The Texans capitalized on four takeaways in Sunday's road win at New England.
Houston picked off a pair of Drake Maye passes, strip-sacked the rookie, and also punched the ball loose from Austin Hooper, to come up with four takeaways in the 41-21 Week 6 victory over the Patriots. Defensive end Will Anderson, Jr., who tallied three quarterback sacks and also tipped a ball that was intercepted by Eric Murray, explained the importance of getting takeaways.
"That's the whole thing of this team: to win games you've got to take the ball away," Anderson said. "That's something that we take personally on this team."
Houston got going near the end of the first quarter with the takeaways, as safety Calen Bullock snared an errant Maye pass at the Texans' 45-yard line, returning it 28 yards to the Houston 27-yard line. It was Bullock's second interception of the season, and the rookie later would recover a fubmble at New England. For Head Coach DeMeco Ryans, Bullock is playing the same way for the Texans as he did for the USC Trojans.
"Calen shows up every week around the football and that's the reason we drafted Calen," Ryans said. "He showed that in college and it's cool to see, like, that's who Calen is, right? He did it in college and now he's doing it here in the league."
Quarterback C.J. Stroud, who tossed three touchdowns on the day, appreciated the defense getting the ball back for him and his offensive mates.
"I don't think we got a turnover in a couple weeks, so they were really hungry to get a couple and got four so that was pretty dope," Stroud said.
Houston had been in the negative in turnover differential in each of the last three games. But they were plus-3 on Sunday in Foxborough, as they got the four takeaways in comparison to just a lone turnover of their own.
"To get four takeaways, that was huge for us," Ryans said. "The most we've gotten in a game here this year, so to see it come to fruition was really awesome by our defense and to see the energy that it provided our entire team and it's not only getting the takeaways but as you mentioned, it's about the offense being able to capitalize and score points off of takeaways."
The Texans scored a pair of touchdowns and kicked a field goal off three of the four takeaways, with all of those points coming in the second half.
Houston will face the Packers in Green Bay next Sunday at noon CT.
