Houston’s career scoring leader<\/a>, tied the franchise’s record for field goals made in a game with his 6-for-6 performance. His final effort from 43 yards was the nine-year veteran’s career best and tied the NFL record for field goal makes in a season. He went 44-for-48 on field goals and 28-for-28 on extra points.<\/p>\nCoach DeMeco Ryans presented Fairbairn with a game ball afterward.<\/p>\n
“Shout-out to Ka\u2018imi. We can’t be where we are right now without Ka\u2018imi and what he’s been capable of doing,” Ryans said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fairbairn’s only misses from the field in the 2025 season came from 50-plus yards.<\/p>\n
Defensive tackle Tommy Togiai scooped up a fumble on the final play and returned it 17 yards for a touchdown to pad the lead.<\/p>\n
The Texans clinched a third straight postseason berth last week and they had a chance to win the AFC South with a victory and a Jacksonville loss. But with the Jaguars up big over the Titans at halftime, coach DeMeco Ryans opted to rest quarterback Stroud, defensive stars Will Anderson Jr., Danielle Hunter, Derek Stingley and several other starters after the break.<\/p>\n
Houston is the fifth team since 1990 to open a season 0-3 and reach the playoffs and the first team to do it twice after the 2018 Texans also achieved the feat.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur guys were able to accomplish a lot of great things,\u201d Ryans said. \u201cNo matter how dim it looked to start the season, I\u2019m proud our guys for continue to battle every single week and finding a way to win games. Now we finish on a high note to win against a really good team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stingley said the mindset that got them where they are now was a simple one.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe treated every game like it was a playoff game,\u201d he said. \u201cSo that\u2019s how we went on our streak.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Colts led 30-29 after a field goal with about 2 1\/2 minutes to go before Fairbairn’s 43-yard kick put the Texans on top 32-30.<\/p>\n
Rookie Riley Leonard had 270 yards passing with two TDs and he ran for another score. But he also lost a fumble and threw an interception in his first NFL start after the 44-year-old Philip Rivers started the past three games for the Colts after coming out of retirement.<\/p>\n
\u201cI learned that he can definitely play in this league for a long time,\u201d coach Shane Steichen said of Leonard. \u201cTo go out and do it against the top defense like he did was pretty impressive. He\u2019s a competitor.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the seventh straight loss for the Colts (8-9), who were eliminated from postseason contention with Houston\u2019s win last week.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was frustrating,\u201d Steichen said. \u201cThe last half of this season, for sure. That\u2019s what it\u2019s been \u2014 not finding ways to finish. We\u2019ve got to work tirelessly on getting that fixed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stroud had an 11-yard touchdown pass in the second quarter and added a 2-yard run in the period to put the Texans up 20-10.<\/p>\n
The Texans trailed 27-26 early in the fourth when Alijah Huzzie picked off Leonard to give them great field position. They failed to move the ball and settled for a 44-yard field goal to take a 29-27 lead.<\/p>\n
Jonathan Taylor had 14 carries for just 26 yards to end the season with 1,585 yards and finish second in the NFL in yards rushing behind Buffalo’s James Cook.<\/p>\n
Alec Pierce had four receptions for a season-high 132 yards with two touchdowns before being ejected late in the third quarter for making contact with an official. He was ejected when he brushed an official with his arm as he was complaining about a flag not being thrown on a pass intended for him in the end zone. He was given an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and disqualified.<\/p>\n
He said he tried to apologize to the official.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just wanted to let him know I wasn\u2019t trying to put hands on him or anything,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was no malicious act.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Colts took a 24-23 lead on a 1-yard TD scamper by Leonard on Indy\u2019s first drive of the second half. That score was set up by a 53-yard reception by Pierce.<\/p>\n
Houston went back on top with a 43-yard field goal later in the third.<\/p>\n
After the penalty on Pierce, the Colts settled for a 39-yard field goal that put them up 27-26.<\/p>\n
Houston took a 13-10 lead when Stroud threw an 11-yard touchdown pass to Jayden Higgins with about 9 \u00bd minutes left in the first half.<\/p>\n
About a minute later, Danielle Hunter sacked Leonard and caused a fumble which Henry To\u2019oTo\u2019o recovered on the 2-yard line. Stroud ran for the score on the next play to make it 20-10.<\/p>\n
Pierce\u2019s second touchdown came on an 8-yard grab that capped a 92-yard drive and cut the lead to 20-17 with about 90 seconds until halftime.<\/p>\n
Fairbairn\u2019s 29-yard field goal extended the lead to 23-17 at halftime.<\/p>\n
Leonard connected with Pierce on a 66-yard touchdown pass to put the Colts up 7-3 early in the first.<\/p>\n
Fairbairn\u2019s second field goal of the game cut the lead to 7-6 later in the first.<\/p>\n
A 50-yard field goal by Blake Grupe pushed Indy\u2019s lead to 10-6 near the end of the quarter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2014 The playoff-bound Houston Texans got their starters some rest, their backups helped them get another win,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2056],"tags":[12606,1615,1613,2910,7,9104,221,253,2368,6,1614,9,222,1004],"class_list":{"0":"post-654715","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-texans","8":"tag-app-professional-sports","9":"tag-app-sports","10":"tag-app-top-stories","11":"tag-associated-press","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-hawaii","14":"tag-houston","15":"tag-houston-texans","16":"tag-houstontexans","17":"tag-nfl","18":"tag-spectrum-news-staff","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-texans","21":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115840018331673052","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654715","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=654715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}