“Just reflecting on what’s happened up until this point, ultimately it is just finding ways to be more efficient on first and second down to stay out of obvious passing situations,” Hamilton said.

The Texans play the Indianapolis Colts Sunday at 12:00 p.m. Central Time at Lucas Oil Stadium to finish their season.