The Houston Texans, once again, couldn't stop the Kansas City Chiefs.
The last two games Houston has played have come against the league's best offense — dating back to their matchup in the AFC Divisional Round in January. On that night, the eventual Super Bowl champions scored 51 points and tallied 434 total yards.
Eight months later, moving the ball was similarly easy for Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs offense in Week 1.
The Chiefs didn't post their most prolific offensive game (369 total yards), but Andy Reid's squad operated smoothly, and their continuity looked like an advantage coming off an atypical preseason. Mahomes threw for 211 yards and three touchdowns while rookie RB Clyde Edwards-Helaire ran for 138 yards.
On the other side, Houston looked like a team that suffered the consequences of a virtual offseason program. Defensive end J.J. Watt spoke after the game about the shortcomings in his team's first defensive performance of the 2020 season.
“We didn't play well enough to win,” J.J. Watt told the Houston Chronicle. “We have to stop the run a lot better. We have to put ourselves in better situations on third down to get off the field. We have to create takeaways. We didn't do that.”
The Texans failed to generate a turnover and recorded just one sack on Mahomes. The 2018 MVP was hit just three times by Texans pass rushers.
“It’s very frustrating as a pass rusher,” Watt said. “You can win clean off the edge, and it doesn't matter if the ball is gone. It does get frustrating, obviously. That’s also part of what makes him great. He knows the defense. He knows his offense. He knows where guys are going to be. He finds the open guy very quickly. He can process that information fast.”
Texans head coach Bill O'Brien echoed Watt's sentiments afterwards, noting that the run defense has to get better ahead of the team's next matchup against 2019 MVP Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens, who were the best rushing team in football in 2019.
“We had trouble stopping the run,” O'Brien lamented to the Chronicle after the game. “Our defense could not get off the field, so we got down. We have to improve very quickly this week.”
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