Colts vs. Texans: Score and Twitter Reaction for Thursday Night Football

For the second game in a row, the Indianapolis Colts managed to cope with the absence of Andrew Luck, as backup quarterback Matt Hasselbeck led the team to a 27-20 win over the Houston Texans at NRG Stadium on Thursday night.

ESPN's Adam Schefter reported earlier in the day Luck wouldn't be able to play since he has yet to fully recover from a shoulder injury.

Meanwhile, his replacement was dealing with health issues of his own.

"I hope I can play four quarters," Hasselbeck said before the game, per NFL Network's Stacey Dales (h/t NFL Network's Ian Rapoport).

Dales added that the 40-year-old was on an IV mere hours prior to kickoff as a result of a bacterial infection.   

Despite being under the weather, Hasselbeck threw for 213 yards and two touchdowns on 18-of-29 passing. For Charles McDonald of the Falcoholic, Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals has been replaced by a new "Flu Game":

Hasselbeck's brother, Tim, who works for ESPN, certainly enjoyed the performance:

Although Hasselbeck's numbers are far from impressive, you can't understate how important it is for the Colts to continue to win without Luck under center. Imagine how much panic would've engulfed Colts fans if the team started the season 1-4.

Andre Johnson had his best game in a Colts uniform, catching six passes for 77 yards and two touchdowns, further compounding the misery of Texans fans Thursday.

A lot of credit for the win—at least from an offensive perspective—should also go to Frank Gore, who ran for 98 yards and a touchdown on 22 carries. The 32-year-old now has 11,398 rushing yards over his career, which moves him into 16th on the NFL's all-time rushing list, per Pro Football Talk's Michael David Smith.

If the Colts had needed Hasselbeck to single-handedly deliver a victory, then they would've been toast. Instead, Gore took a lot of pressure off the passing game.

As if losing to a Luck-less Colts team wasn't enough of a blow for the Texans mentally, they also had to watch as Johnson caught his first touchdown pass of the season. With Indy leading 3-0 in the first quarter, he hooked up with Hasselbeck for a four-yard touchdown pass with one minute and 22 seconds left, per the NFL:

As NFL Network's Andrew Siciliano noted, the trio of Hasselbeck, Gore and Johnson brought a lot of experience to the field Thursday night:

Adam Vinatieri nailed his second field goal of the game to put the Colts ahead 13-0 in the second quarter, but Houston's offense finally woke up after Brian Hoyer came on to replace an ineffective and banged up Ryan Mallett. First, he helped set up a 36-yard field goal from Nick Novak and then played a big role in his team's first touchdown of the game.

The Texans ended the first half on a high note, as Hoyer's last-second heave into the end zone somehow found Jaelen Strong for a 42-yard touchdown to make it a three-point game, 13-10. When it comes to defending a Hail Mary, the Colts secondary didn't exactly provide a strong blueprint, per CBS Sports:

The touchdown didn't appear to have any impact on Indianapolis' psyche, as the Colts scored in a little under two minutes on their first drive of the third quarter. Gore punched the ball in from three yards out to give Indianapolis a 10-point edge early in the second half.

Houston answered back with Strong's second touchdown of the game. Hoyer did well to find him in the end zone, but he received quite a bit of help from the Colts' porous coverage, per SB Nation:

To a certain extent, you never want to draw concrete conclusions about a player based on his body language, but this definitely isn't a good look for Mallett, per NFL on CBS:

Johnson's second touchdown reception of the night, which came with 10:28 left in the game, gave the Colts some much-needed breathing room, as they jumped ahead 27-17.

In the end, that proved to be enough. Novak got Houston to within one score in the fourth quarter, but Colts safety Mike Adams intercepted a pass by Hoyer on the Texans' final drive to seal the victory.

Despite picking up another win with Hasselbeck at quarterback, the Colts can't get Luck back soon enough. They play the New England Patriots next Sunday, and the Carolina Panthers and Denver Broncos are their first two opponents in November.

The AFC South isn't shaping up as the strongest division in the league, but Indianapolis can ill afford to drop too many games over the next few weeks.

At least the Colts are unlikely to get much of a push in the standings from Houston, which was its own worst enemy Thursday. As a team, the Texans picked up 13 penalties for 125 yards and looked lost defensively for stretches.

CBSSports.com's Jason La Canfora thinks head coach Bill O'Brien is lucky major questions aren't being asked about his culpability in the team's struggles:

At this point, you'd be hard-pressed to find anybody who still believes Houston has any hope of making the playoffs, even with the AFC a jumbled mess at the moment. Erratic QB play is once again dooming the Texans.

The only question is how bad things will get for O'Brien before the curtain closes on the 2015 season.

Post-Game Reaction

Hasselbeck was almost at a loss for words following the game when speaking with NFL Network's Tracy Wolfson.

"I honestly didn't know if I could make it through," he said (h/t Sports Illustrated's Chris Burke). "For some unknown reason I was able to finish."

Mike Berman of CBS 4 in Indianapolis provided this additional insight as to Hasselbeck's health in the days leading up to the game:

"He was literally on his death bed," said Colts head coach Chuck Pagano, per Berman. "Grittiest performance I've seen in a long long time."

Over in the other locker room, a rift could be forming between O'Brien and Mallett, who contradicted one another regarding a possible injury.

O'Brien told the media Mallett's ankle was giving him issues, which limited his time on the field, per Brian T. Smith of the Houston Chronicle. Mallett, on the other hand, said he had merely "got the wind knocked out of (him)" and that he had wanted to return, only for O'Brien to keep him on the sidelines, per the Houston Chronicle's Aaron Wilson.

The Texans have had a revolving door at quarterback so far this year, but with Hoyer's performance coupled with Mallett's sideline demeanor and post-game comments, Hoyer will likely be the regular starter going forward.