NFL Week 5: Texans 23, Bills 20 — Four Winners, Four Losers

Throughout C.J. Stroud’s young career as the leader and quarterback of the Houston Texans, one thing that has become a constant is the Texans’ protecting their home field with Stroud under center. Even with a marquee team like the Buffalo Bills in town on Sunday, one thing that I felt confident would occur was Stroud playing well. In fact, I summarized the “Stroud at home” experience in the below tweet during my pregame prep:

Including the postseason, CJ Stroud is 9-2 as a starting QB at NRG Stadium. The two losses — IND ’23 Wk 2 and JAC ’23 Wk 12 — have since been avenged, the Colts TWICE actually. CJ even avenged the CLV loss from Wk 16 in the playoffs! He was concussed in Week 16!

That said,… pic.twitter.com/Ks1RlFgRac

— Sean Pendergast (@SeanTPendergast) October 6, 2024

If you expand that tweet, you’ll see that indeed Stroud, going into Sunday, was 9-2 at home, but you would also see that the best quarterback we had beaten was maybe Baker Mayfield? Joe Flacco? In other words, none of the big names had come to NRG and locked horns with Stroud. Until yesterday.

In came MVP candidate and perennial double digit win season generator Josh Allen, and while Stroud had some noteworthy moments, good and bad, ultimately it was Stroud’s team that came out on top, 23-20, thanks to a 59 yard field goal from Ka’imi Fairbairn at the final gun. It was a signature win for head coach DeMeco Ryans and, at a minimum, another grotty moment for Stroud, who was amazing in the first half and, at times, infuriating in the second half.

On a day where the fans were repping H-town in the new Texans color rush gear, complete with H-town blue (NOT Columbia blue!) trim, there were winners and losers, as the Texans ran their record to 4-1 on the season. Here they are:

WINNERS

4. Stefon Diggs
Back in April, when Diggs was traded to the Texans for a second round pick, it was widely believed that Diggs’ going against his former team would be one of the biggest individual game storylines of the season. Honestly, both sides did a pretty good job this past week of suppressing this storyline. However, after this game, I can’t imagine that even the most staunch, anti-Diggs Bills fan can’t be missing Diggs at least a little bit, after he caught six balls, two more than all of the Bills’ receivers combined.

3. Ka’imi Fairbairn
Five games in, you could make a case that Fairbairn is the Texans’ team MVP. His three 50-plus yard field goals in EACH of the first two games of the season were the difference in wins over the Colts and Bears, and on Sunday, he added the 59-yard game winner to his gaudy 2024 resume. As long as we are talking special teams, credit punter Tommy Townsend for pinning the Bills deep in their own territory on their final drive, and credit Robert Woods for crucial yards on a punt return to set up the final field goal.

2. Azeez Al-Shaair
There was a good chance thet Al-Shaair wasn’t even going to play in Sunday’s game, after he was added to the injured list on Saturday afternoon with an illness. Make no mistake, no Al-Shaair would have spelled disaster in this game, in part because of a severe lack of linebacker depth on the Texans and in part because Al-Shaair was amazing on Sunday. The defensive captain tallied eight tackles, inducing two for loss, and had two pass breakups that easily could have been interceptions. The Al-Shaair signing has been a home run for the Texans.

1. C.J. Stroud, 1st half edition
The Texans went into the locker room with a 17-3 halftime lead, and the two biggest reasons were (1) the complete eradication of penalties, zero total (until the third quarter, when they committed six penalties, but let’s stay positive), and (2) the dominant performance of Stroud, who was in total control the first half, completing 12 of 15 passes for 187 yards and a long touchdown to Nico Collins. Stroud was phenomenal in the first half. The story would have a twist, though…..

LOSERS

4. C.J. Stroud, 4th quarter edition
Rare is the Texans’ loss since the start of 2023 where you could point to Stroud as a key culprit. When the Texans lose, drastic mistakes by Stroud are rarely ingredients in the formula. However, Stroud’s fourth quarter on Sunday was one of the worst of his career. On consecutive possessions, Stroud threw an interception in Bills territory, fumbled a ball deep in Texans territory that led to three points for Buffalo, and committed an intentional grounding penalty that drove the Texans out of field goal range with around a minute left in regulation. Stroud was very thankful in his postgame availability toward the defense and special teams for bailing him out from those mistakes. I have zero concern about this being a trend for Stroud, but the story of this game is incomplete without mentioning Stroud’s rough fourth quarter.

3. Josh Allen
Allen came into this game as one of the top three MVP candidates in the league, and while this abysmal passing performance doesn’t singlehandedly torpedo his season individually or anything, it does highlight just how precarious the Bills’ offseason plan was, in moving on from Diggs and trying to piece together a passing attack with rookies and castoffs at that position. Allen was running for his life all day, and for the second straight week, he took a ton of physical punishment.

2. Nico Collins’ soft tissue
The good news is Nico Collins had another game changing play, a 67-yard touchdown that put the Texans up 14-3. The bad news is Collins injured his hamstring on the play, and there’s no news as to the severity of the injury or how much time he will miss. The offense looked MUCH different, in a bad way, without Collins in the game. The thing to keep an eye on this week — do the Texans put Collins on injured reserve, because if they do, he will miss at least four games.

1. Deshaun Watson (because I am petty!)
Hey, I’m in too good of a mood to come up with more losers from the Texans win, so go ahead and enjoy nine minutes of Deshaun Watson after a 34-13 loss to the Washington Commanders. I enjoy seeing Deshaun miserable, and so should you!
Listen to Sean Pendergast on SportsRadio 610 from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. weekdays. Also, follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/SeanTPendergast, on Instagram at instagram.com/sean.pendergast, and like him on Facebook at facebook.com/SeanTPendergast.