Bengals at Texans NFL Wildcard Playoffs Live Thread

by Kevin Nogle on Jan 7, 2012 4:00 PM EST in Non-Miami Dolphins Live Threads

And, the 2011-2012 NFL Playoffs officially begin with the Cincinnati Bengals at Houston Texans. The game features the first ever playoff match up between two starting rookie quarterbacks. Cincinnati's Andy Dalton has put up rookie of the year caliber numbers, 58.1% completions, 3,398 yards passing, 20 touchdowns, 13 interceptions, while leading his team into the playoffs, the team's third trip to the post season since 1995. The Bengals have not won a playoff game since 1991, when they beat the Houston Oilers in the Wildcard round.

The Texans meanwhile are being lead by their third string quarterback T.J. Yates. Yates has a 61.2% completion rate this year, throwing for 949 yards, with three touchdowns and three interceptions. Of course, the Texans also had Arian Foster running for 1,224 yards and 10 touchdowns.

And, this is Houston's first ever playoff game, which should have the crowd in Reliant Stadium rocking.

Since the Super Bowl era began, only nine rookie quarterbacks have ever started a playoff game. In 1983, the Dolphins' Dan Marino became the first, with Bernie Kosar (1985), Jim Everett (1986), Todd Marinovich (1991), Sahun King (1999), Ben Roethlisberger (2004), Joe Flacco and Matt Ryan (2008), and Mark Sanchez (2009) all joining that group. Yates and Dalton will make the tenth and eleventh members of the club.

This should be a good game. The Bengals average 320 yards per game on offense, while the Texans are at 372 yards per game. The Texans defense only allows 285.7 yards per game compared to the Bengals' 316.3. There could be a lot of scoring in this game - depending on the two rookies at the helm.

The all time series between the two teams is tied 3-3, with Houston winning the last three, including a 20-19 victory back in December.

Enjoy!

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Comments

I have been looking forward to this game all week, even more so than the Lions-Saints game

Falcons-Giants or Steelers-Broncos games. Im pulling for the Bengals even though they are incredibly lucky to be here. As I was going to the Redskins game (week 10) I was trying to get my mind of the game for a while (makes me too nervous) and I was thinking about the Bengals on the way there. At the time the Bengals had had only played one division game (Browns week 1 27-17 victory) and they were playin the Steelers that week. I was thinking that day if the Bengals want to get in to the playoffs, they were 6-2 at the time, tand had 5 division games in their last 8. If they wanted to get into the playoffs they were going to have to win games (even split) against the Ravens and the Steelers and they probably needed to beat the rest as well including the Texans.

The Ravens swept them, the Steelers swept them and the Texans beat them in the final seconds, yet they still made the playoffs thanks to their nailbiter wins over the Browns and Rams and holding on against the Cardinals during their frantic comeback. Yet had the Jets beat us last week the Bengals are not here. Had the Raiders beat the Chargers they are not here. Got in because of the two way tiebreaker with the Titans whom they beat. They lost all three way tiebreaker scenarios. The magical journey ends here for either the Texans or the Bengals.

I think the Bengals get a crack at the Patriots. Reversal of the final with Baltimore last
week.

Bengals 24 Texans 16

civwarbuff - January 7, 2012 reply

So I join Twitter. I have very few followers and most are very random people that I am not following including two porn stars!?!?! Hmmm

texascowpunk - January 7, 2012 reply

I had porn stars follow me before...

But it wasn’t on twitter and they weren’t chicks :P

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