The Baltimore Ravens creamed the Houston Texans 41-7 Sunday afternoon at M&T Bank Stadium, limiting the AFC South club to just 122 rushing yards and three first downs on the ground.
While running back Carlos Hyde provided a 41-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter to ensure the Texans would not suffer their first shutout since Week 3 of 2016 with a 27-0 loss at the New England Patriots, the run game was nonexistent throughout the consequential portions of the game.
Coach Bill O’Brien provided an explanation as to what happened to the rushing offense that averaged 5.0 yards per carry coming into Week 3.
“We got behind,” O’Brien told reporters. “It was 14-0 and we tried to stick with the run, but eventually we had to try to throw the football and gain positive yards throwing the football and we just couldn’t do much of anything today.”
By halftime, the Texans had 36 yards on 11 carries with a 9-yard run as their longest carry of the first half. Houston had virtually no balance to take the edge off of quarterback Deshaun Watson, who was 10-of-15 for 102 yards to that point, but had sustained five sacks.
If not for the 41-yard touchdown from Hyde, the 29-year-old would have finished with eight carries for 24 yards, which would have been lowest number of carries for the season and his second-lowest rushing yards total of the year.
Running back Duke Johnson provided six carries for 40 yards, and Watson added three carries for 12 yards.
The Texans dressed their best starting offensive line of the season with left tackle Laremy Tunsil, left guard Max Scharping, center Nick Martin, right guard Zach Fulton, and right tackle Tytus Howard. Houston was unable to get the run game going, and it contributed to the lack of balance in the loss that drops the club to 6-4 on the season.