HOUSTON (AP) \u2014 For a second straight season, the Houston Texans are winless through the first two weeks after Sunday\u2019s loss to the Cincinnati Bengals.<\/p>\n
Now they\u2019re focused on trying to avoid a second straight 0-3 start.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got to go back to work,\u201d linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair said. \u201cObviously, you don\u2019t want to be in this position at all. We\u2019re better than to be in this position. But that\u2019s the NFL.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ja\u2019Marr Chase caught two touchdown passes from Joe Burrow to lead the Bengals to the 20-6 win.<\/p>\n
Coach DeMeco Ryans said what happened last season doesn\u2019t matter and that they must focus on the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis team right now, the 2026 Texans have to dig deep, look deep within ourselves and see how can we find a way to play better football,\u201d he said. \u201cYou win when you play good football. Right now, we haven\u2019t played good football as a team collectively through the first two weeks of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n
C.J. Stroud was 30 of 55 for 353 yards passing on a day the Texans had trouble running the ball, with their backs finishing with just 18 yards rushing. They failed to score a touchdown while playing without star receiver Nico Collins after scoring 31 points in a loss to the Bills in the opener.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe one key to this victory was controlling the front and from an offensive perspective we did not control their front,\u201d Ryans said. \u201cWe got outplayed up front. We couldn\u2019t run the ball well and that forced us into a lot of passing situations.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Stroud piled up yards, the Texans struggled to finish drives, going 0 for 4 in the red zone.<\/p>\n
They failed to convert on fourth-and-inches from the Cincinnati 18 when Dexter Lawrence stuffed David Montgomery with seven minutes left in the first half when the game was scoreless.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we want to win any game here, we\u2019ve got to get in the end zone, we\u2019ve got to score points,\u201d Ryans said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to find a way to fix this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Houston\u2019s offensive line had a tough time protecting Stroud late, giving up four sacks in the fourth quarter alone. The Texans didn\u2019t score on their final four drives, punting twice and turning it over on downs two more times.<\/p>\n
Houston\u2019s defense did a better job than it did in Week 1 when the unit allowed 36 points. But Ryans was disappointed that they didn\u2019t force a turnover for a second straight game after ranking third in the NFL last season with 29 takeaways.<\/p>\n
The good news for the Texans is they have experience in turning things around after bad starts. Last season, they became the first team in NFL history to make the playoffs twice after starting a season 0-3 after also doing so in 2018.<\/p>\n
\u201cSadly, we\u2019ve been here before, but I think we just have to hold each other accountable,\u201d Stroud said. \u201cWe have to get better. There are a lot of things that we need to be doing better if we\u2019re going to win. I think we\u2019ll have some conversations this week about that and get some things fixed.\u201d<\/p>\n
See AP\u2019s full NFL coverage here<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON (AP) \u2014 For a second straight season, the Houston Texans are winless through the first two weeks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1006508,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2053],"tags":[15930,228,1028,227,256,2296,597,3607,7,8633,1577,6,533,27878,27876,27877,116404,131760],"class_list":["post-1006507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cincinnati-bengals","tag-azeez-al-shaair","tag-bengals","tag-c-j-stroud","tag-cincinnati","tag-cincinnati-bengals","tag-cincinnatibengals","tag-david-montgomery","tag-demeco-ryans","tag-football","tag-jamarr-chase","tag-joe-burrow","tag-nfl","tag-nico-collins","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-40806-ap-ohio-sports-only","tag-product-40815-ap-texas-sports-only","tag-texans-houston-stroud"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117307201532602979","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1006507","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=1006507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1006507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1006508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1006507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1006507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1006507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}