The ensuing kickoff is a touchback.

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Titan's ball at their 20.

Pass to Walker goes for 5.

Pass to Walker goes for 7 and the 1st down.

Mettenberger's deep pass is caught but ruled out of bounds. Titans challenge......

Play is ruled a catch. 31 yards on the play. Ball at the Texan 37.

End of the 3rd qtr.

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Mettenberger's deep pass sails over everyone, inc. 2nd and 10 coming up.

Pass goes for 7.

Pass to Walker goes inside the 10 yard line. 1st and goal at the 9. Clowney injured on the play..

Pass to Douglas over the middle gets 4.

Sankey gets to the 2. 3rd and goal coming up.

Watt with the strip/sack! Texans recover!

Ponies go up 18-9 over the Fins.

Need Jets, Panthers and Saints wins to clinch today.

Texan's ball at their own 8.

Polk for 2.

Polk for 6. 3rd and 2 coming up.

Polk gets stopped short of the 1st down. Texans will have to punt.

Lechler's punt is brought back to the Titan 28.

Fins kick a FG. 18-12 Ponies.

6ish minutes left.

18-12 in North Dade.

Titan's ball at their 28.

Pass to Walker gets 5.

Pass to Fasano inc. 3rd and 5 coming up.

Checkdown to Sankey gets 2. Titans will have to punt.

Wow! This new guy has a wing on him.

(missed a couple of plays)

Blue runs for 2. Ball at the Texan 15.

Daniels' deep pass to Strong complete but out of bounds so inc. 3rd and 8 coming up.

Grimes for about 5. Texans to punt.

Punt is fair caught at the Titan 27.

Titan's ball at their 27.

6:59 left in the game.

Pass to Walker goes for 3.

Pass to Walker off the mark, inc. 3rd and 7 coming up.

Checkdown pass is off the mark, inc. Titans will have to punt.

Mumph fair catches at the Texan 17.

It is mind boggling that the Texans lost to Miami. That is one shit team.

Lost some data.....

Texans punt and the Titans bring it back to their 30.

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Titan's ball at their 30.

Dumpoff to Sankey gets 11.

Pass to Fasano gets 9.

Checkdown to Sankey goes all the way to the Texan 20. 1st down.

Pass to Douglas along the sideline goes inc. 2nd and 10 coming up.

Pass to Walker gets 8. 3rd and 2 coming up.

2 minute warning.

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Pass to Douglas goes to the 1 yard line. 1st and goal.

Mettenberger can't find a receiver and throws it away, inc. 2nd and goal coming up.

Pass to DGB off the mark, inc. 3rd and goal coming up.

Mettenberger's pass can't find a home, inc. Brings up 4th and goal.

Titans use a timeout.

Pass to McBride is good for the TD. Titans going for 2.

Pass to Fasano broken up, inc. 2 pt conversion no good.

Texans 34, Titans 6

1:31 left in the game.

No help from the Fins.

Another avenue to clinch this week, and I think it has to do with Monday.

The ensuing kickoff is a touchback.

-----------------------------------------

Texan's ball at their 20.

Texans kneeling it.

Kneel again.

Final score:

Texans 34, Titans 6.

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Good job, Texans. One more to go...

@awexler - KC won, Bal won, if Cin wins tomorrow night at Den), then #Texans win the AFC south.

The Texans played an almost perfect game (for them) but I think the Volunteers could have given them a better opponent. Maybe even Vandy.

Wow. One more win and Houston matches last year's 9-7 record. I told you they had one of the easiest schedules in NFL history and this confirms it. Just a shame they have no QB and (aside from Lechler) no special teams. For all our bitching, a win next week gives the Texans four winning seasons out of their last five.

As long as the Colts still have a way to win the division though, I think they will. The Texans will choke sometime.

This year should demonstrate how idiotic the idea of an 18-game season is. Half the teams are already on backup QBs due to injuries.

Regarding contraction, a few years ago had MLB done some contracting (an idea I'm not totally against) two of the easiest candidates would have been Pittsburgh and Kansas City. Looks a lot different now, doesn't it?

And, dare I say, if the NFL contracted the six teams mentioned upthread, the Texans would be a likely candidate. Truth is, you give almost any city a playoff team and their stadium sells out. Give them an annual also-ran and the place will be half-empty (maybe not Pittsburgh or Green Bay but most places).

Cutting from 32 to 28 makes more sense than 26 and we could drop Tennessee, Jacksonville, Cleveland and Detroit without breaking too many hearts. Move the Saints into the AFC and have four 7-team divisions with the division champs getting a first round bye. Next four in each conference are wild cards.

AFC East: Baltimore, Buffalo, Cincinnati, Miami, New England, NY Jets, Pittsburgh

AFC West: Denver, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, New Orleans, the ?? Chargers and the ?? Raiders.

NFC East: Atlanta, Carolina, Dallas, NY Giants, Philadelphia, Tampa Bay, Washington

NFC West: Arizona, Chicago, Green Bay, Minnesota, Seattle, San Francisco and the ?? Rams.

Dispersal draft for the four contracted franchises in the same order as the
NFL draft. But, the NFL makes money hand over first so contraction is not going to happen.

Two things, quickly. One, the Texans' kick return teams are nothing to write home about but at least they hang onto the ball (knock wood). Coverage is fine, punting is average and the kicker is finally someone I think we can trust. So I'm not nearly as down on ST as I have been for the last fifteen years or so.

Bob is quite right that there will be no contraction because the league makes too much money (and the players don't do that poorly for themselves, either, and the union - sorry, the UNION - would not want to lose hundreds of jobs). But what I do think is possible to likely is that a couple of owners will get tired of their shit stadiums and/or their shit fans and move their teams abroad. I could easily see the Jag-u-ars in London and the Raiders in Mexico City. And I'm not sure that would be the worst thing in the world for everyone involved.

With a week between games it's not that big a deal to put a team in Mexico City. It's a negligible difference in flight times. London would be really tough for west coast teams though. I think you'd need to give a bye the week before to any team from the pacific time zone who goes to London. That way they can go early and adjust (your body generally adjusts 1 time zone a day).

I am of the belief that they should play a 16 game season spread out over 18-19 weeks anyways. This would allow byes preceding Thursday games (and London trips), and we might not have as many Yates vs Hasselback matchups if guys had more rest. Plus you are selling an extra 1-2 weeks of TV games. I see no drawback to this and lots of positives.

The longest possible flight to London would be ten hours. That's really not that big a deal. I'm all for extending the season a week or two and giving teams two byes, and if that were the case travel to London would be a non-issue because you could definitely give west coast teams plus Arizona and Denver two weeks to travel there. Even on the current schedule I don't think it's that big a deal, at least the travel and acclimation. You'd need to go early in the week and you'd lose a day of preparation and you wouldn't have your own facilities to train in. So that would be a drag. And the London team would be on the road half the year which would be a drag on them. But it could be done.

They'd need to change the name of the league, though.

Mexico City would not be a logistical challenge other than security.

London, however, would be difficult in many ways. I don't care to elongate the season but if a London team is tried, here's what I think they should do:

1) Swap Jacksonville and Miami in their AFC divisions.

2) Make Jacksonville the new London team and put their "home base" in North America in either Jacksonville or Toronto. The home base would be where they would stage their exhibition games and training camp. They would also, schedule permitting, get a regular-season game, possibly the first or last home date of the season.

3) All visiting teams to London would have their bye week scheduled the week before. London would be in the AFC East where travel to and from New York and Boston (and Toronto, near Buffalo) would be relatively simple and have larger media markets than can accommodate so many tourists. All division opponents would have home-and-home dates in London and would receive a bonus from the league to defray costs. London's schedule would be comprised of 3-4 consecutive home games followed by 3-4 consecutive road games so as to reduce fatigue on the London players.

This would have to be done but I could see other teams complaining that the extended home stands would give London a competitive advantage that would help more than the road trips would hurt. It'd be interesting to see how it would play out.

I think the regular continent-hopping that the London players would do would more than outweigh any advantage a prolonged homestand might have.

A distinct advantage would come if the London team had home playoff games. The travelling US-based team would have no buffer time. I'm sure the NFL wouldn't give a rats-arse, but it would be an advantage nonetheless. I personally can't stand the idea of a London-based team. I think it causes more problems than it's worth.

Pretty much agree, teams already have some trouble adjusting to 3 time zones. Try another Euro League if really need to expand overseas, try a B league with some percent of Euro citizen players involved, perhaps with some B league cities her e in Americas.

We're talking about the Jaguars here, dude. Let's remain realistic.

Over the long-term though this is probably much more of a disadvantage to a London team having to play road games in the playoffs. The London Jags would be smart to keep a second home of sorts on the continental US for training camps and for deep playoff runs.

Generally, London seems forced. Can't imagine this market really wants an NFL team. The league though is just looking for new revenues. Mexico City would make more sense for a first international team (not counting when the Bills play in Toronto or somesuch).

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Everyone. Wishing us all a great 2016.

I might be wrong, but seems with Weeden at QB, then our WR, RB, even TEs, seem to be doing better. Maybe a maturing process , takes a little patience with these mostly young players and coaches and revolving QB. And Texans at 8-7, have a few good wins to go with their blooper losses. BUT a 34- 6 win is pretty good against any team.