Bittersweet

The Houston Texans lost a tough one last night, falling to the Oakland Raiders 27-20. 

It's really hard to not sound like a sore loser when talking about this game.  

The announcers on ESPN, writers on SBNation and NFL.com all agree that our guys were the victim of several really bad calls, the first of which cost us a touchdown on our first possession. 

It is one of the calls that is not subject to review, and after searching through what must have been thousands of pictures, Oakland fans claim the  shot above shows DeAndre Hopkins' right heel was across the line.  The shot is not down the line, and subject to interpretation, but my take is that his heel did not touch - and he's not the sort of guy that runs on his heels.

Dean Blandino, the NFL senior vice president of officiating, offered an explanation on the call:

"The heel (right foot) appears to be in the white," Blandino said of Hopkins' run. "It's not right down the line, so it's not definitive, but we certainly can't say that he's obviously in-bounds from this angle ... it's not definitive either way."

Texans coach Bill O'Brien, however, wasn't pleased with the call.

"Was Hopkins out of bounds on that play? No," O'Brien said. "So like, look, I'm not going to sit up here and get fined, I'm just a third-year coach in the NFL. But I think we really got to look at all of those things. You know, we got all of these cameras, and we can't get that right. And I don't think Hopkins was out of bounds ..."

We probably could have survived that call, but two obviously bad spots late in the game made that impossible.

Then there was the jerk in the stands that kept shining a laser in our Quarterback's eyes....