Injuries, losses keep piling up
Second-half collapses, ailing roster cast doubt on remaining schedule
The Texans left the Music City singing that same sad song that losers sing. They’re 4-8 after losing at Tennessee.
Entering Sunday’s game against San Francisco at NRG Stadium, the Texans have lost four of five games since rookie quarterback Deshaun Watson was lost for the season. One more defeat, and they’ll have their first losing record since 2013, the year before Bill O’Brien was hired.
A 9-7 record doesn’t look so bad now, does it?
It seems strange the Texans aren’t involved in a playoff race for the first time in O’Brien’s four seasons, but it’s understandable. Injuries have decimated the roster, and the best thing that can be said about them at this time of the season is they still play hard and they’ve been competitive.
I’ve covered the NFL for 38 years at the Chronicle. I’ve never seen a team suffer more injuries than the Texans, especially to key players. Losing J.J. Watt, Whitney Mercilus and Watson was just the tip of the injury iceberg that has caused this team to sink in the AFC South, a division it ruled the last two seasons.
Losing six players at Tennessee, including four because of concussions, was almost unfathomable.
Losing is contagious, of course, and the Texans have been in a downward spiral since Tom Savage replaced Watson. Their last victory was over Arizona in their most recent appearance at NRG Stadium.
Unless they lose six more players Sunday, the Texans should be able to defeat the 49ers (2-10) in Jimmy Garoppolo’s second start at quarterback. They might be able to win at Indianapolis in the last game to keep the Colts from sweeping the series.
If the Texans lose their New Year’s Eve game at Indianapolis, that should secure fourth place in the AFC South. That would mean next season they’d play a last-place schedule.
A trend of losing football
This Texans team has been unable to win on the road. They won their first road game at Cincinnati in Watson’s first start, but they’ve gone 0-5 since beating the Bengals.
The Texans have been in every road game in the fourth quarter other than the 33-7 loss to the Los Angeles Rams.
In their last two losses at Baltimore and Tennessee, the Texans had chances to win in the fourth quarter
but failed. It’s a losing proposition that has become all too familiar to O’Brien.
“It’s football,” O’Brien said Monday, one day after the 24-13 loss to the Titans. “We don’t sit there and go, ‘Oh, what are we going to do now?’ We think about, ‘How are we going to correct these things? What can we do better, coaching-wise? What can we do better to help these guys, put them in better positions to help teach them? What can the players do better?’ It’s football.”
Yes, and it’s losing football. The Texans know what they’re doing wrong, but they’ve been unable to put an end to it.
Because of injuries — not to mention Duane Brown’s holdout and trade and Brian Cushing’s 10-game suspension — they lack the talent to beat a team that’s better than they are. And almost all are better with four games remaining on the schedule.
Losing games they’re in position to win — Sunday at Tennessee, for instance — are even more exasperating for their fans. Losing sticks with fans, but players have to put it behind them and focus on the next game.
“We know we’ve been in some tough games, and we haven’t come out on the winning end, and we need to find a way to win a game,” O’Brien said. “That’s really all it is for us.
“We’re disappointed that we’re not where we want to be recordwise. We know the fans are disappointed. Can’t really do much about that. All we can do is come to work every day and try to figure out how to win a game.”
Sunday would be a good time to earn their fifth victory. The defense will be trying to contain Garoppolo, who helped the 49ers win at Chicago in his first start.
A familiar foe for O’Brien
O’Brien knows Garoppolo well. He scouted Garoppolo before the 2014 draft and had to prepare for him last season when it looked like he might replace Tom Brady during Brady’s suspension. As it was, Garoppolo was injured and replaced by Jacoby Brissett in what turned out to be a 27-0 loss at New England.
“Yeah, we’ll watch all the tape on Jimmy,” O’Brien said. “He hasn’t played that much in San Francisco, so all the information we can get relative to his time in New England, whether it was in games or in practices, we’ll watch all of that.”
The Texans passed up Garoppolo in the second round because they selected left guard Xavier Su’a-Filo. They drafted Savage in the fourth round.
Savage, who threw for 365 yards against the Titans, has lost three receivers and two tight ends to injuries. It has been DeAndre Hopkins or bust.
O’Brien was asked about the possibility of playing young players down the stretch to help evaluate them in the offseason. A lot are already playing because of injuries.
“I think the big thing is winning,” he said. “I think within the goal of winning, you may be able to do certain things. But at the end of the day, if it doesn’t point toward winning, you’re not doing it. At this level, it’s all about trying to figure out how to get a win.”
The Texans have it figured out, but actually doing it is a different story.