The Texans struggle defensively again in 27-21 overtime loss to Giants

HOUSTON (AP) — This year’s Houston Texans defense looks nothing like last year’s unit that was the NFL’s best.

Missed tackles, wide-open receivers and big play after big play led to a 27-21 overtime loss to the New York Giants on Sunday that dropped Houston to 2-5.

Coach DeMeco Ryans is tired of people bringing up how good the defense was last year and says the Texans simply must focus on what they can do to fix things this season.

“For us it’s a new year and it’s a new team,” he said. “We’ve got to definitely play better.”

Last year the Texans led the NFL by allowing just 277.2 yards a game. This season that number has jumped to 342 yards an outing.

Their run defense was particularly bad on Sunday, with the Giants gashing them for a season-high 188 yards rushing, led by 124 by Cam Skattebo.

“Can’t give up some of those runs ... with this type of defense that we have, you almost have to be perfect,” defensive end Will Anderson said. “There’s almost no room for error in this defense and we have to find a better way to continue to play together, get the call and have all 11 guys be on the same page.”

The Texans gave up multiple explosive plays throughout the game and that didn’t change in overtime where the Giants needed just three plays to score the winning touchdown.

J.J. McCarthy, who was making his first start this season, found Malik Nabers for a 9-yard completion on first down. Then Skattebo dashed 42 yards on second down before Devin Singletary scored on a 30-yard run on the next play to end it.

“The tackling wasn’t good enough today (considering) they rushed the ball the way they rushed it,” Ryans said. “We had multiple guys there at the point of attack, but we didn’t get the guys down. So, we’ve got to tackle better. We’ve got to finish better as a team.”

Though Ryans doesn’t like to talk about last season, linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair said the fact that they’ve been successful in the past gives them confidence that they can turn things around.

“There’s nobody on our team that is happy about how it’s going for us,” he said. “And it’s one of those things where you’ve just got to show up to work every single day and keep pressing forward because something’s got to give. You know the process that we have, you know it’s worked and we’ve done it.”

For Ryans, he’s stressing to the players that they won’t get better if they don’t focus on the fundamentals and doing the little things right every play.

“No magical elixir is going to drop out of the sky and ... fix it,” he said. “We fix it by putting the work in and getting better at fundamentals of football and that’s where we’ve got to just own it. As coaches, as players, we’ve all got to own it and we’ve got to find a way to turn this thing around.”

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