Watson, Hyde help Houston win in K.C.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — There were plenty of people on the Houston Texans sideline who felt they had something to prove against the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday.

Just about all of them succeeded in Houston’s 3124 win.

Deshaun Watson threw for 280 yards and a touchdown and ran for two scores as he outdueled Chiefs counterpart Patrick Mahomes, who was drafted two spots ahead of him in 2017.

Carlos Hyde ran for 116 yards and a TD against the team that traded him to Houston in the preseason, when the Chiefs decided there was no room for him in their backfield.

Most important, Bill O’Brien proved he could beat a team pegged a Super Bowl contender in leading the Texans to victory after losing three of his previous meetings with Kansas City.

“They care about the team. They seem to have fun with each other. We’ve just got to keep it going,” said O’Brien, whose losses to the Chiefs include a postseason defeat. “We just had a really good win against a good team, but we’re 42 and 42 gets you nowhere.” Better than being 33, though. That was still a possibility until DeAndre Hopkins made a sliding grab on 4thand3 from the Kansas City 27 with about two minutes to go. That allowed the Texans to run out the clock and deal the Chiefs (42) their second consecutive loss — both at Arrowhead Stadium.

“It’s a wonderful feeling to be able to deal with all the adversity and the up and down and flow of the game and to be able to fight for 60 minutes,” Watson said. “That’s what we did. We kept fighting and kept pushing and kept encouraging. This locker room, everyone is always fighting to the end regardless of the score. We don’t look at the scoreboard. We’re going to play 60 minutes every game.”

Mahomes, hobbled by a sore left ankle, passed for 273 yards and three TDs, But his afternoon also included his first interception of the season.

“We just have to flip a few things,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said. “The margin of winning and losing in this league is minute. We were this close to coming out of this thing with a win.”

It wasn’t a pretty game for either side. They combined for 21 penalties totaling nearly 150 yards, and that didn’t include close to a dozen flags that were offsetting, overruled or declined.

It was Kansas City that started hot, engineering drives of at least 90 yards twice in the first quarter. Tyreek Hill finished the first with a 46yard reception, the first touchdown throw in a first quarter by Mahomes since Week 1, and Damien Williams finished the second with a 14yard TD catch.

In between, Hyde coughed up the ball on Houston’s first offensive play.

But the big running back soon atoned for his mistake. Hyde battered the Chiefs’ run defense the rest of the game, punctuating a big first half against his exteam with a 2yard touchdown run.

“It was big for him to come in here and do what he did,” Watson said.