AFC Notes: Colts, Texans, Dameon Pierce

Colts

• The Colts are elevating LB Forrest Rhyne from the practice squad to the active roster this week. (Mike Chappell)

Dameon Pierce

Texans RB Dameon Pierce is determined to revive the team’s running game and knows how important it is to the team’s future.

“It’s instrumental to our offense,” Pierce said, via Aaron Wilson of Click2Houston.com. “The better the run game is the more passing opportunities we have down the field. It just opens everything up. It kind of takes us away from being one-dimensional and makes us more balanced. Getting the running game going is very instrumental to us.”

“We have a lot of things we’ve been doing to show a little eye candy, get a little misdirection going to get us going in the run game early,” Pierce added. “It’s a little different this week. They’re more of a four-down team instead of five-downs, which is what’s been giving us problems. We need to keep those guys at bay. They’re wonderful athletes. We try to slow them down and we should have a good opportunity to run the ball.”

Texans OC Pep Hamilton and HC Lovie Smith also weighed in on the running game and Pierce.

“It’s important that you present balance on any given play,” Hamilton said. “The potential of running the football as well as throwing the football so that they don’t have to defend just one thing. Teams that we’ve faced in the previous three or four weeks, they’ve covered up all of our offensive linemen and tried to create one-on-one blocks up front. When that happens, we have to do a really good job just featuring some of the guys that are closer to the line of scrimmage that can run routes downfield.”

“I wish we knew exactly the reason why we haven’t been able to run the football, I’m going to say that more than the decline of Dameon Pierce,” Smith said. “I think part of why Dameon had success early on is because of what we were doing up front. So, we have to talk about what we’re doing up front right now. A lot of the yards he’s gotten have been yards after contact. It’s hard to maintain a certain level throughout an NFL season. We have time to get it right. Hopefully, we’ll see that.”

Texans

Texans LB Miles Smith says that the team regards LB Christian Harris as a three-down linebacker and elite athlete despite the injury issues during his rookie season.

“As we go forward, he’s making more and more of the plays that we expect him to make,” Smith said, via Aaron Wilson of Click2Houston.com. “Occasionally, there are plays that he’s making that other linebackers probably wouldn’t be able to make, just based upon his elite athleticism. As we keep going, we expect him to make more and more of the plays, and truly show the level he can play at. Right now, he’s having some rookie pains occasionally, but that’s to be expected. As he continues with these reps and each practice, each game, I think he’s going to start making more and more of these plays.”

“Obviously, he’s in a yellow jersey right now, never good,” Smith added. “Avoiding contact a little bit. Unfortunately that he was missing that valuable game time in the last game. He’s progressing day by day. We’ll see how it goes this weekend if he’s going to be able to go, but I hope so. Absolutely, at this point, he is a three-down linebacker in our scheme. When we talk three-down linebackers, our Will and our Mike linebacker, they don’t come off the field unless something’s happened. Early on, we wanted to slowly, gradually get him involved. He played more of our Sam linebacker, which comes out for 11-personnel. At this point, he is in there every single play. We’re starting to design things that are based on his skill set. He’s fully integrated with our defense. We’re excited about the future.”