Houston Texans: The good, bad and totally awful in loss to Jaguars

The Houston Texans lost to the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday afternoon, snapping what was a straight weird winning streak against their AFC South rivals. It’s not hard to understand why the Texans lost, even if they were coming off three straight weeks of better play.

The Jags are one of the hottest teams in the NFL right now. They have a young quarterback who is finally figuring things out. They’ve got some weapons on both sides of the ball that make them good enough to potentially win nine games after starting the season off pretty rough.

On the other hand, the Houston Texans are banged up, undertalented, and limping to the finish line. The best thing fans can root for at this point is for the team to lose but not look bad doing it. They looked bad doing it today. They looked like a 2-13-1 team today.

So let’s take a look at what worked, what didn’t and what made fans look away as quickly as they could.

The Good for the Houston Texans

• While the Texans allowed 31 points on Sunday, it wasn’t because of the pass defense. In fact, the secondary had a pretty good game. Jalen Pitre and Desmond King II each had interceptions. In fact, if this hadn’t been a blowout win for Jax, you could argue that Trevor Lawrence had himself a tough game. He didn’t throw a touchdown, had a bad interception, and amassed less than 200 yards through the air. His completion percentage was pretty but that was mostly thanks to short passes.
• It’s hard to focus on the kicker in a season like this but it does appear the team has someone they can lean on in that position should they eventually get better. Ka’imi Fairbairn hit a 56 yard field goal on Sunday that allowed him to continue his 18-for-18 streak and is now 6-for-6 on field goals of 50+ yards this season. He’s fourth in the NFL in field goal percentage and hasn’t missed an extra point all year. He’s having a career year.

The Bad for the Houston Texans

• Did you know that the Houston Texans have the worst run defense in the NFL? They underlined that stat on Sunday by allowing Travis Etienne to run over, around and through them when the game was still in doubt. At one point he had 99 yards on just five carries. They ended the game allowing 169 yards and three rushing touchdowns to three different running backs.

The Totally Awful

• Davis Mills fumbled the ball for the third straight game. He now has eight fumbles on the season with three of them lost. His fumble today basically put the game away as it was returned for a touchdown. Two weeks ago, his fumble definitely lost the game as it was in overtime on a drive where the Texans just needed a field goal to win. Mills’ has a fumble problem, he’s put the ball on the turf 12 times in just 26 games played the last two years. Just another reason why fans are excited for Bryce Young I guess.
• The only thing worse than Davis Mills play on Sunday was Pep Hamilton’s play calling. Whether it’s his obsession with the two quarterback system, or his weird play calls on goal to go, he continued to show he simply isn’t cut out to be an offensive coordinator in the NFL. Here’s hoping the Houston Texans brass is paying attention.