Texans falter in OT as 27-21 loss to Giants leaves them at 2-5

HOUSTON (AP) — A stagnant offense and scores of defensive miscues led to yet another loss by the Houston Texans on Sunday.

Houston forced overtime against the New York Giants but couldn’t do anything right after that in the 27-21 loss that dropped the team to 2-5.

Now they’ll try and regroup to attempt to salvage a season that has not gone the way anyone on the team expected.

“We’re going to get a bunch of people talking crazy and want us to do this, do that: ‘he’s terrible, he’s bad, he should play like this, he should have done this,’” quarterback C.J. Stroud said. “We’ll just block out the noise and understand, we got ourselves in this hole, we’ve got to find a way to dig ourselves out.”

The Texans tied it Sunday when Stroud connected with Xavier Hutchinson on a 3-yard scoring grab with just under a minute to go in the fourth.

Houston got the ball first in overtime, but New York’s defense forced a three-and-out with Kayvon Thibodeaux dropping a potential interception on second down.

J.J. McCarthy, who was making his first start this season, found Malik Nabers for a 9-yard completion on first down. Then Cam Skattebo dashed 42 yards on second down to cap a 124-yard rushing performance before Devin Singletary scored on a 30-yard run on the next play to end it.

New York’s last two plays came on a day Houston’s defense allowed seven plays of at least 20 yards, including three for 40 yards or more.

“Everybody knows what they’re doing, where they should be and can put themselves in better positions to eliminate some explosives,” coach DeMeco Ryans said. “So, I’ll take a look at that and see how I can help get the explosives down because when the explosives show up, that starts with me. I’ll see how I can fix that.”

While the defense was bad overall on Sunday, giving up a season-high 420 yards, it was especially awful against the run, allowing a season-worst 188 yards.

Linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair said that most of the problems in the run game come down to poor tackling and that they must find a way to fix that.

“It’s one thing if it’s a missed tackle then somebody else tackles it for a 1-yard gain,” he said. “But it’s like some of ours have been missed tackles like you just see on the last drive: missed tackle, explosive, missed tackle, touchdown. So it’s just tough.”

What’s working

Not much is working on this underperforming team that has problems in all three phases. But the one thing the Texans have done consistently well this season is take care of the ball. They are tied for second in the NFL with just three turnovers after not turning the ball over again Sunday.

What needs help

There are plenty of things to choose from here, but since the poor tackling was addressed earlier perhaps the second biggest problem is the team’s penalties.

Houston had 10 for 80 yards on Sunday. The Texans rank second in the NFL this season with 58 penalties for 508 yards.

“The penalties are ridiculous,” Ryans said. “This keeps happening over and over again, so we got to find a way to fix it or get different people in, so we don’t have the same mistakes over and over again.”

Stock up

WR Tank Dell played his first game in 673 days on Sunday after recovering from a gruesome knee injury. He had one catch for 43 yards and returned a punt for 14 yards in limited action. Ryans said he will get more snaps as the season progresses and Dell is eager to return to form after having 1,376 yards receiving and 10 touchdowns combined in his first two NFL seasons.

Stock down

Stroud, who has played well this season, threw two touchdown passes on Sunday but had a season-low 153 yards passing as the Texans failed to move the ball for most of the second half. They punted on their first three possessions after halftime before Stroud’s TD pass to Hutchinson that tied it.

“We have to address things, have hard conversations and I have to be better myself,” Stroud said. “There’s a lot of accountability that needs to be had and we’ll be able to hopefully get those things fixed.”

Key injuries

WR Jaylin Noel suffered a turf toe injury on Sunday. … RB David Montgomery has missed the past two games with a groin injury. … S Jalen Pitre has a shoulder injury that has also kept him out the past two games. … S Reed Blankenship missed Sunday’s game after sustaining a concussion in the previous game.

Key number

7 1/2 — DE Will Anderson still leads the NFL with 7 1/2 sacks despite having zero in the past two games.

Up next

The Texans have a week to regroup during their bye this week before resuming play with a visit to the Chargers on Nov. 8.

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