TEXANS TAKEAWAYS
Most exciting standouts from Houston Texans slugfest victory over Colts
Sep 8, 2024, 3:47 pm
TEXANS TAKEAWAYS
Stefon Diggs caught two touchdown passes and Joe Mixon rushed for 159 yards and another score Sunday to help the Houston Texans close out a 29-27 victory against the Indianapolis Colts.
Houston (1-0) won its second straight road game in the series for the first time in franchise history and its ninth straight road game in division play.
The Colts (0-1), meanwhile, extended the NFL's longest active opening day winless streak to 11 despite getting two TD passes of more than 50 yards from Anthony Richardson, who also ran for a late score.
He was 9 of 19 with 212 yards and one interception and, ran six times for 56 yards including a 3-yard scoring run with 2:14 left to trim the deficit to 29-27.
The Texans, meanwhile, leaned heavily on Mixon's 30 carries to wear down a defense that spent 40 minutes on the field. Ka'imi Fairbairn also made three field goals from 50 or more yards.
C.J. Stroud, last year's AP Offensive Rookie of the Year, finished 24 of 32 with 234 yards and the two TD passes. Diggs caught six passes for 33 yards and Nico Collins had six catches for 117 yards.
But Houston controlled most of the game.
Just three plays after Fairbairn opened the scoring with a 51-yard field goal, Richardson launched a perfect 60-yard TD pass to a wide-open Alex Pierce for a 7-3 lead.
Fairbairn made a 50-yard field goal before Diggs gave the Texans a 12-7 cushion with his first score, a 9-yard catch. Fairbairn started the second half with another 51-yard field goal.
The Colts then capitalized on a blocked punt with Jonathan Taylor's 5-yard TD run, but a failed 2-point conversion left Indy in a 15-13 hole.
Mixon responded with a 3-yard TD run, one play after a defensive holding call erased a Colts interception.
Richardson connected with Ashton Dulin on a 54-yard score to make it 22-20, Diggs' 2-yard TD catch on fourth-and-goal with 4:42 left essentially sealed it. Richardson's score got the Colts within two, but they didn't try an onside kick and the weary defense couldn't get off the field again.
The first half ended on an unusual note with the officials erasing a spike that stopped the clock with 5 seconds to go so they could review whether Dalton Schultz's 7-yard reception was actually a catch.
After determining it was a catch, referee John Hussey announced the clock would be set to 15 seconds — prompting the Colts to call timeout. Before play resumed, Hussey “apologized for the confusion,” apparently rescinded the timeout, enforced a 10-second runoff for the review to put the clock at 5 seconds and started it on his signal. But the Texans didn't have their field goal team on the field and time expired before the ball was snapped.
“It's on us on the sideline,” coach DeMeco Ryans said. “We've got to be better.”
Indianapolis installed new turf during the offseason and both teams struggled to stay upright. Stroud slipped on two consecutive plays on the Texans first series and when Colts rookie Adonai Mitchell slipped on a screen pass in the first half, it messed up the timing. And Kylen Granson's bad footing led to Calen Bullock's interception at the Texans 8-yard line late in the first half.
Be sure to watch the video above as the crew from Texans on Tap reacts to the game live on YouTube!
Texans: Host Chicago next Sunday night.
Colts: Visit Green Bay next Sunday.
There was a conversation Cleveland guard Donovan Mitchell had during training camp, the topic being all the teams that were generating the most preseason buzz in the Eastern Conference. Boston was coming off an NBA championship. New York got Karl-Anthony Towns. Philadelphia added Paul George.
The Cavs? Not a big topic in early October. And Mitchell fully understood why.
“What have we done?” Mitchell asked. “They don't talk about us. That's fine. We'll just hold ourselves to our standard.”
That approach seems to be working.
For the first time in 36 seasons — yes, even before the LeBron James eras in Cleveland — the Cavaliers are atop the NBA at the 25-game mark. They're 21-4, having come back to earth a bit following a 15-0 start but still better than anyone in the league at this point.
“We've kept our standards pretty high,” Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson said. “And we keep it going.”
The Cavs are just one of the surprise stories that have emerged as the season nears the one-third-done mark. Orlando — the only team still unbeaten at home — is off to its best start in 16 years at 17-9 and having done most of that without All-Star forward Paolo Banchero. And Houston is 16-8, behind only the Cavs, Boston, Oklahoma City and Memphis so far in the race for the league's best record.
Cleveland was a playoff team a year ago, as was Orlando. And the Rockets planted seeds for improvement last year as well; an 11-game winning streak late in the season fueled a push where they finished 41-41 in a major step forward after a few years of rebuilding.
“We kind of set that foundation last year to compete with everybody,” Rockets coach Ime Udoka said. “Obviously, we had some ups and downs with winning and losing streaks at times, but to finish the season the way we did, getting to .500, 11-game winning streak and some close losses against high-level playoff teams, I think we kind of proved that to ourselves last year that that's who we're going to be.”
A sign of the respect the Rockets are getting: Oddsmakers at BetMGM Scorebook have made them a favorite in 17 of 24 games so far this season, after favoring them only 30 times in 82 games last season.
“Based on coaches, players, GMs, people that we all know what they're saying, it seems like everybody else is taking notice as well,” Udoka said.
They're taking notice of Orlando as well. The Magic lost their best player and haven't skipped a beat.
Banchero's injury after five games figured to doom Orlando for a while, and the Magic went 0-4 immediately after he tore his oblique. Entering Tuesday, they're 14-3 since — and now have to regroup yet again. Franz Wagner stepped into the best-player-on-team role when Banchero got hurt, and now Wagner is going to miss several weeks with the exact same injury.
Ask Magic coach Jamahl Mosley how the team has persevered, and he'll quickly credit everyone but himself. Around the league, it's Mosley getting a ton of the credit — and rightly so — for what Orlando is doing.
“I think that has to do a lot with Mose. ... I have known him a long time,” Phoenix guard Bradley Beal said. “A huge fan of his and what he is doing. It is a testament to him and the way they’ve built this team.”
The Magic know better than most how good Cleveland is, and vice versa. The teams went seven games in an Eastern Conference first-round series last spring, the Cavs winning the finale at home to advance to Round 2.
Atkinson was brought in by Cleveland to try and turn good into great. The job isn't anywhere near finished — nobody is raising any banners for “best record after 25 games” — but Atkinson realized fairly early that this Cavs team has serious potential.
“We’re so caught up in like the process of improve, improve, improve each game, improve each practice," Atkinson said. “That’s kind of my philosophy. But then you hit 10-0, and obviously the media starts talking and all that, and you’re like, ‘Man, this could be something special brewing here.’”