Jets vs. Texans: Houston Grades and Notes

By comparison to what happened last week, this upset was much more mild in nature, but the Houston Texans surprised the oddsmakers for a second week in a row with an impressive 24-17 victory over the New York Jets.

Creative offensive plays and a stingy defense led the Texans to this win, which got them back to the .500 mark for the season with a 5-5 record. The Indianapolis Colts also pulled off an upset win with a road victory over the Atlanta Falcons, so the Texans will remain in a tie for first place for another week.

The Texans haven't been over the .500 mark yet this season, but they'll have a chance to build on their recent success and gain the confidence that comes with having a winning record with two winnable games against New Orleans and Buffalo up next on their schedule.

Looking at their remaining opponents, the Texans should win at least eight games. A couple of weeks ago, that seemed like enough to win the terrible AFC South. But whether or not that remains true is hard to say at this point.

Just being able to talk about the playoffs without people laughing feels like a victory after the 2-5 start to the Texans' season.

Position Grades for the Texans

David J. Phillip/Associated Press

Quarterback: B

Most of the time when a quarterback completes less than 50 percent of his passes and stares down his targets as often as T.J. Yates did against the Jets, his grade might be a little lower.

However, since this was his first start since the 2011 playoffs, he'd only been back with the team for a short time and he was facing a pretty good defense, it only seems fair to grade him on a curve just a bit.

Yates did throw for two touchdowns—one against Darrelle Revis—and didn't throw an interception, so all things considered, he had a pretty solid game.

Running Backs: B+

As a group, their yards-per-attempt number at 3.3 stunk once again, but I'm willing to ignore that since they gained more than 100 yards on the ground for only the second time in 10 games this season.

Not only did they get just their second 100-yard rushing performance, but the 123 yards they gained were the second-most the Jets had allowed all season as the top run defense in the league.

Jonathan Grimes and Alfred Blue also combined for six receptions, 62 yards and one touchdown in the passing game; they played much better than expected.

Wide Receivers: A

Nate Washington and Cecil Shorts had at least three drops, but it's hard to give this group a bad grade when it includes one of the best wide receivers in the entire league.

DeAndre Hopkins had another big game with five receptions for 118 yards and two touchdowns against the Jets.

Shorts also found a way to contribute in other areas as a runner out of the Wildcat package and as a passer on a trick play where he threw a touchdown to Blue.

Tight Ends: D

By comparison to what they had done the rest of the year, the tight end group broke out last week against Cincinnati. Unfortunately, their performance plummeted back to normal levels with the group accounting for just two receptions and six receiving yards.

That's not going to cut it no matter which defense they're playing.

Offensive Line: B

Yates showed a tendency to hold the ball for a little too long, yet the Jets only got one sack against him in this game. So at least by that measure the offensive line played pretty well.

It's hard to ever judge the offensive line completely without looking at the All-22 film, but the team went over 100 yards rushing, and Yates didn't seem to face much pressure, so they had a solid game.

Defensive Line: A

Like with the wide receiver position, the grade for this group is carried by one superstar player most weeks.

J.J. Watt had arguably his best game of the season with a team-leading eight tackles, two sacks, five tackles for loss and five hits on the quarterback; he was just a beast on the field.

As a team, the Texans had both seven tackles for loss and hits on the quarterback, so Watt accounting for five of those seven for both stats is amazing.

Linebackers: A+

The Texans held the Jets to just 70 rushing yards—their third-lowest total of the year—on 3.3 yards per carry. They had one rushing touchdown, but it came from quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick and not one of their running backs.

Brian Cushing led that effort as he looked like the player he was in 2011 at times with good speed and recognition to seemingly always put himself in the right spot to make a stop.

Defensive Backs: A

There were a few rough moments, like the rookie move Quintin Demps pulled in the second half to get called for pass interference. But overall the secondary played solid considering they were still missing Kareem Jackson, and Johnathan Joseph had to leave the game at one point.

Jets quarterback Fitzpatrick completed under 50 percent of his passes, threw more interceptions than touchdowns and finished with a QB rating of 52.9, so overall you'd have to say the secondary played well.

Safeties Demps and Eddie Pleasant both came away with two passes defensed on the stat sheet, but it was the two interceptions in the final three minutes once the Jets had pulled within one score that made the difference.

The last of the two picks was a great play by second-year player Andre Hal as he made a diving catch to end the game. Hal broke on the route so quickly it seemed like he knew what the play call was; he doesn't make that play without getting a tremendous jump.

Special Teams: B+

Punter Shane Lechler averaged 52 yards per punt, while Nick Novak made every kick he attempted during the game. The only blemish was a fumble from return man Keith Mumphery, but he ended up recovering it, so there was no harm done.

Coaching: A+

Head coach Bill O'Brien and the offensive coaching staff deserves a ton of credit for having gadget plays ready and possessing the guts to call them against the Jets defense.

As discussed in the game-plan article, lining up and trying to beat the Jets defense man-to-man with normal plays was not a wise strategy.

They needed to work in some new plays designed to surprise the Jets and also use the tendencies they'd shown on tape to their advantage against an aggressive defense.

The Texans ran seven plays with either Shorts or Grimes taking a direct snap in the Wildcat package during the game. Those seven plays went for 48 yards on 6.8 per attempt, while the other 27 attempts from Blue, Grimes, Akeem Hunt and Jay Prosch on normal running plays gained just 2.9 per attempt.

Houston had run many unsuccessful quick wide receiver screens throughout the year, which is why that was one of a couple of trick plays suggested in the game-plan article. Sure enough, the Jets bit hard, and Shorts hit a wide-open Blue on a beautiful wide receiver pass for their second touchdown of the game.

DeAndre Hopkins Gets the Best of Darrelle Revis

David J. Phillip/Associated Press

Darrelle Revis will probably wear a gold jacket someday as a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, so coming into this week, it was reasonable to think that his matchup against Hopkins might go in the favor of the Jets.

We found out quickly after the game began that the young star of the Texans had different plans.

In about one half of play before Revis left with an apparent concussion, Hopkins had three receptions for 80 yards and a touchdown against the All-Pro cornerback.

The last time Revis allowed at least 80 yards and one touchdown over an entire game came during Week 17 of the 2013 season during his brief time with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Tampa Bay didn't use Revis in a way that maximized his strengths, so excluding that game, he hadn't allowed 80 or more yards and one touchdown since Week 5 of the 2010 season.

It'd be easy to make excuses for Revis as a player now in his 30s, but before this game against Hopkins, Revis ranked inside the top three for both completion percentage and quarterback rating by opposing quarterbacks on passes thrown against him.

So instead of talking about the poor play of Revis, the conversation going forward should be about the emergence of a new star at the wide receiver position in the NFL.

After another big game from Hopkins—his fifth 100-yard receiving game of the year—he's now on pace for 121 receptions, 1,672 receiving yards and 14 touchdowns; each would break Andre Johnson's current single-season team record.

Houston Defense Continues to Shine

David J. Phillip/Associated Press

From the start of the second half against the Miami Dolphins through the end of this week's game against the Jets, the Texans have allowed just two touchdowns over their last 14 quarters played.

Breaking it down a little further, over that same time period, the Texans have allowed just 32 points on 44 defensive possessions for an average of 0.72 points allowed per possession over their last three-and-a-half games.

By comparison, over the rest of their season and the other 84 possessions they've faced as a defense, they had allowed 211 points for an average of 2.5 points per possession.

That 1.78 point difference per possession may not seem like much, but it's actually enormous.

With rare exception, nearly every team gets at least 10 possessions per game, so at a minimum, their improved play has saved them about 17 points per game.

Not surprisingly, the Texans have won all three of the full games they've played during this stretch.

Excellent play from the defense has helped the Texans back to the .500 mark, and they'll need that trend to continue to build on their three-game winning streak and possibly make the playoffs.

Advanced stats courtesy of ProFootballFocus.com.

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