John McClain, a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, is in his 48th year of covering the NFL in Houston, including 45 seasons at the Houston Chronicle.
The Texans breathed a huge sigh of relief after escaping NRG Stadium on Sunday with a 24-20 victory over the Jaguars that elevated their record to 3-1, including 2-0 in the AFC South, and left Jacksonville winless.
Head Coach DeMeco Ryans knew his team was fortunate to win. The Texans were able to overcome a sloppy performance, including double digit penalties for a third consecutive game, by making enough big plays on both sides of the ball to put them in position to pull out a C.J. Stroud-orchestrated victory on their last possession.
"There's no such thing as an ugly win to me," Ryans said after the game. "Wins are hard to come by. It doesn't matter who you play (or) how we win them, just finish with the win."
Old ugly is better than old nothing, right?
The problems started when the Texans forced the Jaguars to punt on their first series. Steven Sims muffed the fair catch at his 10, and Jacksonville recovered the bouncing ball at the 2, setting up an easy touchdown for a quick 7-0 lead.
A botched punt return, a gimme touchdown, 12 penalties for 92 yards – the third consecutive game they've been whistled for at least 11 – and five consecutive punts in the second half would be enough to cause Ryans to pull out his hair if he had any.
But the Texans persevered during the tough times and rebounded from their 34-7 mauling at Minnesota to keep their one-game lead in the AFC Central over Indianapolis, a team they defeated 29-27 to start the season.
The Texans wouldn't have won this game without outstanding performances by Stroud and wide receiver Nico Collins. But they also wouldn't have won without terrific plays by rookie safety Calen Bullock, defensive tackles Foley Fatukasi and Mario Edwards and running back Dare Ogunbowale.
How did they manage to pull out this victory and extend Jacksonville quarterback Trevor Lawrence's record of futility to 0-9 dating back to the Jaguars' victory at NRG Stadium in November?
Let's start with Bobby Slowik's offense. It's amazing what they can accomplish without penalties being called. Take the first and last touchdown drives, for instance.
Trailing 7-0, Stroud led a nine-play, 70-yard scoring drive that ended with Stefon Diggs' 6-yard touchdown run. Down 20-17 with 2:54 left in the game, Stroud ignited a nine-play, 69-yard scoring drive that ended with his 1-yard touchdown pass to Ogunbowale, the unsung hero of Sunday's victory.
No penalties were committed on the first and last touchdown drives. But the Texans showed they can still score when they commit penalties. In the second quarter, they overcame two penalties on a 12-play, 74-yard drive that ended with Stroud's 3-yard touchdown pass to Collins.
With the running game struggling again without the injured Joe Mixon and Dameon Pierce, especially on first down, Stroud was placed in too many obvious passing situations and was forced to throw on the run way too often. But he came through with an outstanding performance.
Stroud played his best game of the season. He completed 27-of-40 (67.5 percent) for 345 yards and two touchdowns without an interception. He averaged 8.6 yards per attempt, was sacked twice for 11 yards and knocked down six times. He finished with a 110.9 rating.
Most impressive? Stroud connected with his receivers for seven explosive plays of at least 20 yards. The Texans had only seven in the first three games.
Collins had another spectacular performance, catching 12 passes for 151 yards and a touchdown. He should have had two touchdowns. He was wide open in the back of the end zone, but Stroud overthrew him. Collins set a team record with 489 yards in the first four games of the season, shattering DeAndre Hopkins' 443 in 2018.
When asked about the Stroud-Collins connection, Ryans said, "Nico's open. That's why the connection is strong. He's also so competitive at the catch point. He's a strong, physical, fast and big (6-4, 220) receiver. That's an easy target for C.J., and Nico has showed up every time we've needed him."
Collins and Diggs had two explosive plays each. Ogunbowale, who had a tremendous 31-yard catch and run, Dalton Schultz and Cade Stover had one explosive reception apiece.
"C.J. did a really nice job of going through his progressions," Ryans said. "I thought our protection was better. He had a lot of time to make those reads. He had a lot of time to escape the pocket and make the plays he needed to make. He did a good job of keeping his eye downfield and finding the open receiver. Big day for him."
Ryans made sure to praise Collins, too, because he made so many big plays.
"Nico's deserving of all the praise and all the credit he's getting," Ryans said. "He's one of the top receivers in the league, and he's showing it. He doesn't have to talk it. He's showing it by what he does on a game-to-game basis. He's proving that he's one of the best."
Diggs, who goes against Buffalo, his former team, in the next game at NRG Stadium, also deserves praise for a shrewd move he made on the first touchdown. The Texans had third down at the Jaguars' 6. Diggs got the ball from Stroud going to his right. He was supposed to throw the ball into the end zone on a gadget play, but rather than throw into coverage and risk an interception, he took off running and scored to make it 7-7.
But then penalties started to become a problem for a third consecutive game. The offensive line was called for seven of the 11 penalties. Kenyon Green led the way with three. Laremy Tunsil, who left the game with an ankle injury but returned in the second half, had two holding calls. Shaq Mason also had two penalties. Shoutouts to Juice Scruggs and Tytus Howard for not getting called.
"The penalties that bug me the most (are) the mental penalties," Ryans said. "Those are the ones I can't stand. If we want to be a good team, we have to play the game smart. A lot of them are just bonehead penalties that are uncalled for, right? You don't need those. They're not helping us at all.
"We have positive things happen, and we're going backward. We're in field goal range, and we go backward because of our own mistakes. It seems like I'm a broken record every time I step up here (but) the Texans have to get out of the Texans' way for us to be a good team."
Now, let's move to the defense. It gave up one legitimate touchdown drive, and it came in the third quarter when the Jaguars covered 74 yards in seven plays. Lawrence's 7-yard touchdown pass to Christian Kirk gave them a 20-17 advantage with 6:16 left in the quarter.
"We weren't playing our style of ball," Ryans said. "We weren't stopping the run. We were not setting the edge. The ball was getting outside a few times, and they were able to have explosive runs. We weren't tight and sticky in coverage. It was just uncharacteristic of how we play.
"The adjustment for the defense is mindset. We did not play with the right mindset on some of those drives, and they were able to drive on us. It's about mindset, effort and physicality. When we needed to stand up and make a play, guys showed up on third down and made some big-time plays."
The next time Jacksonville got the ball, Tank Bigsby got loose up the middle for a 58-yard run that would have been a touchdown if Bullock had not run him down at the Texans' 4. Bullock's play seemed to transform the defense.
"One thing our defense stands on is effort," Ryans said. "There's no better play that exhibits that effort than Calen giving us a blade of grass to stand on. Calen's effort to run him down and get a stop and for us to regroup after such a huge play and be able to get a stop there in the red zone, that was a big turning point in the game.
"That shows what effort means, and if you play the game the right way with any type of effort, it can put you in position to be on the winning side. Proud of Calen for his effort."
As the clock wound down in the third quarter, Azeez Al-Shaair stopped Bigsby for a 2-yard gain. Then Danielle Hunter and Henry To'oTo'o stopped Bigsby for a 1-yard gain. On third and 1, Derek Stingley Jr. broke up a pass, and the quarter ended.
On the first play of the fourth quarter, Jacksonville Head Coach Doug Pederson went for the touchdown. He spread out his receivers and had Lawrence take the shotgun snap and run up the middle, where he ran into a wall of defensive tackles Foley Fatukasi and Mario Edwards.
Stroud led the Texans from their 1 to the Jacksonville 36, but penalties forced them to punt. Then Tommy Townsend had to punt on the next series. When the Jaguars got the ball at their 28 with 3:51 left, they needed to chew up some clock to help secure their victory, but they couldn't do it.
Travis Etienne was stopped by Tim Settle for a 1-yard gain. Then Jalen Pitre and Eric Murray, who had the Texans' only sack on a blitz, broke up passes on second and third down.
When Stroud got the ball back at his 31 with 2:54 left in the game, the Texans weren't going to be denied.
On the game-winning drive – his fourth in the fourth quarter and overtime – Stroud was 5-of-5 for 45 yards. He also ran twice for 12 yards. On second-and-goal from the 1, he threw the winning touchdown pass to Ogunbowale, who had two receptions and two runs on the possession.
"Dare got one of the game balls," Ryans said. "Everybody knows the touchdown he caught, but Dare's a guy who's doing it the right way, and a guy we can count on. Those are the guys who I want out there, guys we can trust, and they're dependable."
The Texans scored with 18 seconds left. That was by design.
"We didn't go to a two-minute (offense), but we were just clicking," Stroud said. "(On) that last drive, we did a good job of staying in front of the sticks, taking what I saw and running when I needed to. We were just locked in. Defense gave us another shot, and that's all we needed. Just like they've got our back, we've got theirs."
Stroud pointed out how many games are decided by one score, including every Texans' victory this season.
"If you can get the lead or tie it and not give them an opportunity to go down and drive, that's the plan we want to do," he said. "I thought DeMeco and Bobby did a great job. We ended up scoring and gave them (18) seconds. It's hard to operate 70 yards down the field to get a field goal or a touchdown.
"You're just playing the time game. We knew we had a field goal, and we would tie the game and go to overtime, or we could score and not give them much time. Either way it went, I thought what we did was very smart."
The Texans will have to be smarter and better if they're going to win their next game against the Bills, who lost their first game by getting obliterated by Baltimore on Sunday night. They'll be in a bad mood when they come to NRG Stadium, and the Texans should go into the game angry and hungry to show the NFL they've saved their best for Buffalo.
