The atmosphere inside NRG Stadium was gloomy as the third quarter was winding down and the Houston Texans held a very slim 6-0 lead over the Tennessee Titans.
As the fans grew restless and loudly booed the home team from the stands, the Texans’ offense was regressing.
After quarterback C.J. Stroud picked up a first down on a scramble to get his team a first down at their own 38-yard line, the offense was finally starting to pick up some momentum.
That was until center Jake Andrews wiped out a 17-yard run from Nick Chubb with an offensive holding call that pushed them back 10 yards.
On the very next play, tight end Dalton Shultz wiped out an eight-yard gain by rookie running back Woody Marks with an offensive pass interference call. When Houston went conservative with a run, Marks was stopped for a three-yard loss.
Whatever momentum the Texans had gained at the start of the drive, they lost it in three straight plays for negative yards, and now they faced a situation where they needed 33 yards to pick up a first down.
Texans’ fans have seen this story before, with the offense often struggling to gain yardage and needing significant gains to move the chains. Given the way the offense was playing, it was only a matter of time before punter Tommy Townsend would step onto the field for a punt.
As Stroud broke the huddle and approached the line, he noticed something in the Titans’ coverage that he believed he could exploit, with Tennessee in Cover 4 with split safeties, but in the middle of the field and not shading toward helping cornerback L’Jarius Sneed against wide receiver Nico Collins.
It was a perfect one-on-one matchup between the two, with a brief back-and-forth in the media during the week, when Sneed acted oblivious to who Collins was.
At the snap of the ball, Stroud dropped back and found Collins for a 37-yard gain to give the Texans a first down and some offensive momentum. Seven plays later, Stroud found Marks in the flats for a 12-yard touchdown, Marks’ first of his career.
“That is who we all are in this offense, we are playmakers, the type of people to make plays in critical moments like that,” said Collins to reporters after the game. “It felt good to catch that on the sideline and get that spark that we needed.
“Get everybody in tune so we could move the ball, and that boy Woody could ‘Touch Paint.’ That is what you want as an offense. I am glad we got the ‘Dub’ [Win], glad everybody is healthy, and we can get ready for Baltimore next week.”
The Stroud-to-Collins connection not only sparked the offense on that drive, it lit a fire under them as they rattled off 20 unanswered points as the defense stepped up with a shutout to give the Texans a 26-0 victory over the Titans (0-4) to give Houston (1-3) its first win of the season.
“I think it did,” said Stroud, who finished the day with 233 passing yards and two touchdown passes, about the energy the pass play to Collins had on the rest of the offense. “Tytus [Howard] came up to me and was like, ‘Be happy bro, it was a big play.’ Then the sideline was turnt up, that stuff will bring energy, big plays like that.
“Nico did a great job. I have a lot of respect for L’Jarius Sneed; he’s a good corner in this league, one of the best. I thought him and ‘Nic’ [Nico Collins] battled, and he got over the top, [I] just tried to give him a shot. But big plays like that definitely give us energy that we need going forward.”