With just under nine minutes to play in the second quarter, the Texans were rolling.
They'd scored touchdowns on each of their previous two possessions to go up,14-3, and the defense forced a Jets punt after another three-and-out.
Then, Houston went cold.
From then, the Texans punted four straight times, missed a field goal, turned the ball over on downs, and mustered just 11 yards on the final possession and time expired. The Jets defense limited Houston to 65 total yards on 30 plays following the touchdown catch by WR Brandin Cooks in the second quarter. The Texans lost the time of possession battle 33:42 to 26:18 after holding a better than 2-to-1 ratio in that statistic following the defense's stand after the Cooks score.
New York put 21 points on the board and triumphed, 21-14.
"They got a little momentum because we stalled a little bit offensively," Culley said. "They were executing pretty well, but if we're able to stay on the field a little bit more on offense and get them off the field a little bit more, better things would happen."
In the first quarter-and-a-half, RB Rex Burkhead ran four times for 21 yards in that early stretch where the Texans were playing well, but after that, he was limited to just six more yards in the game and explained why the Texans lost.
"We just didn't execute," Burkhead said. "We did a pretty good job in that first half of putting some drives together and really marching the ball down the field. In the second half, we struggled to do that."
The Jets defense let the Texans convert on four of Houston's first six third-down tries. After that, though, New York stiffened and gave up two first downs in eight third-down situations.
"We didn't execute on third down," QB Tyrod Taylor said. "We didn't execute in general. Early downs as well, too. If you put yourself in third-and-long in certain situations, those are hard to come by. The flow wasn't right in the second half, and we have to be better at that moving forward."
The Texans will try to regroup this week of practice, as they get set for a noon CT showdown at NRG Stadium next Sunday against the Indianapolis Colts in Week 13. Click here for tickets.
