The Texans rode into Buffalo with a four-game win streak in tow, but it just wasn’t meant to become five. Houston fell to the Bills in Buffalo on Sunday, 30-21. What can we take away from this game?
Pick 1: Indy Lost, Too
Even though the Texans lost to Buffalo, it isn’t a huge shot to their playoff chances, since the Colts got blown out by the Steelers on Sunday night. The Steelers and the Jets 
both winning does mean that Houston loses its wild card spot for the moment, but the important thing is that they’re still tied with the Colts atop the AFC South, with three divisional games left in the next four weeks.
Getting through this stretch of non-divisional games unscathed was always going to be a tough task, but they’ve played well enough these last five weeks to allow themselves to control their own destiny, and that’s the most important thing going forward for the Texans.
Pick 2: Mental Mistakes On Special Teams
One of the things the Texans had going for them during their win streak was that they were effective in all three phases of the game. However, on Sunday, the special teams unit failed the Texans big time.
If you’re going to rely on your defense in games, field position is crucial. Committing stupid penalties on punts is giving away free yardage, and let’s not even mention Mumphrey’s blunder on a punt return that cost the Texans offense at least 20 yards. These are the kinds of mental mistakes that haunted the Texans in the first couple of weeks of the season, and they can’t afford for them to come back now. Hopefully, it just happened to be one of those weeks for the special teams unit, but it is something that must be addressed.
Pick 3: Blue Making Me Blue
When Arian Foster first went down, it seemed that Alfred Blue was the easy choice to step in as the new starter. I think it’s time for the Texans to rethink that decision and 
move in a different direction.
Blue managed just 14 yards rushing on four carries on Sunday, and was called for two penalties on special teams. The fact of the matter is that Houston is getting more of an offensive push with Chris Polk and Jonathan Grimes than they are with Blue, who seems unable to grab any more than three yards per carry, and doesn’t manage many yards after contact. The time has come to switch it up and start Grimes or Polk over Blue.
Pick 4: Conservative Play Calling
You’re never going to get anywhere in this league by playing completely conservative football, and the Houston playbook may as well have been titled “GOP” it was so conservative. The play that stood out the most to me was 
on a 3rd and 14 deep in their own territory, the Texans ran a draw play that picked up maybe three or four yards.
I sincerely hope that Bill O’Brien and George Godsey turned to the defense before running that play and preemptively apologized, because not even trying to convert a 3rd down deep in your own territory and giving up on the offensive end is disrespectful to your defense. Yes, the Texans defense is one of the best out there, but they are human beings and need some rest. When your play calling resigns your offense to achieving three-and-outs, it’s your defense that suffers, and that was the case on Sunday.
Pick 5: Big Plays Caused Big Problems
The Achilles heel of the Texans defense all season has been the big play, and it came back to hurt them again on Sunday. Bills quarterback Tyrod Taylor threw for just 211 yards against the Bills defense, but just over 140 of those yards came on just three passes.
Taylor was able to find Sammy Watkins on two 50-plus yard bombs twice in the game to set up scores, and sealed the victory for the Bills with a 40-yard touchdown pass to Charles Clay. To be fair, a lot of this needs to be contributed to Taylor who played a great game, but the fact that Taylor was comfortable enough all game to make those plays and find those deep routes is problematic.
On the flip side of the issue, the Texans missed some huge opportunities for big plays of their own. Brian Hoyer narrowly missed on a couple of deep balls because of pressure up the middle, but his receivers also dropped open passes that were right on the money that could’ve extended drives and created more scoring chances.
The biggest play the Texans missed on was the chance for a pick-six by Andre Hal. That opportunity quite literally slipped through his hands at a point where the game was still tied at 21. If he could’ve held on to that, there were parsecs of space in front of him.
If this reference is lost on you, please do yourself a favor and brush up on your Star Wars knowledge. It’s also entirely possible that I’m just too much of a nerd, but I digress. There was a positive takeaway from this game.
Pick 6: Believe in Hoyer
It was so easy to write off Brian Hoyer before the season started because of his stint in Cleveland, but let’s face the facts. Nobody wins in Cleveland. But Hoyer has really impressed this season in Houston, especially with how smart he is handling the football.
Rex Ryan defenses are designed to scare the quarterback into making mistakes, but Hoyer didn’t take the bait. He calmly threw for 293 yards and three touchdowns against the Bills, and threw an interception in the final seconds of the game that was out of reach, which doesn’t count.
But in a year of backups and mistakes at the quarterback position, it’s hard to be unhappy with Hoyer’s efforts. The guy has thrown 18 touchdown passes and just six interceptions on the season, three of which were either not his fault or didn’t matter based on the situation in the game. It’s time to actually be realistic about Hoyer as the Houston quarterback. He’s not bad at all. In fact, he’s actually been solid for the Texans.
