There\u2019s an old saying in sports, and it comes into play particularly after tough, heartbreaking losses \u2014 don\u2019t let the one loss beat you twice. The implication is that certain losses are so soul crushing that there is a hangover effect that causes teams to play poorly in the next game, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Houston Texans lost their season opener in a fashion that passes the \u201cpotential hangover smell test,\u201d falling 36-31 to the Buffalo Bills in a game with eight lead changes, a game that ended with the Texans driving to the Bills\u2019 nine-yard line before a C.J. Stroud fumble-ended the afternoon. It was a brutal way to lose a game, especially for Stroud, who\u2019d had an outstanding afternoon up to that point.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Texans are, once again, at home this weekend, trying to get their first one of the season. This time it\u2019s the Cincinnati Bengals, whose offense is every bit as high flying as the Bills\u2019 offense, coming to town. The Texans simply cannot fall to 0-2 on the season, not with the way their schedule lays out later in the season, with a slew of cold weather road games. The problem is that, when the Texans have started 0-1 under Demeco Ryans (2023, 2025), they\u2019ve ended up going 0-2.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Can the Texans change that trend on Sunday? As 2.5 point favorites, the expectation is that they will. Here are four things to watch for in Sunday\u2019s matchup:\u00a0<\/p>\n
4. Great corners versus great receivers\u00a0<\/p>\n
When the schedule come out back in may, this was one of the matchups that I circled, solely because of this matchup, with Bengals receivers Ja\u2019Marr Chase and Tee Higgins going against Texans corners Derek Stingley and Kamari Lassiter. It\u2019s a true heavyweight, tag team matchup that would be a main event anywhere in the country, as the legendary Gorilla Monsoon would say. The other wrinkle here is that both duos are coming off subpar Week 1 performances. The Bengals\u2019 tandem combined for a meager five catches in their win over Tampa Bay, and Stingley and Lassiter were at in the middle, Lassiter in particular, of the worst defensive performance of the DeMeco Ryans\u2019 Era. Lassiter, in fact, could have ended the game with an interception that he dropped.\u00a0<\/p>\n
3. The Dexter Lawrence issue\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Bengals had, without a doubt, one of the worst defenses in football last season. There are two reasons that they\u2019ve missed the playoffs the last three years \u2014 injuries to Joe Burrow and poor defense. Well, the trade for former Giants stalwart defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence was the money shot in an offseason in which the Bengals spent copious resources on that side of the football. This will be another big test for the interior of the Texans\u2019 offensive line, which stood up pretty well for most of the afternoon against the Bills.\u00a0<\/p>\n
2. Was C.J. Stroud\u2019s debut for real, in a good way?<\/p>\n
I won\u2019t exaggerate and say something \u201cYou could not have asked for a better season debut from C.J. Stroud than what we saw on Sunday,\u201d because it\u2019s not true. Stroud could have been better. However, if you would have asked me before the game to sign up, not knowing anything else about the outcome of the game, for Stroud\u2019s performance against the Bills \u2014 274 yards passing, no interceptions, 31 points scored \u2014 I\u2019d have signed up for that. Stroud looked coincident and in control, and from an execution standpoint, he had the best advanced accuracy stats of any quarterback in football. If the defense is glitchy again this Sunday, the Texans will need that against the Bengals.<\/p>\n
Was C.J. Stroud\u2019s debut for real, in a NOT SO good way?\u00a0<\/p>\n
As I said above, it wasn\u2019t all great for Stroud. Most of it was, but not all of it. The good stuff was bookended by two backbreaking turnovers. The first one was a fumble in Texans\u2019 territory on the first possession of the game. That led to Buffalo\u2019s first points on the day, a long field goal. The second turnover was the fumble that essentially ended the game in the Buffalo red zone, after Stroud had driven the Texans to within whispering distance of a game winning touchdown. The Bengals forced four lost fumbles on Sunday against the Buccaneers, and they\u2019ve watched both Stroud turnovers from the loss to the Bills, I\u2019m sure. They will be swiping at the ball, looking to turn Stroud over multiple times like they did to Baker Mayfield on Sunday. Stroud MUST protect the football.\u00a0<\/p>\n
SPREAD: Texans \u2013 2.5<\/p>\n
PREDICTION: Texans 27, Bengals 20<\/p>\n
SEASON RECORD: 0-1 SU, 0-1 ATS<\/p>\n
\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s an old saying in sports, and it comes into play particularly after tough, heartbreaking losses \u2014 don\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1004007,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2053],"tags":[228,227,256,2296,7,347,253,6,54673],"class_list":["post-1004006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cincinnati-bengals","tag-bengals","tag-cincinnati","tag-cincinnati-bengals","tag-cincinnatibengals","tag-football","tag-homepage","tag-houston-texans","tag-nfl","tag-week-2"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117291264505472409","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1004006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1004007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1004006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1004006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1004006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}