Week 2: Bengals @ Texans

[ArmyBengal]

Starting another gameday thread as that's 4 in a row and we aren't messing with the winning streak.

This will be a fun week 2 game for anyone I would think in that you have two of the top teams in the AFC going at it.
Of course for my son and I, it holds a little more as the Texans are his favorite and my #2 team.
We are headed down to Houston Friday evening to catch the game and hanging with friends for the weekend.
Absolutely cannot wait for this one.

The Texans are coming off a hard loss to the Bills, which was a great game to watch.
Their offence looked good, but their defense, which is great didn't look that way Sunday.

Stroud had a solid game until the fumble at the end and Montgomery was the focus of their rushing attack.
I love Josh Allen, but was surprised the Texans defense game up 334 passing yards and 2 TD's through the air.
Hopefully the Bengals can take a look at that game and attach them accordingly.
The Texans didn't give up much in the ground game 86 yards, so this has the looks of a shootout.

Seeing the Bengals get to 2-0 after games against the Bucs and Texans would send expectations higher.
I think I'm ready for that !!!  WHODEY

[volcom69]

Hopefully week 3-4 Burrow/ offense  shows up for this game, because not sure the Texans defense will suck 2 weeks in a row. No stupid mistakes on offense and hopefully they can get that run game going as well.

So not sure I’m completely sold on the Bengals defense, still early for all of them and I loved the pressure and the turnovers for sure. However there were a lot of chunk plays, and they gave up big yards on first and second down a lot, to many 3rd and short. Struggled a bit in stopping the run at times, and dont think the Bucs punted at all. So with that said still much better than last season, so keep improving this week, hopefully we can see some 3 and outs and some stops. Houston’s offense looked pretty good, so no easy task I’m sure 

[HoosierCat]

Yah, the inability of the d to get off the field on third down has been a sore point for years and yesterday just underscored it. 

[ArmyBengal]

Yes, getting off the field on 3rd down is the one area I would comment about the defense yesterday.
THAT is something they need to address more than almost anything.  Besides that, I'm happy with them.

Can't forget the Bills are a really really good football team.
As much as I would like to see the Bengals establish the run, I'm not hopeful this will be the game that happens.
Much of what the Bills did yesterday was through the air nice plays by Josh Allen.

The Bengals o-line needs to bring another solid game this week.  They were really good in yesterday's matchup.
Burrow faced little pressure all day and the o-line was picking up the mass blitzes great all game long.
Just a really impressive effort on their part in week one.
If they can do that again against the Texans, this game will remain close.

Also, put me in the camp that wants to see Burrow under center more.
Something as simple as a handoff in the run game looked different as opposed to in the shotgun.
Like, is it really a run play or play action to a pass?  It wasn't the same old same old look.  Nice to see.

[volcom69]

Think I saw Burrow was the least pressured QB in week 1, so hopefully that carries over this week as well. 

[HoosierCat]

Also can the d line stop lining up offsides? That seems like it should be an easy fix.

[Scottishbengal]

Two tough road games coming up, happy to get a win or two over the next fortnight.

Houston going to be trying to bounce back after an opening day L - they're too good a team to not want to smack us in the mouth. That said, our aerial game should be much improved than against TB and that will open up the run game. 

The feeling in my water is for a shoot out and we have the best weapons in the league for tgat scenario

[ArmyBengal]

For awareness the Buffalo passing attack didn't open up the run game for them much with only 86 rushing yards.
They did have 2 rushing TD's against the Texans, but both of those were Allen.  One on a long scramble and one on a tush push.

SIDE NOTE:
Another plus that hasn't been mentioned about the Bengals defense yesterday is the fact they only gave up 89 yards rushing, with the longest rush being 10 yards on the game.  Some might think, so what?  However, only twice in all of last year did the defense allow less than 100 yards rushing.  Yes, please give me more of that kind of defensive effort as well.

[HoosierCat]

The following week 1 sack numbers are noted without further comment:

Boye Mafe 1.0

Myles Murphy 0.5

Trey Hendrickson 0.0

[volcom69]

I thought Howell would have had a half a sack recorded on that one, maybe he didn’t ? 

[HoosierCat]

Nope, Carter got the other half of that sack. Howell definitely had some impact but didn’t generate any stats for week 1.

[HoosierCat]

Looks like Houston may be down one of their starting LBs: https://www.profootballrumors.com/2026/09/texans-lb-henry-tootoo-suffers-shoulder-injury-ir-stint-possible

[Stripes]

For pretty much everyone picking games before the season, this was the most obvious L on the board.

So a win would be huge -- especially if you have one seed dreams sparkling in your brain.

[HoosierCat]

Thing about the Bengals and Texans is that they used to play fairly often. From 2002 to 2017 there was just one time, 2006-07, where they didn’t meet for two straight years. But since 2017 they have only played twice, 2020 and 2023. And only the ‘23 game is a Stroud-era game. The Bengals lost that game, but the blame for that lies with Burrow, who threw two killer Q4 picks, including one in the end zone. And even with that they managed to tie it up at 27 all with 1:37 left in regulation, only for the d to let Houston drive 55 yards in 1:22 for the winning kick.

This should be a tough game but the Bengals can win as long as they avoid multiple shots to their own feet.

[Prophecy]

Dalton Kincaid and DJ Moore each had 100 yards receiving against Houston last week, so i am optimistic. 

[volcom69]

Looking at the stats the young LBs played pretty decent, but looks like they continue to miss tackles. Hopefully they can fix this moving forward, as well as just getting better. Still wished they signed an older vet to help them out some, but hey keep growing! 
 

Looked like Lawrence was pretty darn dominant out there, might not have gotten on the stat sheet, but his presence was felt. Wonder if they will start playing him more or keep the rotation with him. 

[Prophecy]

Dalton Kincaid and DJ Moore each had 100 yards receiving against Houston last week, so i am optimistic. 

[HoosierCat]

MNF note: nice debut by Mansoor Delane. Not hating on Dex but that coulda been our pick (pun intended).

[Coltsguy451]

Well, after the belt-to-ass beating my boys took on Sunday, the Bengals/Bucs affair was a nice pick-me-up

A  Bengal beatdown of the Texans could only elevate my spirits

Hope the D rises to the challenge of shutting down Montgomery

As for the offense: Gesicki Gesicki Gesicki!

A Chase sighting might be nice too

[TJJackson]

16 hours ago, ArmyBengal said:

For awareness the Buffalo passing attack didn't open up the run game for them much with only 86 rushing yards.
They did have 2 rushing TD's against the Texans, but both of those were Allen.  One on a long scramble and one on a tush push.

SIDE NOTE:
Another plus that hasn't been mentioned about the Bengals defense yesterday is the fact they only gave up 89 yards rushing, with the longest rush being 10 yards on the game.  Some might think, so what?  However, only twice in all of last year did the defense allow less than 100 yards rushing.  Yes, please give me more of that kind of defensive effort as well.

To be fair, Tampa was playing from behind, and this forced them to pass more, which in turn meant less running

[Allentown21]

As a bills fan the most shocking part of the game vs the Texans was how aggressive Buffalo was in the passing attack down field. I think the Texans cbs weren't used to being challenged that aggressively and Buffalo was able to get a quick 24 -14 lead. Moore, Palmer, Shakir & Kincaid aren't as good as Chase & Higgins but man they are true pros.  the bills made plays at the end and got lucky with a couple turnover worthy plays from Cook & Allen. 

Brady looks like he's completely different from McDermott in that he's going to live with the consequences of Allen and some variance and maximize possessions. He's not going to purposely constrain Allen out of fear of what might happen... He's going to embrace the full upside of allens arm...He figures if you beat the bills you're going to have to actually beat the bills and Allen throwing it everywhere. No more conservative, shorten the game and bubble screens 15x a game. I do think Allen will have a few more turnovers and Favre like games but I also think Allen might pass for 5000 yards and 40 tds. This is why I picked Buffalo vs Cincinnati for the afc championship but I had Cincinnati winning because the bills defense is probably pretty meh. We'll see how it turns out. I'm guessing Brady figures if I'm going to go down at the poker table I'm going all in on Allens arm.... It's probably the most dangerous version of Allen but with 80% good, 20% bad. As a bills fan you just have to hope he's hot in January with healthy Moore and Kincaid. I have said for many years now that there is a segment of Allen's DNA that really is the Brett favre from this era and that the bills actually need to just lean into it and accept that's the type of quarterback he is because that's the most dangerous version. Hopefully they are at peace with that and if they get beat because of a couple mistakes, it is what it is. But you can't hold back a qb like Allen out of fear of mistakes. You limit all the upside and could still make mistakes regardless.

The unsung hero was the bills oline. They borderline dominated the Texans and it wasn't just with max protect. Dawkins & Brown were awesome and didn't get enough praise after the game. 

If Cincinnati protects Burrow I fully expect him to destroy the Texans. 

The Texans secondary is a little bit overrated if they're not getting pressure with Hunter/ Anderson 

I think the Texans are good obviously but they just don't have the true offensive infrastructure to beat Cincinnati if Cincinnati is operating at full capacity 

Bengals 34
Texans 20

Burrow 335 yds 2tds
Bengals 5 sacks 

[HoosierCat]

With week 1 in the books, the Bengals defense ranks 18th in points and 12th in yards. One week is not a trend, obviously, but the d ranked 30th and 31st, respectively, in those categories last season. If they can stay in the top 20 this year, that would be a huge improvement.

[Allentown21]

12 minutes ago, HoosierCat said:

With week 1 in the books, the Bengals defense ranks 18th in points and 12th in yards. One week is not a trend, obviously, but the d ranked 30th and 31st, respectively, in those categories last season. If they can stay in the top 20 this year, that would be a huge improvement.

If the Bengals are anywhere near just 20th in defensive metrics they will be in the sb imo. 

[ArmyBengal]

5 hours ago, TJJackson said:

To be fair, Tampa was playing from behind, and this forced them to pass more, which in turn meant less running

Oh and here comes TJ to rain all over my week 1 parade...
 

[ArmyBengal]

As a fan of the Texans, I can tell you their CB's in Stingley and Lassiter along with Pitre as their nickel is above average.
Come to think of it, I recall seeing where ESPN had them rated as the #1 CB duo in the league entering the year.
When coupling their individual skills with the front end of that defense you can see why that whole unit is so strong.

The way I saw that game go (thank you DVR) is the Bills o-line held up their end of the deal.
While they weren't ranked high as a unit, they gave up 2 sacks to a team that piles them up, Allen was kept clean mostly.
If that doesn't happen, most teams aren't beating the Texans and that defense.

The same will be true for the Bengals next week.  Keep Burrow clean and let him work.
If not, the Texans are going to eat their lunch.