Three Takeaways From Texans’ Disastrous Loss to Patriots

When looking at this one from the Texans' perspective, it's going to be hard to talk about the outcome without first mentioning the play of quarterback C.J. Stroud, who had what might've been not just the worst game of his 2025 campaign, but within the first three years of his NFL career.

Four total interceptions are going to be the number that overshadows all of Stroud's performance, but he also had several inaccurate throws and miscues completed less than half of his passing attempts (42.5%), and the Texans' offense started off on the wrong foot pretty substantially, ending seven of their nine first-half drives in either a fumble or three and out.

With the performance this defense put together against one of the better offensive units in the NFL, the Texans' scoring attack really just had to be better than average to have a real chance of punching a trip to the AFC Championship— and it's hard to say Stroud made that possible with an outing filled with errors and mistakes from start to finish.

2. Texans Run Game Had No Answers

While Stroud had what might've just been the worst day of the season in this one, Houston's rushing offense turned out to be noticeably ineffective as well.

After Woody Marks' 100-plus-yard day against the Pittsburgh Steelers, he followed that up against New England with 14 carries for 17 yards, along with two receptions for 19 yards, also fumbling in the third quarter that continued to suck the life out of Houston's offense that was already wildly deflated.

Marks also had a touchdown in the first quarter that was quickly wiped off the board due to a devastating pre-snap penalty in the backfield, as defensive tackle Tommy Togiai lined up at fullback wasn't completely set in time before the ball was snapped.

In all, the Texans had 22 total carries throughout the day for 48 yards, averaging 2.2 yards per attempt. The turnover issues from Stroud certainly made the battle for the offense a major uphill task, but never being able to get any traction in the run game certainly didn't help their case either.

3. Standout Defensive Day Put to Waste

While the Texans did wind up getting outscored by 12 points, that would suggest they were totally outclassed on both ends of the ball. Houston's defense still had a number of flashes and turnover-worthy plays that kept this one close, despite the ups and downs faced from the offense and C.J. Stroud.

The Texans held the Patriots to converting just three of their 14 opportunities on third down, they sacked Drake Maye five times for 36 yards, and caused four fumbles and one interception on New England's quarterback. There were times that the potential league MVP had shades of C.J. Stroud from just last week against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Despite that stout day from the Texans defense, though, it wasn't enough to overcome the turbulence in turnovers and the inability to put points on the board on the other end. Marcus Jones even put points on the board of his own thanks to a pick-six in the third quarter, which, of course, makes the mountain an even steeper climb for Houston's defense, even if they may be the best in the league.

In the end, whether it be fair or not, the story of this Texans team will simply be summed up as an elite, historic-level defensive unit that was held back by a rattled, sloppy offense and an inconsistent quarterback in Stroud that now drops his divisional round record to a brutal 0-3.