Texans' Nick Chubb Has One Big Takeaway From Loss vs. Bucs

The Houston Texans fall to an early 0-2 record to start off the new NFL season after falling short of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 19-20 in a heartbreaking loss on Monday Night Football.

Throughout the night, it was ultimately a matchup in which the Texans just couldn't get the run game going. Besides a near game-saving 25-yard touchdown run from Nick Chubb with just over two minutes to go in the fourth, Houston was mostly held in check on the ground. And ultimately, that was a major component that limited what this offense could put together from start to finish.

But in the mind of Texans running back Nick Chubb, his most notable takeaway for why this game played out the way it did revolves around not taking advantage of opportunities, especially in the red zone.

"The biggest thing is us not taking advantage of getting in the end zone, getting points when we needed to," Chubb said after the Texans' loss, via KPRC2's Aaron Wilson. "We got stopped on the goal line one time, and for the most part, they held the ball away from us. So we couldn't really get going."

The Texans would find their way down the field on a 10-play drive in the fourth quarter, sitting on the one-yard line with a chance to take a 17-10 lead. However, after a stout goal-line stand from the Tampa Bay defense, and four-straight missed opportunities to score, Houston would turn it over on downs inches away from capitalizing with even three points.

Undoubtedly, a brutal blow to Houston's chances of coming out of this one with a win, and for Chubb, a key takeaway as to why the Texans now head into Week 3 at 0-2.

But it was more than just the Texans' stop at the goal-line that led to Monday night playing out how it did. Houston's run game and offensive line struggled throughout, the offense as a whole never quite gelled like it needed to, and from the second quarter onwards, they were forced to play from behind.

Those are all factors that don't bode well for Chubb's or any back's effectiveness on the ground, leading to just 19 carries for the team, good for 84 yards on the night, and under 60 total rushing yards if you were to remove Chubb's explosive fourth-quarter score.

"We couldn't get going, you know?" Chubb said. "So, when we did get a run, it would be three or four yards, first down, on the first down run, and after that, we have an incompletion where things wouldn't go our way, so I think just the biggest thing is not finding the rhythm to keep running the ball... We couldn't get going. So no matter what we did, we were playing behind the sticks."