Houston Texans Final Score/Post-Game Recap: Patriots 25, Texans 22

Houston was up 22-9 at one point today. Then they cut off their own foot, smashed their head into the sink, and ate their own teeth.

Rather than just punt—because that’s too simple, we rethink everything in Houston, we are INNOVATORS who distort the entire game—the Texans faked the fake punt by motioning Cameron Johnston into a pistol position. Rather than fake the punt, they faked punting the ball, moving Johnston closer to the line of scrimmage where bullrushes pushed his blockers in front of him, leading to Johnston kicking the ball off his own teammate. The Texans are the boy who blocked his own shot.

From this point forward, everything fell apart, as these things do. New England’s secondary started tackling receivers instead of playing the ball and allowing easy yards after the catch. The Patriots worked the run game through the middle of the field and on toss plays to move the ball. Josh McDaniels rediscovered the joys of play action and Mac Jones repeatedly pounded the intermediate middle. 22-9 became 22-25.

David Culley is mostly to blame for this. His game management was disastrous. Okaying the fake fake punt. Burning a timeout to pounder kicking a 56 yard field just to kick said 56 yard field goal with a kicker who can’t kick past 50 yards who missed the field goal attempt, leading to a short field for New England that led to a touchdown. Without that timeout, Culley couldn’t stop the clock at the end of the game, thereby giving Davis Mills 15 seconds to execute a game-tying drive attempt.

Houston had good fortune. They won the turnover battle. They were gifted points by New England. They hit a flea-flicker. Then poor game management and sad talent gave it all away.

Houston is now 1-4. They are 0-3 with Davis Mills as their starting quarterback. He’ll get another shot at it next week, when the Texans travel to Indianapolis to face the Colts at 12 p.m.