Heading into Sunday’s 24-21 win over the Tennessee Titans, the Houston Texans were the NFL’s second-most penalized team in pre-snap, earning 45 on the season.
Much of Houston’s troubles pre-snap came from false starts, leading the NFL with 29. Left tackle Laremy Tunsil leads the team with 12, twice as many as the second-place total.
Tunsil’s issues with the false start earned a new word, courtesy of John McClain of the Houston Chronicle: Tunsilitis. The definition: a condition where a player consistently moves prior to the snap, resulting in a penalty.
It’s safe to say that pre-snap penalties, specifically false starts, were a crux for the Texans. However, on Sunday, they weren’t so much; they finished the win with one, a false start on wide receiver Will Fuller.
“We had a long week on just working on the operation. We did have one false start on Will on one of our running plays,” Texans coach Bill O’Brien said on Monday.
The Texans spent time in the week heading into the win fixing those false start penalty woes. They wanted to drill the snap count down, and that’s exactly what they did.
“The offensive line did a good job and the tight ends did a good job of understanding the snap count and all that,” O’Brien said. “So, it was a good week for that. We spent a lot of time on it. We got to continue to do that.”
Cutting down on penalties will help the Texans as they seek to clinch their second consecutive AFC South title with a win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Saturday at Raymond James Stadium. If Houston can avoid getting behind the chains due to pre-snap penalties, it will enable to offense the stay versatile and give the Buccaneers defense fits as the Texans rotate between the dymanic passing game and effective run game.
