Texans shove back, slip past Titans 34-31
Written by davemundy, Sunday September 20 2009
There comes a time when everyone gets sick and tired of being the kid the neighborhood bully picks to shove around. They shove back.
Sunday was that day for the Houston Texans.
A week after getting sand kicked in their face with their girlfriend watching, the Texans shoved back Sunday when the Titans decided to use them as the proverbial 140-pound weakling, twice erasing deficits and holding on in the game’s final moments to wrestle a physical 34-31 victory away from Tennessee at LP Field.
“It was a very hostile environment out there and we know we had to match their intensity,” said Texans linebacker Brian Cushing, who along with Demeco Ryans and Zac Dyles rallied a defense which got burned three times in the first half by long touchdowns from the Titans’ Chris Johnson.
“These are two teams that don’t really like each other too much. We are pretty happy right now, but I don’t know about them.”
The game featured a number of pushing and shoving matches, culminating in a brawl in front of the Houston bench in the third period which finally seemed to cool tempers down. Titans defensive tackle Jason Jones was ejected for throwing a punch, and Texans receiver David Anderson also was flagged for a personal foul during the fracas.
“It was a heck of a battle going on and it could get out of control over there with not much room,” Houston head coach Gary Kubiak said. “I think the players were just playing hard. Give Jeff’s [Tennesee coach Fisher] team a lot of credit. They’re very physical, they played very hard. I thought our guys played extremely hard.”
“I love this kind of environment,” Cushing added. “I love getting booed. I actually like getting booed better than being at home and being cheered. It just makes you feel like you need to stick together as a unit. I think the team gets closer. You have to fight and you have your backs against each other.”
The Texans twice found themselves with their backs against the wall—down 21-7 early in the second quarter, and again down 31-24 three minutes into the second half. Both times they battled back to take the lead, but it wasn’t until Tennessee quarterback Kerry Collins lost the handle on the ball while trying to scramble with less than a minute remaining before the win finally got tucked away.
Along the way, Johnson scored on touchdown runs of 57 and 91 yards and on a 69-yard pass from Collins – but Houston responded with four Matt Schaub touchdown passes.
“We made some mistakes defensively,” Texans coach Gary Kubiak said. “Big plays offensively kept us in the football game and then we got into just a heck of a battle in the second half, field position, and we were able to make one more play. It was just a great game and I feel very fortunate.
“For them to run for nine yards a clip, how we won the game is amazing. That doesn’t happen in this league.”
Schaub completed 25 of 39 passes for 354 yards, twice hitting Andre Johnson for TD passes of 19 and 72 yards, connecting once with Jacoby Jones on a 29-yard score and finding tight end Owen Daniels at the back of the end zone for the tying one-yard score late in the third period. Kris Brown added field goals of 38 and 23 yards, the latter coming with 2:55 to play to provide the margin of victory.
“Their front four, really they play like eight guys so they keep it fresh,” Schaub said of the Titans. “They are very relentless getting to the quarterback. We know we have to drop back, we can’t hold them. Guys were getting open. Making plays is what it’s about.”
It was a battle of busted chops and lightning strikes almost from the start.
Facing a third-and-19 early in the first quarter, the Titans dialed Chris Johnson’s number on a draw play, and the second-year running back exploded when he hit the secondary to race 57 yards for a 7-0 Tennessee lead.
“Playing Houston, it is going to be tough running the ball against them but you’ve just got to complete those third downs and stay on the field, and eventually it will work,” said Johnson, who finished the game with 197 yards rushing on just 16 carries and another 87 yards receiving on nine catches.
Houston answered with a 14-play, 77-yard scoring drive capped by perhaps the most spectacular catch of Andre Johnson’s career. He tipped the ball to himself with one hand to gather in Schaub’s 19-yard scoring toss at the edge of the end zone to tie things up.
Dre said he was upset with himself for having dropped a couple of passes earlier.
“The passes that I dropped were balls that I could have caught,” he said. “I made harder catches later on during the game. We started off kind of slow but once we got into rhythm everything started working for us.”
Tennessee came right back on its next play, with Chris Johnson lined up outside on the left side of the formation. Inexplicably, the Texans left him uncovered. The result was a quick 69-yard scoring pass.
The Titans made it 21-7 early in the second quarter when Collins capped a 7-play, 54-yard drive with an 8-yard scoring toss to Nate Washington.
Houston responded on its very next play, however, when Titans DBs Nick Harper and Michael Griffin miscommunicated on a play-action fake and Andre Johnson found himself wide open. Schaub was quick to capitalize with a 72-yard scoring strike, the longest TD pass of Johnson’s career.
Johnson finished the game with 10 catches for 149 yards
Two plays later, safety Eugene Wilson picked off a Collins overthrow to set Houston up at the Tennessee 29, and moments later Schaub caught a diving Jacoby Jones at the goal line to tie the game.
The teams traded field goals to enter intermission knotted at 24.
The second half was a battle for field position and the Texans appeared to have an edge after a Matt Turk punt and a muff pinned Tennessee deep in its own territory early in the third period. Facing a third-and-9 at their own 9-yard-line, the Titans again called on Johnson, who turned on the jets when he hit the secondary again and raced off with a 91-yard scoring run.
Houston answered again, however, as Schaub engineered an 11-play, 66-yard march which included a key fourth-down conversion pass from Schaub to Joel Dreesen. A pass interference call in the end zone against Harper got then to the Tennessee 1 and from there Schaub used the play-fake to find Daniels open at the back of the end zone to tie it again.
Daniels finished the contest with 72 yards on six catches.
Houston put together the winning drive by covering 63 yards in nine plays, launched by a 44-yard strike from Schaub to Jones on the first play. Schaub converted a second fourth-down play with a quarterback sneak at the Tennessee 15 before Brown booted the game winner.
Tennessee pushed the ball back into Houston territory in the final moments, but a heard pass rush forced Collins to try and scramble, and as he tucked the ball away he lost the handle. The Texans’ Jeff Zgonina pounced on the loose ball to seal the win.
Kubiak said he was under no delusions that the win served as any great statement by his team.
“It counts as one,” he snapped. “We’re a .500 team that is very inconsistent and we got so many things to fix to be competitive week in and week out. We feel good about winning today but we have a long, long way to go.”
“All week Kubiak talked to us and told us that we need to man-up when things go wrong,” Houston cornerback Dunta Robinson said. “That is what we did. We played fast. We played physical and ended up coming away with a win.”
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Good summary of a great game, Dave. Thanks! Go Texans!