Hamilton also had a very interesting comment regarding Davis Mills’ thumb injury.
On Thursday, Texans OC Pep Hamilton had his weekly meeting with the media and expressed some frustration with the offense’s performance thus far. Hamilton has higher expectations for his unit.
When asked about how the offense could improve, Hamilton replied:
“Just being more opportunistic. When the opportunity presents itself for us to make plays, we’re going to make those plays. We feel good about our guys having a great understanding of what we’re doing and how we’re attacking our opponents. We just now have to capitalize on those opportunities.”
Hamilton does not believe that using more motion will create more opportunity for the offense:
“I don’t know that using motions will necessarily create easier opportunities. It depends on the defense. I think what we’ve tried to do is use tempo to create some opportunities. I think for us, though, we’ve got to be better on third down. Got to be third down. You go back to the first two third downs of the regular season; we’re right there in position to make plays and keep those drives going. It just didn’t happen. It was no different in this game. We had a third-and-one and were not able to convert that. We’ll do a better job on third down. We’ll keep our drives going. We’ll run more plays. We hope to score more points.”
The Texans OC said he still likes his tight end group and that their lack of involvement in the offense on Sunday was more about trying to force Denver’s defense into mismatches:
“We feel good about really being able to mix personnel groupings, and then we consider on how that’ll affect the opponent. Going into the Broncos game, one of their better players was the safety that didn’t play. We felt like getting more DBs on the field defensively would give us a strategic advantage and put a little more pressure on them to acclimate themselves to the different looks we gave them with guys that hadn’t played together as much. So we wanted to do a good job of mixing personnel groupings. We respect the heck out of our tight-end group. We know that we have a talented group. Moving forward, just like we’ve done in previous weeks, we’re going to find ways to put the best personnel groupings on the field to attack the opponent that we’re facing.”
Hamilton said he does see a role for WR Tyler Johnson once Johnson is up to speed with the offense:
“Just a young player that’s physical, built well, can play in tight spaces. He’s built for contact, but he’s quick, he’s elusive, and he’s shown some toughness, so we’ll see what his role will be moving forward. We have another day of practice to prepare for the Bears, and we’ll see.”
Coach Hamilton did single out one player he had been pleased with so far, Dameon Pierce:
“I think when we can just find a way to feature a playmaker like Dameon, he’s shown that he’s explosive and he can create his own yards. We’re hoping that the more he plays, he’s going to find different ways to finish runs. Not necessarily run everybody over, but it’s good to see that he’s tough, he’s physical, and he’s willing to really be aggressive and getting extra yards when he’s about to be tackled.”
Hamilton got a bit defensive when asked about QB Davis Mills’ strengths. He explained that the offensive game plan is not solely built around what they think Mills does best:
“It’s not even the strategy on how we attack the opponent. We’re just trying to do everything we can to stay out of obvious passing situations. You look across the league; that’s the biggest challenge for quarterbacks. You got young quarterbacks, guys like Davis (Mills) who has only, what like, 418 attempts as a pro, compared to guys like have been in the league for a long time. Tom Brady has over 10,000 attempts. When you go back and look at the game, and you see there’s incomplete passes, there’s interceptions, there’s plays that aren’t made, and why is that? In obvious passing situations, it’s a challenge for any quarterback. We’re doing everything we can to make sure that third down is manageable if we have a third down at all and give ourselves a better chance of continuing drives and scoring points.”
He also said the defensive scheme they are seeing has a lot to do with the play calling:
“No, the defensive scheme has something to do with when you take shots. They were a quarters team. When you run four verts the way we did in the first game, we anticipated that we would see more quarter, quarter-half, or quarters coverage. They do a good job of playing top-down and keeping the offense in front of them. We had our opportunities, as you mentioned. Whatever we’ve got to do to get the ball in our playmakers hands and create yards that way, we’ll do that.”
Hamilton also gave a very intriguing answer when asked about Mills’ thumb injury, and how it is affecting him:
“It’s not affecting him at all as far as I know.”
The Texans OC also shouldered his share of the blame for the offensive woes, admitting that the play calling can certainly improve:
“Obviously, it’s not good enough because we haven’t been able to score enough points. We’re looking at all of the above. You always go back, and you self-evaluate; that’s what we all do. There are some situations where, of course, I would like to have the opportunity to call a different call, but I think we’re a few plays away from having the opportunity to feel different after two games.”