With journeyman quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick set to line up under center, the pressure was on the Houston Texans defense to lead the way coming into this season. For the second week in a row, they did just that, forcing four turnovers in a 30-14 dismantling of the Oakland Raiders.
The defense even got into the act on offense, as J.J. Watt lined up as a tight end and caught a 1-yard touchdown pass in the first quarter.
“We’ve been working on that for a while,” head coach Bill O’Brien said in his postgame press conference. “You’ve got a guy there that’s such a great athlete, 6’7”, 290 pounds, got really good hands. You should probably try to get him in there once in a while on offense, so we decided to do that today.”
But make no mistake, it’s not the play calling gimmicks that have the Texans off to a 2-0 start. It all starts with their defense, which has only surrendered 20 points in two games, albeit against the lowly Raiders and Redskins. More importantly, Houston is finally starting to force turnovers, something it did at an historically bad rate a season ago.
The Texans intercepted rookie Derek Carr twice and recovered two fumbles in Sunday’s win, while failing to surrender a single giveaway on offense. They are now a +5 in turnover differential this season after finishing a league-worst -19 in 2013. “We do a great job of trying to get in there and trying to get the ball out,” Watt said. “I think we’ve had some success. Obviously our defensive backs the last few weeks have done a great job forcing turnovers. Hopefully we can continue that trend.”
Another trend developing in Houston is solid running from Arian Foster, who looks like his old self after offseason back surgery. After registering his second consecutive 100-yard performance to start the season, Foster spoke about some friendly “banter” he had with a few Oakland fans.
“Yeah, they were talking trash, you know what I mean,” Foster said. “But it’s all good. I know they got a lot of passion so there was some fun little banter back and forth.”
Fitzpatrick is settling into his role quite nicely as well, failing to turn the ball over for the second consecutive week while making enough plays to keep opposing defenses honest. His solid “game management” coupled with Foster’s pounding away at the run game kept the ball moving and put points on the board: exactly the result the Texans were hoping for coming into the season.
Still, the Houston’s 2014 season will be made or broken by the play of the Texans defense. And if the past two Sundays are any indication, Houston fans have reason to be cautiously optimistic.
“I think our defense is having some fun right now,” Watt continued. “Obviously there are still things always to correct so there are things we’re going to clean up as we move on. The way the guys play, the way that everybody does their job, everybody plays within the system, goes out there and flies around. It’s a fun defense to play in, but there are still some things that we need to get cleaned up.”
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