The Jacksonville Jaguars had two drives start deep in the Houston Texans’ territory during Sunday’s AFC South matchup at NRG Stadium.
The Jaguars started first-and-10 at the Texans’ 36-yard line with 26 seconds to go until halftime following a Deshaun Watson interception. With 6:52 to go in the third quarter, they also got a first-and-10 at the Houston 27-yard line, again, following a Watson interception.
Both drives resulted in zero points for Jacksonville, and the Texans earned their first win of the season, 30-14.
“Yeah, that was massive,” Watt said of the prospect of stopping Jacksonville from scoring despite that favorable field position. “Obviously very difficult to do.”
Unlike the other games where the Texans defense hardly provided opposition after such giveaways, Watt says the unit asked: why not us?
“Whenever anything went wrong, the other group is ready to pop up off the bench and say we got this, and I think that was a huge thing for us today is that there was no point where anybody hung their head, there was no point where anybody got down on themselves, it was just what do we have to do next to make this win happen, and all day long everybody had this kind of ‘we got this’ mentality, and that’s what it took, and that’s how we got the win,” Watt said.
The three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year collected two combined tackles, a pass breakup, and a fumble recovery, which happened to be the Texans’ first takeaway of the season. The Texans will need more of that attitude from the defense throughout the rest of the season, as the Texans still have a massive uphill climb, though they improved their record to 1-4.
“I thought the energy was great,” Watt said. “I thought from the time we got into the stadium today, the guys had great energy, the fans had great energy, and it was fun. We had fun. And that’s how it’s supposed to be.”