Cayenne pepper and water might have helped Aaron Rodgers, but it didn’t goose the ratings.
Thursday night’s Texans-Jets game on Amazon Prime attracted an audience of 11.56 million viewers. That’s a slight drop from last year’s Week 9 Titans-Steelers game, which did 11.65 million.
The New York market would ordinarily deliver more eyeballs, but the Jets had lost five in a row. After a sluggish and ugly first half, some might have decided to watch something/anything else.
Thursday Night Football is averaging 13.0 million viewers per game. it’s a four-percent increase over last year’s average through Week 9.
Houston will not have one of its key offensive linemen for the rest of the season.
Per Ian Rapoport of NFL Media, guard Kenyon Green is expected to miss the remainder of 2024 with the shoulder injury he suffered during Thursday night’s loss to the Jets.
Green went down in the first half and was replaced by Kendrick Green al the position.
The Texans already looked like they needed help at interior lineman on Thursday night, with quarterback C.J. Stroud constantly pressured throughout the contest.
After a long weekend, Houston will host the Lions on Sunday night in Week 10.
Generally, Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud said the team was “embarrassed” on Thursday night. More specifically, he implicitly suggested a couple of things that the Texans might be doing, or not doing, that are contributing to the situation.
“I would say we just got to honestly play football better, execute better, stop pointing fingers and realize that at the end of the day this is not winning football,” Stroud told reporters after the 21-13 loss. “We can’t keep squeezing our way by every game, we are a really good football team, we have a lot of really good players. Once we buy into the systems and what is being coached, and also we have to have leadership to take over. I believe this isn’t the end, but it’s definitely a great wakeup call for us to tighten up the ship. This is now playoff football, it’s November-December, this is the chunk of our schedule, a lot of great teams we are playing on prime time and we got to be able to find ways to win.”
When he says they need to stop pointing fingers, it means that they are. When it says they need to buy into the systems, it means they aren’t.
That’s ultimately on the coaching staff, but the players have a role in policing themselves. Stroud said it publicly last night. With a game against the Lions looming, it becomes critical for the Texans to address those issues privately.
Last night’s homage to Desean Jackson by Jets receiver Malachi Corley carries with it two important coaching points, far more basic and simple than the high-level. X-and-O stuff that routinely gets communicated to players.
First, and most obviously, never drop the ball near or in the end zone. The safest approach, as Rodney Harrison said on PFT Live, is to give the ball to the official. It’s the Barry Sanders move. And it leaves no doubt that a touchdown was scored.
Sure, there’s room for celebrating once it’s clear the touchdown has been scored. But the only way to ensure with certainty that the six points will be on the board is to do what Barry always did.
Second, and less obviously but just as importantly, when there’s a loose ball in the end zone, pick it up.
If a Jets player had done it, the Jets would have had a touchdown. The Texans got the ball at the 20 only because the ball tumbled out of bounds, triggering the dreaded North Korea rule. If it had never been picked up by any player before the play was over and done, the Jets would have had possession at the spot of the fumble.
In the Boise State-Oregon game from earlier this season, Noah Whittington dropped the ball before crossing the goal line at the end of a long kick return. A teammate just happened to scoop the ball up, making it an unexpected touchdown.
So, one, don’t drop it. Two, if it’s dropped, pick it up.
And while, as one source with extensive NFL coaching experience told PFT, Corley should have learned this lesson in “little league,” there’s value in reminding players of what to do and what not to do when they’re near the goal line with the ball.
The Jets will surely be getting that message. Other teams — and every level — should be getting it, too, as a refresher that no one should need.
But that lesson needs to come with an important codicil. If the ball is on the ground in the end zone, bend over and pick it up.
When the Jets traded for quarterback Aaron Rodgers last year, one of the things they were looking forward to seeing was Rodgers throwing touchdown passes to Garrett Wilson.
Rodgers’s torn Achilles delayed that until this year and the first eight weeks of the season brought more pain than pleasure, but Thursday night’s performance was the kind of thing they were looking for all along. Wilson made a pair of one-handed catches for touchdowns, including one that put them up for good early in the fourth quarter.
Wilson was initially ruled out, but replays showed his shin was down before he hit the sideline and the play will be a staple of his highlight reels for the rest of his career. It was also a much-needed shot in the arm for a team on a five-game losing streak.
“We needed to, and we really wanted to, get in the win column,” Wilson said, via the team website. “Losing that many games in a row, it felt exactly how you’d expect it to feel. We are better than we have played and tonight was the time to go prove it. It is a good win because it gets us started on what we have been preaching and talking about within the facility.”
The presence of players like Wilson was the reason the Jets came into the 2024 season with high hopes and they are the reason why their poor start has been so disappointing. They’re also the reason that the door hasn’t been slammed shut on the team and Thursday night’s win ensured they’ll stay open at least a little longer.
Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud has experienced a fair amount of success since entering the league as the second overall pick in 2023, but his games against the Jets have not been on that list.
Stroud was injured in a loss to the team as a rookie and he got pounded again in a 21-13 loss on Thursday night. Stroud was sacked eight times and completed 11-of-30 passes against a team that lost five straight games heading into the matchup, which he called a warning to “tighten the ship” when he spoke to reporters after the game.
“To come out here on a prime-time game and get embarrassed, that is never fun,” Stroud said. “We have to be better in a lot of areas, and that starts with me. There’s plays I got to make, throws I got to make. Times I gotta sit in the pocket and just trust my guys. I point the finger at me and realize I got to be better as a football player. If we want to win, this is not the recipe for it.”
Stroud talked about needing to get the ball out faster when discussing the pass protection, but those issues have been in place all season and they’re something the Texans need to iron out if they’re going to have the kind of success they hope for this season.
Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud took a career-high eight sacks in Thursday night’s loss to the Jets, and Texans coach DeMeco Ryans says that’s not acceptable.
“I’m not sure what’s happening up front, we’ll watch the film and see what it is, but obviously you give up eight sacks, and every dropback or pass situation looks like we’re in scramble mode, so it’s just not good enough when we can’t operate on time, and we’ve got to get that fixed,” Ryans said. “Any time you get sacked that many times it’s not good enough. We don’t want our quarterback getting hit, as many hits as he took. It’s not good enough. We’ve got to adjust. We’ve got to change things moving forward.”
Stroud did not play particularly well even when he had time to throw, but Ryans indicated that he thinks the pass protection, and not the quarterback, was the problem.
“Any time you’re getting pressured that much or getting hit, it’s going to affect any quarterback. That’s always the game plan defensively is try to fluster the quarterback, and that’s what they did,” Ryans said.
At 6-3, the Texans remain the clear favorites to win the AFC South. But Ryans knows that if his team wants to make noise in the postseason, it has to be a lot better than it was on Thursday night.
Two different Jets teams showed up on Thursday night. The team in the first half looked a lot like the version that had lost five in a row. The team in the second half looked like the version that the Jets were supposed to be.
Receiver Garrett Wilson propelled the surge, thanks to a one-handed touchdown catch that initially was ruled to be out of bounds. The Jets challenged, and the call was overturned. It gave New York their first lead of the game, 14-10.
Interim coach Jeff Ulbrich decided to challenge the play, due in part to the special nature of the reception.
“I was talking to the ref when they were reviewing it,” Ulbrich told reporters. “I’m like, ‘Just for the sake of posterity, you have to say that’s in. Just so it goes down in history.’ I mean it would rival the Odell [Beckham] catch. It was amazing. . . .
“It was close enough to definitely challenge. Thankfully they got it right.”
The change for the Jets came after an ugly first half, one that included fans chanting, “Sell the team.”
So what happened at halftime?
“It was a collective deal,” Ulbrich said. “It was players and coaches. All of us spoke. . . . We came out and played Jets football in the second half.”
Wilson’s efforts helped, as did quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who threw a pair of touchdowns to Wilson and the clincher to Davante Adams.
The win moves the Jets to 3-6. They still have a deep hole to dig out of, but the hole isn’t as deep as it would have been if they’d kept playing in the second half the way they had in the first.
Thursday Night Football matched Halloween Night, with weirdness all around.
The Jets, who couldn’t do anything offensively in the first half, outscored the Texans 21-6 in the second half. New York beat Houston for a second consecutive season, winning 21-13 by roughing up C.J. Stroud again.
The Texans fell to 6-3, while the Jets ended a five-game losing streak to improve to 3-6. It was interim coach Jeff Ulbrich’s first victory.
The Jets pressured C.J. Stroud all night, sacking him eight times, the most Stroud has ever taken. Micheal Clemons had two sacks, including a strip-sack with the Texans at the New York 12 in the first half. Jamien Sherwood also had two and Quinnen Williams 1.5.
Stroud finished 11-of-30 for 191 yards as Houston gained 322 total yards. Joe Mixon was most of the offense with 106 yards and a touchdown on 24 carries.
A year ago, Stroud was only 10-of-23 for 91 yards against the Jets before leaving with the head injury. He briefly was injured on a third-down sack late in the first half Thursday but didn’t miss a play.
The Texans went 1-for-4 in the red zone.
Texans kicker Ka’imi Fairbairn missed two field goals, including one in the red zone. He was wide right on a 56-yarder in the first half, and in the second half, he made a 43-yarder before it was nullified by Eric Watts’ illegal hit on Texans center Jon Weeks. The Texans took the three points off the board, and four plays later, Fairbairn banged a chip-shot, 27-yarder off the upright.
The Jets gained only 69 yards in the first half, and Aaron Rodgers passed for only 32 yards as they trailed 7-0. The Jets briefly had a touchdown when rookie receiver Malachi Corley ran for what was ruled a 19-yard score. Corley, though, dropped the ball in celebration before he crossed the plane, and replay overturned it and gave the ball to the Texans after the ball went out the back of the end zone.
The Texans also had a touchdown overturned by replay — a fumble return that was an incompletion — and the Jets had an incompletion overturned to a touchdown by replay. Garrett Wilson had two touchdowns, with his second a spectacular, one-handed 26-yarder that was ruled incomplete on the field. His first went for 21 yards.
Davante Adams had a 37-yard touchdown after returning from a concussion evaluation to ice the game with 2:56 left.
Rodgers finished 22-of-32 for 211 yards and three touchdowns, while Adams catching seven for 91 and Wilson nine for 90.
Jets receiver Davante Adams has six catches for 54 yards, but his sixth might be his last for tonight.
Adams caught a pass from Aaron Rodgers on fourth-and-1, beating rookie Kamari Lassiter for 17-yard gain before Eric Murray cut Adams’ legs out from under him. Adams appeared to land on his shoulder and his head.
The independent neurologist called for a concussion check, and Adams was sent to the locker room for further evaluation after he was examined in the sideline medical tent.
The Jets converted another fourth down on a questionable illegal contact penalty on Texans cornerback Derek Stingley Jr.
New York then took its first lead on an Odell Beckham-esque, one-handed touchdown catch by Garrett Wilson. Officials initially ruled Wilson out of bounds, but a challenge showed Wilson getting one foot and then a shin down in bounds before going out of bounds.
The 26-yard touchdown has the Jets in front 14-10.
UPDATE: Adams returned in the fourth quarter after being cleared of a concussion and caught a 37-yard touchdown pass.
