You almost haven’t been able to escape the chatter about how bad and disappointing the Texans’ offense is this season.
It’s been the main topic of every sports radio talk show in the city, the television news sports segments have been relentless, and it’s been worse in our barbershops around town. Has C.J. Stroud regressed? Wasn’t the offensive line supposed to be improved? What’s up with new offensive coordinator Nick Caley and his stagnant offense?
But those narratives quickly softened Sunday when the Texans came out on top of AFC South rival Tennessee at NRG Stadium in the battle of two 0-3 teams. Texas stomped the Titans 26-0, and suddenly, the narrative on the underachieving offense changed.
Or has it?
Texans coach DeMeco Ryans mentioned playing clean offensively several times in the postgame presser as a reason why the offense seemed to finally get on track in Caley’s offense. Ryans is certainly right if we are talking only about the fourth quarter, when the Texans’ offense put up 20 points against a Titans defense that was on the field entirely too much.
The first three quarters still had too much of what has been wrong in September. Missed opportunities, Stroud struggling to hit wide-open receivers, the offensive line not doing enough to protect Stroud and a disjointed running game that seems stuck without Joe Mixon.
Winning tends to give us all amnesia. But Ryans and Texans know there is still much work to be done, especially with an almost impossible road trip against Baltimore on the immediate horizon. Imagine how disastrous it would have been to go into Baltimore 0-4 and face the likelihood of starting the season 0-5.
“First three games, we didn’t know who we are because we continued to hurt ourselves so much. So, we’ll see. This is a start,” Ryans said to the Defender. “We’ll see how we can continue to build off that. Each week presents its set of challenges. I think it’s really important for guys just to go out, win a football game, have a good game, offense, defense, special teams, just to really continue to build that confidence. You got your first one.”
“It gives us confidence, but it’s still the NFL. Every week you’ve just got to be on your A game. You’ve got to be sharp offensively, defensively, special teams gotta play cohesively.”
Texans rookie left tackle Airontae Ersery
It was far from easy, even with the defense crafting the franchise’s first shutout since 2010. The offense still didn’t look like it needed to for three-quarters of the game if the Texans have any realistic chance of overcoming the 0-3 hole they dug for themselves and contending for their third straight AFC South Division title.
But the pieces are there. Stroud seemed like himself in the fourth quarter. Rookies Woody Marks and Jayden Higgins could have potential after finding the end zone a combined three times in the fourth quarter.
Nick Chubb and Marks showed the benefit of a solid ground attack, playing an instrumental role in the Texans winning the time of possession battle 38:21 to 21:39.
Then veteran receiver Nico Collins, who has sometimes seemed like the forgotten man in the offense, showed that he can still be the spark after he caught that 37-yard reception late in the third quarter that awakened the offense.
“I think it did,” Stroud said of Collins’ catch rejuvenating the offense. “Tytus (Howard) came up to me and was like, ‘Be happy bro, it was a big play.’ Then the sideline was turnt up, that stuff will bring energy, big plays like that. Nico did a great job. But big plays like that definitely give us energy that we need going forward.”
But the Texans realize they will need more of that and more consistently to get the offense going in the right direction.
“It felt good to catch that one sideline, get that spark that we needed to get everybody tuned up so that we can move the ball and touch paint,” Collins said. “That’s what you want as an offense.
“I’m glad we got the Dub, get everybody healthy so that we can get ready for Baltimore next week.”
