HOUSTON \u2013 Cam Ward was surrounded, boxed in and unsure what to do. And there was little visible daylight or space for the Tennessee Titans\u2019 rookie quarterback to operate.<\/p>\n
It was a textbook defensive performance from the Texans as they bottled up the top overall pick of the draft during a 26-0 shutout victory Sunday at NRG Stadium.<\/p>\n
For the Texans, this marked the first shutout since Nov. 28, 2010 against the Titans. And the third shutout in franchise history represents a flex of the Texans\u2019 defense, which is off to a historically strong start.<\/p>\n
Four games into the season, the Texans are off to a 1-3 start. While their offense has fallen short with the exception of the fourth quarter with three touchdowns against the Titans, the defense has been exceptional.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re the top-ranked scoring defense in the NFL, allowing just 12.8 points per contest. They rank fifth in total defense, seventh against the pass and 12th against the run.<\/p>\n
\u201cMan, it means everything,\u201d Texans Pro Bowl defensive end Will Anderson Jr. said after blanking the Titans. \u201cI thought we went out and we played tremendous defense. That\u2019s the type of defense that we knew we had. If we can keep doing that every week, everybody being on the details and just flying around having fun .. <\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like that\u2019s the most energy that we\u2019ve had on defense so far this year. Everybody just being free, flying around, having fun and executing the game plan. It\u2019s all about us.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
It\u2019s still early in the season. And the Texans, after a rough, 0-3 start to begin the fall, the two-time defending AFC South champions are working diligently to right their season.<\/p>\n
They have a prime opportunity against the Baltimore Ravens on the road Sunday. The Ravens, who are struggling on defense while playing without injured linebacker Roquan Smith, cornerback Nate Wiggins and defensive tackle Nnamdi Madubuike and could be without star quarterback Lamar Jackson on Sunday due to a hamstring injury. <\/p>\n
The Texans have never won a game in Baltimore in franchise history. <\/p>\n
And the Texans\u2019 defense represents their best chance at perhaps ending that streak.<\/p>\n
While the Texans have only forced three turnovers, including All-Pro corner Derek Stingley Jr. intercepting Ward once as he completed just 10 of 26 passes for 108 yards, no touchdowns and one interception for a 35.4 passer rating, they have kept opponents from scoring much.<\/p>\n
The Denver Broncos and Seattle Seahawks are tied for second in scoring defense, allowing 67 points apiece. The Texans have allowed just 51 points overall.<\/p>\n
Only six NFL teams over the past quarter-century have allowed fewer than 13 points per game for an entire season: the 2000 Ravens, led by Ray Lewis, 10.3 points per game, the 2000 Titans (11.9 points) per game, the 2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers led by Warren Sapp and Simeon Rice (12.3 points per game), the 2006 Ravens (12.6 points per game), the 2005 Chicago Bears (12.6 points per game) and the 2001 Bears (12.7 points per game).<\/p>\n
This can be a winning formula for the Texans: a stout defense, an offense led by C.J. Stroud that has a running game headlined by rookie Woody Marks, who scored two touchdowns, and Pro Bowl wide receiver Nico Collins.<\/p>\n
The defense held the Titans to 175 yards of total offense.<\/p>\n
No turnovers, less penalties and a commanding time of possession advantage of 38 minutes, 21 seconds to the Titans\u2019 21 minutes, 39 seconds.<\/p>\n
Yes, this could be the blueprint for more wins.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m proud of our guys for executing, doing the things that we ask to do,\u201d said Texans coach DeMeco Ryans, who delegated defensive play-calling to defensive coordinator Matt Burke. \u201cAgain, just playing complimentary football. That\u2019s what it takes to win in this league, all three phases playing together. The main thing for us, what we did well was offensively, was protecting the football. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou protect the football, your percent chances of winning the game that percentage goes up a ton when you possess the football. So, we did that and we had an opportunity, defensively, to take it away and we did. So, those things worked.\u201d<\/p>\n
As did Stingley, who signed a three-year, $90 million extension in new money this offseason.<\/p>\n
Stingley played despite a painful left oblique injury that limited him to one practice last week.<\/p>\n
\u201cReally proud of Sting for pushing through and being able to play,\u201d Ryans said. \u201cKnowing he was battling all week in pain and see him gut it out, that\u2019s huge. Huge for Sting, huge for everybody to see that there is a difference when you\u2019re hurting. Everybody is feeling something. You play the game long enough, you\u2019re going to be in a little pain, but to see the guy push through and show up and make some plays for us, it was big for us.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I can see from Sting last week as I was seeing him walking down the halls, he had a look in his eye: \u2018No matter what happens, I\u2019m going to find a way to play in this game.\u2019 Once I seen that look in his eye, I was not questioning that he was going to be out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pro Bowl defensive end Danielle Hunter, signed to a one-year, $35.6 million contract extension this offseason that pays him $54.1 million total guaranteed over the next two years, sacked Ward twice.<\/p>\n
Hunter is now up to 103 1\/2 career sacks and has four sacks this season as he combines with Anderson to form one of the top pass rushing tandems in the NFL.<\/p>\n
\u201cDanielle doesn\u2019t say much, but he says a lot about how he plays,\u201d Ryans said. \u201cHe\u2019s consistently around the quarterback, applying pressure. I think he\u2019s done a really nice job this year of just understanding the scheme, what we\u2019re asking him to do when it comes to setting edges in the run game. Overall, as a leader, what I like about him is how the other guys look up to him, especially in the defensive line room. <\/p>\n
\u201cThose guys are constantly talking. He talks to those guys. He might not talk to us much, but he talks to the guys in the defensive line room, and they\u2019re all feeding off of each other. We have a special guy that our guys can lean on, seek advice from and he\u2019s there to share that wisdom.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The Texans held the Titans to 2 of 11 on third down conversions.<\/p>\n
And the missed tackles, a problem in losses to the Los Angeles Rams, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Jacksonville Jaguars, wasn\u2019t an issue against the Titans.<\/p>\n
\u201cCoach DeMeco, we do keys to victory, that was one of his biggest things,\u201d Anderson said. \u201cHe was like, man, let\u2019s secure the tackle, let everybody get to the ball. One guy punches the ball, second guy come in and get the tackle. We just got to keep progressing, man and keep everybody swarming to the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Hunter, a chiseled, 6-foot-5, 264-pound Morton Ranch graduate, is up to 16 sacks in 21 games for the Texans.<\/p>\n
\u201cDanielle has been great, man,\u201d Anderson said. \u201cI\u2019m super proud of him. I always get chills when I talk about Danielle and a big smile comes on my face because you don\u2019t see a guy like him like in this league at all, the way he finishes, the way approaches, the way he prepares throughout the week, there\u2019s no wonder why you see what he does on Sunday. I\u2019m just here following in his footsteps and just trying to soak up as much knowledge as I can from a guy like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was obvious that Ward, talented as he is, was shaken up by the Texans\u2019 dynamic pass rush led by Hunter.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was part of the game plan to affect the quarterback as much as we possibly could, knowing that he was a rookie quarterback,\u201d Hunter said. \u201cThere\u2019s still room for improvement. It\u2019s the beginning of the season, just keep elevating my game, and playing together as a defense. The biggest thing was just focusing on all the mistakes that we did on defense in the past three weeks. Tackling, all of that coming together, and we played sound football. <\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody in this league know that we\u2019ve got a talented roster on the defense side of the ball and offense side of the ball. We just got to put it on display. Not to get too big-headed or ahead of ourselves, we still got to do it a lot more times. So, it\u2019s just another day in the office for us. \u201d<\/p>\n
Aaron Wilson is a Texans and NFL reporter for KPRC 2 and click2houston.com<\/p>\n
Copyright 2025 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2013 Cam Ward was surrounded, boxed in and unsure what to do. And there was little visible…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2056],"tags":[117,6047,2908,7,221,253,2368,6,222,6051],"class_list":{"0":"post-410861","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-texans","8":"tag-baltimore-ravens","9":"tag-danielle-hunter","10":"tag-defense","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-houston","13":"tag-houston-texans","14":"tag-houstontexans","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-texans","17":"tag-will-anderson-jr"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115297549719665058","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410861","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=410861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}