Much of the credit, and rightfully so, for the Houston Texans' victory over the Buffalo Bills on Thursday Night Football has been given to Houston's defense, which put forth a season best effort against one of the best and most explosive offenses in the NFL.
But under the radar, the Davis Mills-led offense gave the Texans just enough to eek out a 23-19 win in front of the hometown fans. Mills threw for a modest 153 yards, and as a team Houston rushed for just 108 yards. But most importantly, the Texans didn't turn the ball over, and they rarely got off schedule, which has been an issue for this team dating back to last year.
To remain on schedule, the Texans needed to avoid penalties and avoid negative plays. On Thursday night, Houston was flagged just 5 times for 40 yards, a victory for a team that was dinged for over 80 penalty yards in two of their five losses already this season. But an even bigger story than the lack of penalty yards putting the Texans behind the eight-ball was the glaring lack of sacks allowed by Houston's offensive line.
For the game, Houston's offensive line didn't allow a single sack of Davis Mills, and while it's not as if the Bills boast one of the league's top pass rushes, this much-maligned offensive line has allowed its share of pressures and sacks to teams that shouldn't be generating that much of a rush.
So what was the difference on Thursday night? It may have come down to just one minor change along the offensive line, moving Tytus Howard to left guard and inserting Trent Brown as the starting right tackle.
The result was arguably the unit's best game of the entire season. According to PFF, the Texans only allowed six pressures all game, three of which came from rookie left tackle Aireontae Ersery, who has had his ups and downs this season, as you'd expect from any first-year player at his position.
A change like this one could easily go under the radar and end up being ignored entirely. But the fact that DeMeco Ryans, Nick Caley and the Texans coaching staff knew when to press this button is a testament of how well things are working in Houston all throughout the organization right now.