NFL Week 8: Houston Texans 26, San Francisco 49ers 15

All week long last week, leading up to the Houston Texans’ Week 8 matchup Sunday with the San Francisco 49ers, there was an unfamiliar feeling surrounding the Houston Texans, coming off of their 27-19 loss to the Seattle Seahawks on Monday. Sure, the Texans had lost games before under DeMeco Ryans, but there had never been this degree of line drawing being done by Ryans. Throughout the week after the loss, he was very clear — the problem with the Texans was that the players were not doing what they were being coached to do. 

Perhaps this was not the first time that Ryans challenged his team publicly, but it was certainly the strongest instance of it. Certainly, his refrain throughout the week was, at least in part, directed at quarterback C.J. Stroud, whose inconsistency this season has been on the list of reasons the Texans were underachieving at 2-4 coming into Sunday.

Well, whatever buttons Ryans wanted to push, it worked. The Texans had their most impressive performance of the season on Sunday, maybe not by scoring margin, but considering circumstance, player absences, and sheer importance of getting a win. The Texans beat the Niners by a score of 26-15, moving to 3-4 on the season. 

As always, there were winners and losers. Here we go: 

WINNERS

4. DeMeco Ryans

As mentioned above, Ryans pushed his chips in a bit this week, likely hoping that calling his players out publicly would draw the appropriate response. It did. The Texans responded with one of their cleanest games of the year, in snap to snap execution. The penalties were still a bit of an issue, with eight in total, for 55 yards, but Ryans has to be thrilled knowing that this is the new ceiling for his team. There will be stronger opponents on the schedule, plenty actually, but efforts like this one will go a long way to being in the playoff hunt at year’s end.

3. Iowa State 

The Texans came into this game without Nico Collins (concussion) and Christian Kirk (hamstring). Collins is a Pro Bowl caliber receiver, and Kirk is a veteran that the team has been counting on to backfill the absence of Tank Dell and the departure of Stefon Diggs. Instead, the Texans, by game’s end, had just four healthy receivers, who had a combined 51 catches coming into Sunday. It didn’t matter. The group excelled, led by three Iowa State Cyclones — Xavier Hutchinson (5 catches, 69 yards, TD), Jayden Higgins (4 catches, 34 yards, TD), and Jaylin Noel (5 catches, 63 yards, including a 44 yard bomb to set up Higgins’ touchdown). 

2. The game plan on both sides 

Thus far, this was Nick Carley’s finest hour as Texans’ offensive coordinator. He mixed the run and pass perfectly. In the run game, Nick Chubb was able to grind out tough yards, and Woody Marks gave the Texans a couple of sparks with a 23 yard run and a 50 yard catch and run. The Texans were rarely in bad down and distance situations, which led to a 9-16 performance on third down. Even when there were penalties putting them behind the chains, there was no panic. They did a great job of recouping the lost yards and subsequently moving the chains. The offensive line was largely excellent, allowing no sacks for the first time all season. 

1. C.J. Stroud 

Statistically, Stroud was fantastic on Sunday, competing 30 passes on 39 attempts for 318 yards. He also continued to show how he could use his legs with some useful scrambles, including a long of 13 yards. Above all else, Stroud was in command the entire day. The happy feet that were so evident versus Seattle were gone. Above all else, for a game at least, he proved he could raise the level of an inexperienced, perhaps lesser overall talented receiving corps. You could argue this was Stroud’s best game in his career, due to the extenuating variables.

LOSERS

4. Mac Jones

Opposite Stroud was Mac Jones, the Niners’ backup quarterback coming into the season, who has become their starter for most of the season due to Brock Purdy’s turf toe. Coming into Sunday, Jones had led the Niners to a 4-1 record in his five starts. On Sunday, Jones’ inability to even get a first down on the first three series was a major reason the Texans out-possessed the Niners by a 24:31 to 5:29 margin in the first half. Jones looked like an ineffective backup quarterback for most of the game on Sunday. 

3. Brian Kelly 

We interrupt NFL talk for a moment to acknowledge LSU’s firing head coach Brian Kelly, halfway through his fourth season in Baton Rouge. Kelly, who came in with as much bluster as any recent college coaching hire, finishes his career along the bayou with a 34-14 record, and exactly zero appearances in the College Football Playoff. Who knew that a guy using this phony accent wouldn’t work out at LSU?

2. Texans kick coverage 

Okay, back to the Texans, where there is very little to criticize in this win over the Niners. Sure, the offense wasn’t great in the red zone, converting just 1 of 5 trips, but they were excellent otherwise. If there was one glaring sequence that deserves criticism, it’s the Texans’ kick coverage on the kick off right before the half, after going up 16-0. The coverage group allowed a return to midfield, and tacked on a Dylan Horton face mask penalty. Four plays later, the score was 16-7 on a George Kittle touchdown catch. That was one of those cases where a bad sixty seconds undoes half of a phenomenal previous 29 minutes. Brutal.

1. Will Anderson pre-snap discipline

To be clear, Anderson had another outstanding overall game. He hit Jones three times, and had a big sack in the second half. Anderson is this team’s MVP through the first seven games. However, for the second week in a row, he had an offsides penalty. In fact, he had two, and one of them kept a drive alive for the Niners. Look, Anderson’s good outweighs any bad by a country mile, but the last time we had a player where we had to rationalize presnap penalties was when Laremy Tunsil was here. Eventually, it stops being something you can brush under the rug.  Anderson has five such penalties on the season. This needs to stop. 

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