The Texans continue take the ball away from opponents.
In Sunday's Week 15 victory over Miami at NRG Stadium, Houston picked off three Tua Tagavailoa passes, and also recovered a fumble of his. It was the ninth straight game they've logged a takeaway.
"That is who we are as a defense," Defensive end Will Anderson, Jr. said. "We talk about swarm mentality. That's what we have to do every Sunday. Every time we touch the field, we have to swarm and take the ball away. We got to get the ball back to our offense and that's what we want to prove out here on the field."
Anderson strip-sacked Tagavailoa in the second quarter, and defensive tackle Tim Settle recovered the fumble for Houston. The Texans scored a touchdown a few plays later to take a 10-3 lead.
"I got to give a credit to the d line," Anderson said. "Denico (Autry) knocked the guy back. I won the edge, Tua hitched and I came in and strip-sacked the ball out of his hands. I didn't even know I did it, but here we are with points on the board. So that's how you play complementary football."
Rookie safety Calen Bullock picked off a Tagavailoa pass backed up in the red zone just before halftime, and raced 68 yards to the Miami 5-yard line. A Ka'imi Fairbairn field goal a few plays later took the Texans into the locker room break up, 13-6.
Then in the fourth quarter, cornerback Derek Stingley, Jr. made a pair of game-changing plays with two interceptions.
"Defensively our guys stepped up and did a really good job closing out the game the way we needed to," Ryans said. Stingley is playing just unbelievable football right now. Ask him to cover, man coverage, to go and get two picks versus a really good offense, that was huge for us. Calen stepped up with a picking for us as wall. Our D-line, the way they rushed."
Houston turned the ball over once in the win, so the turnover differential on the day was plus-3. It's the fourth game this season in which the Texans have logged three more takeaways than they've turned the ball over in a game. Starting with the Week 6 win at New England, the Texans have been positive in turnover differential in every game but one. In that contest, they were even.
Overall, Houston is now at plus-13 on the season in turnover differential.
