Texans triumph
» Houston gets first win in Crennel’s debut.
HOUSTON — Romeo Crennel wouldn’t take credit for the Houston Texans getting their first win on Sunday after he took over as interim coach this week in the wake of Bill O’Brien’s firing.
“Because we won the game everybody wants to say: ‘What did I do’? Well, the players are the ones who did it,” Crennel said.
Deshaun Watson threw for a season-high 359 yards and three touchdowns in a 30-14 victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars.
O’Brien, who was also the general manager, was let go on Monday after the Texans fell to 0-4 last weekend. At 73, Crennel became the oldest coach in NFL history, passing Hall of Famer George Halas, who was 72 in his last game with the Bears in 1967.
“I told them that they were better than their record showed going into the game, and I think they believed that,” Crennel said. “And then they won the game so they might believe everything I tell them.”
The Texans led 23-14 after a field goal with about 7½ minutes to go and got the ball back when Jacob Martin sacked Gardner Minshew and forced a fumble. It was recovered by Whitney Mercilus, who fumbled on the return, but the Texans pounced on the ball to keep it.
Houston (1-4) pushed the lead to 30-14 when Watson found Brandin
Cooks on a 28-yard touchdown pass on fourth-and-4 with about five minutes remaining.
Defensive end J.J. Watt raved about the attitude of the team on Sunday.
“Everybody doing their jobs,” he said. “The energy was great. It was fun. We had fun and that’s how it is supposed to be.”
The Jaguars (1-4), who were missing three defensive starters because of injuries, have dropped four in a row since their seasonopening win against Indianapolis. Their past three losses have come against teams that were previously winless. The Jaguars are the first team in NFL history to lose three straight games to winless teams, not including season openers.
“We couldn’t ask much more of what the defense did today. They gave us opportunities with short fields and we wasted it,” Minshew said. “We have to do better in that sense. There’s no pointing fingers anywhere else but ourselves.”
The Texans were able to overcome two interceptions by Watson by taking advantage of two fumbles by the Jaguars. Those were the first turnovers forced by the Texans all season.
“We were planning on coming in here and thinking that we were going to have to score points with the injuries that we had on defense,” Jaguars coach Doug Marrone said. “That’s the plan that we tried to put together and obviously it didn’t work well.”
The Texans spent a good chunk of their postgame interviews talking about the postgame celebration, which was highlighted by a series of dances from their septuagenarian coach that included the “Macarena.”
“Hopefully we can have him dancing all year long,” Watt said.