HOUSTON (AP) -The Houston Texans followed up their best game of the year with their worst.
The Texans lost 27-16 to the lowly Oakland Raiders on Sunday, a week after beating AFC South champion Tennessee. The loss snapped a franchise-record four-game winning streak – and made earning their first ever winning season impossible.
Now the best Houston can hope for is matching last season’s 8-8 record with a win over Chicago in next Sunday’s season finale.
For a team long out of playoff contention, the loss leaves the Texans with very little motivation for the Bears game.
But coach Gary Kubiak is confident the Texans will bounce back.
“I expect our team to be up every week,” he said. “That’s the National Football League. You play a lot of games. It’s very emotional week to week.”
Houston has had an up and down season, starting 0-4 before winning three straight. The Texans then lost three in a row before the four game winning streak.
“We have to learn how to keep the winning streak going,” Andre Johnson said. “This is a step back, but we can’t hang our heads. We have to learn from it.”
Johnson followed his career-high 207 yards receiving against the Titans with two receptions for 19 yards on Sunday. The Texans inexplicably threw to the NFL’s leading receiver only once in the first three quarters.
“Naturally, there are calls made to get him the ball and to get him more involved,” Kubiak said. “Coverages dictated that we go some other places with the ball.”
Kubiak partially blamed the lack of receptions on an overall poor performance by his team.
“Part of not playing well is Andre’s part of that, the (offensive) line’s part of that, the quarterback’s (part of that),” he said. “We’re all part of that. So naturally he didn’t touch the ball enough yesterday for us to win. So, it’s disappointing for all of us.”
Johnson not getting the ball was far from Houston’s only problem against Oakland.
The Texans gave up a punt return for a touchdown in the third quarter and let the Raiders grab an onside kick in the first. In the fourth, offensive lineman Chester Pitts’ 15-yard penalty for swinging at an Oakland player forced Houston to settle for a field goal after getting inside the 10-yard line.
m. You lose your composure for a second and whether you got hit or not, it doesn’t matter.”
Still, the Texans had a chance to cut the lead to one score with about eight minutes remaining.
Amobi Okoye sacked JaMarcus Russell and forced a fumble which the Texans recovered on the 14. Steve Slaton ran for eight yards on first down and one yard on second down, but two straight throws to Kevin Walter in the end zone fell incomplete.
Kubiak defended his decision to go for it on fourth down.
“I’d still go for it and naturally I’d call a different play,” he said. “Just the momentum of the football game and the way the day had went, we were looking for a spark for our football team.”
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