There was a lot to digest from the Week 3 loss for the Houston Texans, losing 23-20 in a game they had a realistic change of winning, but it just wasn’t in the cards, with Houston falling to 0-2-1 overall.
Technically, the Texans aren’t the worst team in the NFL in the standings as the Las Vegas Raiders are 0-3 with Josh McDaniels as their new head coach this season, one season after Las Vegas made the playoffs.
With Houston so far this season, the offense hasn’t taken many steps forward after three weeks, but the defense has been better than they were a season ago. For Houston, the name of the game for them in 2022 is patience, consistency and improvement. If those three can eventually happen each week, then some wins will come, and the overall health of the franchise will be better for future seasons.
Now for this past Sunday and what went right and what went wrong for the team. There were positives on both sides of the ball, and there were negatives too, but everything is able to be fixed as the season continues.
Next is the good, bad and ugly for the Texans against the Bears from Week 3, starting with the good.
Texans Week 3: The Good
The first name in the good category is Jalen Pitre, as the rookie safety had a breakout game in Week 3 with two interceptions of Bears quarterback Justin Fields, plus he sacked Fields in the loss. Pitre totaled eight tackles with five of those being solo tackles, with the rookie being second on the team in tackles in the game.
Another positive for the Texans was Jonathan Owens, as the defensive back led the Texans with 11 tackles, plus six were solo tackles. It is a great thing to see a player who has worked as hard as Owens to climb into a better spot on the depth chart have such a solid effort with his tackling.
Then a plus was rookie running back Dameon Pierce who scored his first career touchdown (and rushed 20 times for 80 yards), and how about Jordan Akins coming off the practice squad to score a 4-yard touchdown reception in the back of the end zone?
It was nice to see Akins have some success, as he was needed at the moment to make that catch and keep Houston in the game.
We can’t forget another defensive player, Jerry Hughes, who had two sacks for Houston, plus the special teams of the Texans was great as well.
Texans Week 3: The Bad
It is never fun being negative, but the play of Davis Mills wasn’t the best, and he probably doesn’t need anyone pointing out that fact. Even with his 245 yards passing, it was off a 20-of-32 performance that had more interceptions (two) than touchdown passes (one) against a Bears defense that isn’t the greatest.
Mills averaged 7.7 yards per completion, but that wasn’t good enough, and his reads weren’t where they needed to be either. The entire offense is to blame, but the conversation starts at quarterback, and whether it is fair or not, that’s how things go, because an offense is only as good as their quarterback.
Brandin Cooks had just two receptions on seven targets, so part of that is on Mills, but if the WR1 of the team only has two receptions totaling 22 yards, then maybe that player needs to create more plays for himself too.
Other than Pierce, the rest of the Houston rushing attack was nonexistent with Rex Burkhead having nine yards on three carries, and he was left in the game at an important moment of the fourth quarter, but more on that later.
In all, there were some more bad moments, but we all get the point, and that is more improvements need to be made if the Texans want to gain their first win of the season.
Texans Week 3: The Ugly
In three games this season, the Texans have been held scoreless in the fourth quarter and that is unacceptable at most levels of football, especially in the NFL when games are on the line. Houston’s two losses have been by a combined 10 points, and in their Week 1 tie they were outscored 17-0 in the fourth quarter.
Houston’s offensive line and offense in general allowed five sacks against the Bears, and there were also three QB hits in the loss. This can’t happen much more or Davis Mills won’t be able to gain any improvement. Some of those sacks are mostly on him too, but the offense has to play 11-strong, and that’s not been the case in this game and for most of the season so far.
Overall, the loss wasn’t completely ugly, but it was a bad loss and the team can’t keep letting wins slip away from them. The Texans could actually be 3-0 if not for the implosion in Week 1 during the fourth quarter, while the Week 2 and Week 3 games the team had their chances.
The play calling needs to improve on offense, all the pressure can’t stay on the defense, and overall as a unit on offense the word “improvement” stands out the most. As said many times before, patience is the key for Texans fans when it comes to the offense, but the unit needs to help with that by showing signs of getting better, and this weekend that didn’t happen in the grand scheme of the offense.