The Houston Texans earned a crucial win Sunday, as they defeated the Jacksonville Jaguars 31-20. The game wasn’t pretty but the win was imperative for the Texans to preserve hopes of postseason play.
Taking the loss the Indianapolis Colts (3-3) suffered later that night into consideration, the Texans are now just one game out of first place in the AFC South.
Sunday’s game had its share of highlights and lowlights. Let’s delve further and take a look at the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly from the victory.
The Good
In a game where Brian Hoyer needed to validate himself in the eyes of his coaches, teammates and Texan fans, he delivered. Hoyer managed the game exceptionally, leading the offense to its first turnover-free game of the season.
He finished the game with nearly 300 passing yards and three touchdown passes (all of them thrown on third down). He completed 24 of 36 passes, threw no interceptions and was sacked just once.
Yes, this was just one game and yes, it was against a pass defense that ranks 20th in the league. But Hoyer had the offense operating with a fluidity it hasn’t this entire season, including a 16 play 99-yard drive that tied a franchise record.
The Bad
There were some minor things but not enough to harp on. On this lone occasion, I’d much rather spend this portion of the piece talking about a “bad man”. DeAndre Hopkins has been a bad mamma-jamma this year.
He added 10 catches, 148 yards and two touchdowns to his season totals and had plenty of “just throw it up and I”ll make a play” moments.
With the Andre Johnson days long gone, Texan fans can now fill that void and heap weekly praise on this young man. He is going to be a special player in this league for years to come.
The Ugly
Remember when I said this wasn’t too pretty of a win for the Texans? A big part of that was the team continuing to shoot themselves in the foot with penalties.
They were flagged 10 more times Sunday, bringing them to 50 on the year. Not only are they committing far too many, but they’re committing these penalties at inopportune moments in the game. The Jaguars converted just five of 15 third downs, but three of those conversions were due to penalties.
One off-sides gave Jacksonville another opportunity to convert a third down, and they capitalized. Another was a face mask call on third down that kept that same drive alive. Those two conversions led to the Jaguars only points of the first half – a two yard TD catch by Allen Robinson.
With all that said, the Texans played well and established a foundation they can build on. They corrected some mistakes that plagued them earlier in the season but still have plenty to patch up as the season continues.
They now move forward and begin preparing for a road matchup with the Miami Dolphins (2-3) next Sunday.
