Ahman Green Touches Ball Once, Falls Down, Is Injured, Few Surprised

It's preseason, so everyone is limited to what they can learn about a team. For me, going to last night's preseason game between the Texans and Broncos was slightly surreal and dream like. And not just because I tailgated with a vampire rock singer.

Here's my preseason game observations from a Texans perspective: Allegedly, this is supposed to be the first year under Gary Kubiak where the running game finally gets it together. So far, not so good.

The Texans running backs were limited to under 100 yards rushing with 29 attempts. The overall rushing totals are inflated due to third string quarterback Shane Boyd's rushing yards, the unplanned fake punt run by old guy punter, Matt Turk and a nice run by wide receiver Andre Davis.

In ESPN's excellent AFC South Blog manned by Paul Kuharsky, RT Eric Winston provides a terrific summary of why the run game struggled.

Starting running back Ahman Green touched the ball once on a catch, promptly fell down and hobbled out with what the Texans are saying is a slight groin pull. Unbleepingbelievable.

This is what a friend sent in a text at the time: "He was looking 4 the turf b4 contact." My immediate thought was, "He's fallen and he can't get up." Mostly because of the old-guy-falling-down look of the play. Some of my best friends are old guys so I don't mean to offend, but none of my friends are starting running backs in the NFL unless they have secret lives I don't know about or something.

At the end of last season, Gary Kubiak said that he wanted a running back situation that was something other than game time decision. Green's performance last night couldn't have been any worse.

Vic Carucci for NFL.com recently wrote an article entitled, "Training Days: Can a Healthy Green Lead the Texans to the Playoffs." How about just playing a quarter of football? The Texans say they are going to look at more preseason running back bodies, but no big names and specifically no Cedric Benson.

As for the rest of the running backs, Chris Brown did not play, and Chris Taylor got the bulk of first team reps and really didn't distinguish himself too much...except when he missed a cornerback blitz that could have killed backup quarterback Sage Rosenfels. In spot time, neither Darius Walker nor Steve Slaton really stood out.

In short time, both Rosenfels and starting quarterback Matt Schaub played fairly solid given the lack of running game, though the Houston Chronicle seems to be trying to manufacture a quarterback controversy by saying one should not exist. Try telling people NOT to think of pink elephants and guess what they think of.

Schaub played very limited minutes, and Rosenfels played against scrubs. I'm not sure this should be much of a controversy unless you want to argue that David Carr's preseason performance for the Giants means he should start over Eli Manning.

Broncos had very good time of possession in the first half with first and second teams, and there was little on the defensive side of the ball that suggested that the Texans defense is going to have a break out year. Mario Williams and DeMeco Ryans looked good in limited minutes. Their supporting cast, a work in progress.

But it is preseason, so I suppose we shouldn't nitpick too much other than saying that it would be nice to see more from the running game and defense as a whole. Oh yeah, and they won with a last second field goal, so they got that going for them which is nice.

Tailgate Thoughts For Thems Who Can't Be There: The tailgating wasn't quite in regular season form, but there was a surprisingly good showing of people. And the stadium was pretty packed for the game as well. Congrats to my friends from the Raging Bull Tailgaters for getting the Tailgaters of the Week award.

And also thanks to Michael McKnight for being such a cordial guest at the Lone Spot Tailgaters. He's the lead singer of the metal band Soulidium (autoplay music MySpace link that is uh, very graphic for some people's taste). He looks kind of scary from the videos (more graphic YouTube music video below), but he couldn't have been any more friendly and nice.

Perhaps we can learn a football lesson from a mean-looking, very nice rocker frontman. Just because the Texans running game and defense looked scary bad at times in a preseason game, does that mean they will be scary bad when the season begins?