2011 Texans Watch-Texans Rebound Against Steelers

After the Texans coughed up a fourth quarter nine point lead in the Superdome last week against the Saints (and I had to hear it from the New Orleans contingent at OUT on the Hill because they did)  I along with 'errbody' else in Texans Nation was quite uneasy about the Pittsburgh Steelers coming to Reliant Stadium with memories of last season's 2-8 collapse after the bye week dancing in our heads after a torrid 4-2 start. 

But they set the tone in this game with a 19 play 115 yard opening drive that ate up 10 minutes of the first quarter, overcame two penalties and was capped off by an Owen Daniels one yard touchdown catch in which he was all alone in the end zone because the entire Pittsburgh defense bit on the play fake to Arian Foster.

Speaking of Arian Foster, he carried the ball 30 times for 155 yards including the eventual game winning 42 yard touchdown run that gave the Texans a 17-10 lead late in the fourth quarter.  

They needed it because we lost All World wide receiver Andre Johnson to a hamstring pull on a second quarter play in which nobody touched him and he went down.

The Texans should have had a much bigger lead in the first half.   They had a fumble recovery deep in Steeler territory on the Steelers first drive, a blocked kick return for a TD at the end of the half and an interception return for a TD all wiped out by penalties.  It allowed the Steelers to hang around trailing only 10-0 despite the pounding and five eventual sacks they put on Ben Roethlisberger>

And as we Texans fans feared, the Steelers flipped the ball control script in the third quarter and eventually tied the game at 10-10 in the third period as they dominated the time of possession and dictated play as the Texans had done in the first half.      

But unlike last week, the Texans defense stepped up to the plate and came up with big plays to secure the win and move to 3-1 on the season with the Oakland Raiders coming to Reliant this Sunday.