Texans 13, Jaguars 6: Game Balls

Each week during the 2022 season, we will take a quick post-game look at which Jacksonville Jaguars stood out the most.

Win or lose, rain or shine, we will hand out game balls to an offensive, defensive and special teams player.

In this edition, we take a look at the Jaguars' 13-6 loss to the Houston Texans and which players stood out in big ways.

Offense: Travis Etienne

There are three players this could go to today: Travis Etienne, Marvin Jones or Evan Engram. Jones had the Jaguars' second 100-yard receiving day of the season with seven catches for 104 yards, while Engram caught six passes for 69 yards and had several big gains to get the Jaguars out of lulls.

But for as good as both Jones and Engram were, Etienne deserves the offensive game ball for the impact he made, especially in the first-half to jumpstart the Jaguars' offense. Etienne was only given six touches (four carries, two receptions) in the second-half as Doug Pederson strangely went away from him, but he was still the most impactful offensive player of the day. He collected 144 yards on just 13 touches, with 71 coming on 10 carries and another 43 through the air on three catches. On a day where the Jaguars looked lost, Etienne looked confident, explosive and quite simply electric.

Defense: Foyesade Oluokun

On a day when the Jaguars were able to play stifling defense without making many game-changing plays, inside linebacker Foyesade Oluokun did enough to stand out the most among his peers. The Jaguars forced zero takeaways and sacked Davis Mills just once, recording five quarterback hits and four tackles for loss in the process. Oluokun happened to have the lone sack, two of the quarterback hits and two of the tackles for loss, standing out consistently in the middle of Jacksonville's defense as Houston's offense struggled to move the ball for much of the day.

This was an encouraging game from Oluokun considering two things. One, everyone in the stadium knew the Texans' entire offensive game-plan was to feed Dameon Pierce. Secondly, Oluokun struggled mightily against the run a week ago. Despite Pierce being Houston's lone weapon and the poor showing from a week ago, though, the veteran linebacker stepped up and made plays when they needed to be made.

"I thought they played well. Gosh, that long drive they had, there were some missed tackles on that one, but I thought overall it obviously kept us in the football game and did some nice things," Jaguars head coach Doug Pederson said about the defense. "There [are] still some things we have to clean up. These guys battle. They play hard. They're physical. It's a physical group. They cleaned up some of the mistakes from a week ago, but we still have some work to do. We have to get some stuff corrected."

Special Teams: Riley Patterson

The only Jaguar who scored any points on Sunday, Riley Patterson continues to have a strong season for the Jaguars. He is now 9-of-10 on field goals for the season after hitting field goals of 26- and 45 yards. Patterson has done enough through the first five games to put away any concerns the Jaguars had at the kicker position entering the season. With this said, Logan Cooke deserves some credit for his 62-yard punt, too.

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