Quick Thoughts on the Titans vs the Texans

I'm sticking with bullet point thoughts on this one since it's been a busy week, but I'll have some longer posts ready to go soon. Here's what's going through my mind as the Titans prepare to face the divisional rival Houston Texans Sunday:

• I don't like our chances. If we play up to our potential we can beat them, but I don't like our odds of that happening. This team is too inconsistent right now for me to think they're going to come out and play extremely well. We're not as bad as we played in the first two games, but I wouldn't expect a performance like last week's every game either. The truth about this team is likely somewhere in the middle and that won't be good enough to knock off the Texans.
• Arian Foster and Ben Tate are going to have huge games. We can't afford to play the safeties as far back as we did against Detroit or we're going to get stomped in the ground game.
  
• The only problem with moving our safeties up? Matt Schaub will take advantage and burn us deep.
• An optimistic point is that the offensive line handled Detroit's defensive line well and Houston has a similarly feared front seven, though they line up in the 3-4.
• Continuing with pass protection, Chris Johnson better be ready to pick up a lot of blocks. Wade Phillips' loves to bring pressure. Brooks Reed off the edge terrifies me.
• So does JJ Watt.
• I really think we're going to have to bring some pressure of our own. Last week we finally achieved some success with a four man front but Houston's offensive line is far better than Detroit's.
• What type of offense will we see from the Titans? It seems fairly obvious to most of us here that the Titans would be wise to move towards a predominantly shotgun offense. I'm not sure Munchak and Palmer want to do that. They tend to use it for a few drives and then go back under center. Eventually, we're going to have to go with what we do best: feature Jake Locker in a strong passing game.
• I hope Jerry Gray has something up his sleeve. If there was any a game where we need a dominant defensive performance, this is the one. I can't say I'm confident in that happening.
• The last time I was this confident the Titans were going to lose was the Baltimore game last year. We know how that turned out.