Pressuring Garrard: At times on Sunday, the Texans harassed Jacksonville quarterback David Garrard. He was sacked twice—once by Mark Anderson and once by Amobi Okoye—and hurried 10 times.
Okoye was quite active, finishing with four tackles, the sack and a trio of quarterback hurries. Williams too, hurried Garrard three times, and Anderson finished with a tackle and a pair of hurries to go along with his sack for a loss of nine.
Williams said the defense’s main problem was allowing explosive plays.
“We gave up big plays in the past and have to fix that. As far as their running game goes, we were gapping it pretty well but Maurice (Jones-Drew) was getting those extra yards after contact,” Williams said.
Walter’s big day: Wide receiver Kevin Walter ended up with six catches for 90 yards, starting the day strong by snaring a pair of passes for 32 yards on the Texans’ opening possession. He broke a streak of three games in which he didn’t register a catch.
He came up big in the fourth quarter when he pulled in a game-tying 18-yard touchdown pass that was at first ruled incomplete. That score was part of a big second half for the Texans’ passing attack.
“They played us pretty much the same every time we play them,”Walter said. “It’s a matter of going out and executing the plays and we did that better in the second half. They play the coverages with the same guys like Rashean (Mathis) and Derek (Cox). It’s just a matter of us executing.”
Linebacking at a glance: A big story in the week of practice was the movement in the linebacker corps by Kevin Bentley and Brian Cushing. The two swapped places, with the former moving to the middle and the latter sliding back to the strong side.
Cushing wound up with nine stops, one of which was for a loss, as well as a quarterback hurry.
Bentley, meanwhile, finished with a season-high seven tackles on the afternoon.
No sacks allowed: Quarterback Matt Schaub was upright and intact the entire game Sunday in Jacksonville, as he wasn’t sacked on the afternoon.
It was the first time this season that he didn’t hit the deck, and was part of the reason he was able to complete 22 of his 32 pass attempts for more than 300 yards.
Those numbers were little consolation to Schaub and the rest of the Texans because of the loss, and he described his emotions.
“It’s tough,” Schaub said. “We worked that hard to get back in the game. We dug ourselves a hole in the first half and to have a chance to win it and have it slip through our fingers like that, it’s a tough one to take. But we’ve got to move on. We’ve got another tough one coming up on the road this week. We’ve got to be ready to go.”
