The Houston Texans opened their season with a heartbreaking loss to theBuffalo Bills. It was a game Houston really should have won on the offensive side of things.
They dominated time of possession, had more first downs and better efficiency on third down, 21 more plays than Buffalo and were far better in the red zone.
However, Buffalo won with a touchdown pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer with under two minutes on the clock. It
With the Bills up36-31, the Texans got the ballwith 1:36 left in the game. After a series of completions by quarterback C.J. Stroud, Houston got down to the nine-yard line. On first-and-goal, Stroud was sacked for a loss of nine yards and forced the Texans to use their final timeout. Second and goal resulted in an incomplete
pass. Third and goal ended up deciding the game with Stroud getting strip-sacked to the end the game.
Despite Stroud’s fumble ending Houston’s chances at a comeback win and that being the second lost fumble of the game for Stroud, head coach DeMeco Ryans is proud of the way his quarterback performed and puts the loss more on the defense for allowing Buffalo to score 36 points.
"C.J. was very much in control the entire game. He took what the defense gave him. He made great decisions with the football. I'm proud of the way he played today,” Ryans said. “Thought he showed what he's been showing all camp. He's been showing that confidence. He's been showing that growth and it showed today out there. He was very calm. Great demeanor on the sideline, great demeanor on the field just having the offense under control, putting us in a great position to win the football game. Unfortunately, we lost the football there two times. We don't want those plays at all, but not going to let that overshadow the game that he had. Offense put up way more points than needed for us to win this game. It's not on us. We played together, but we could have definitely played much better defensively."
Throughout all of last season, Houston’s defense only allowed a team to score 30 or more points once and that was against the Indianapolis Colts right at the end of the year.
Last season, when they played Buffalo, the Texans held the Bills to just 19 points, although their offense did get a boost with the addition of wide receiver DJ Moore in the offseason.
Moore ended up being a critical part of Buffalo’s offense with 100 receiving yards and a touchdown; he was targeted the most out of anyone on the team with eight targets.
Houston’s schedule does not get any easier with their second game against the Cincinnati Bengals who are coming off a 33-27 win against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in their season opener.
This article originally appeared on Texans Wire: Texans HC DeMeco Ryans says offense put up 'way more points than needed' to win in loss to Bills
