NASHVILLE, Tenn. – – One point that Houston Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans made clear during his introductory press conference was that this team would play passionately throughout four quarters, no matter the score. He could live with the results as long as his team fought to the end.
On Sunday in Nissan Stadium, the Texans played with the intensity needed to grind out a tough 19-16 overtime victory over the Tennessee Titans to improve their record to 8-6 on the season and stay in contention for an AFC playoff berth. It was a much-needed win after Houston was blown out against the New York Jets last week.
“We knew we needed to play better,” Ryans said during his postgame press conference. “From our outing the previous week, it just wasn’t our brand of football. So, everybody had a bad taste in their mouth and wanted to come out and play better football and have a chance to compete. We did that today, and we came out on the right side.”
Houston came into the game facing an uphill battle with crucial starters such as quarterback C.J. Stroud, wide receiver Nico Collins, offensive tackle George Fant, defensive end Will Anderson Jr., and linebacker Blake Cashman all ruled out due to injuries. Yet, the team continued their “Next man up” mentality and won.
One week after allowing Jets quarterback Zach Wilson to shred the defense, the Texans’ front six took that personally and wanted to prove to the naysayers that they were not what was displayed in New York. They relentlessly pursued Titans rookie quarterback Will Levis, sacked him seven times on the day, and held him to 199 yards passing. The recorded sacks tied for the second-most in a single game in franchise history, with their last performance coming in Nov. 2015 against Tennessee.
“Play after play, the defense stood up and made plays,” said Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans about his defense’s performance in the 19-16 win over the Tennessee Titans. #Texans #Sarge @TheTexansWire pic.twitter.com/5Qm6qKz13q
— #SARGE (@BigSargeSportz) December 18, 2023
The Texans’ defense also did an outstanding job limiting running back Derrick Henry to 10 yards from scrimmage (nine were rushing yards on 16 carries). Henry had a combined 807 rushing yards, averaging 201.7 over the last four games against the Texans since 2020 (He missed both games in 2021).
“It was just a combination of the (Defensive) ends and the D tackles (Defensive tackles) working together,” said Khalil Davis about stopping the run. The D-ends took the edge so the D-tackles could go make plays. So that is what we did today.”
When the Texans were not stuffing the run, they were putting enormous pressure on Levis by collapsing the pocket and not allowing him to maneuver his way into big runs or throws down the field.
Defensive end Jonathan Greenard was consistently in the Titans backfield as he had three quarterback hits and increased his sack total to 12.5 on the season, which is the fifth-most sacks in a single season in Texans franchise history, surpassing Whitney Mercilus (12.0, 2015) and Mario Williams (12.0, 2008).
“Super fun,” Greenard responded when asked about the game. “It is always fun when we play Tennessee. They know that. We know that. No matter what the record is, we know it is going to be a dogfight just like this.”
“No matter what they did all season or what we did all season, we knew that this game for sure was going to be won in a fashion like this. We knew that defense was going to have to win this game for us and we came up big.”
Houston will be back in action next Sunday at NRG Stadium against the Cleveland Browns, a team they are currently trailing for a playoff spot.