All of Sunday was a conundrum. The end result was predictable, but the path to get to that end result wasn’t. Coming into the game, the Texans were missing five of their defensive starters.
It showed as the Packers were able to gash the Texans up the middle with Josh Jacobs and the pass game up the middle. The Packers defense bottled up the Texans passing game for most of the game as the Texans offensive line seemingly took the afternoon off.
Flip the script and you have most of the Texans wins from the first six weeks. The Packers thoroughly dominated the game and the line of scrimmage in particular, but still found a way to make it a game. A part of that came on a muffed punt that turned into a Texans touchdown. Some of that came from two key interceptions of Jordan Love in the first half.
They even allowed the Texans to take the lead in the fourth quarter, but the Cinderella story was all for naught as the Packers did enough to pull out the win late. The Texans just didn’t have enough on this day against a really good football team. However, there were some very notable performances that we will get to chew on throughout the week as the Texans prep for their next game.
Joe Mixon has played four games as a Texan and he has 100 or more yards rushing in three of them. He added two more touchdowns on the day as he is on pace to have ten or more touchdowns on the season. He may not make Texans fans forget Arian Foster, but he is definitely the best back the team has had since Foster.
Calen Bullock added his third interception on the season as he makes a case for defensive rookie of the year award. Last year’s defensive rookie of the year (Will Anderson) and his partner in crime tried their best to keep the Texans in the game late. It wasn’t as great an effort as it was against the Bills, but considering you had no healthy linebackers it was a valiant effort.
Still, the coaching staff will tell you there are no moral victories in the NFL. They would be right. There will be time to digest this thing and to go into what could have been done differently to get a different result. However, the game didn’t feel like that. It felt like you were undermanned and outplayed for most of the game. The Packers take this 24-22, but it should have been more lopsided than that.
