Texans Win Over Jaguars Follows Fun Historic Trend
The Houston Texans completed what many are calling an unlikely win against the reigning AFC South champion Jacksonville Jaguars. But was it? History will dictate that no one should be surprised.
While the Texans have had plenty of issues securing wins against seemingly everyone else in the league, in the last 20 meetings dating back to December 2013, the Texans are 16-4 against the Jaguars. Houston also leads the all-time series 29-14.
That's an astonishing record that you might expect to see from a New England Patriots team against the Jets - that's a thing too.
While the record goes back ten seasons and includes a number of different quarterbacks and players representing both sides, Sunday's win might be more impressive.
Texans rookie quarterback C.J. Stroud earned his stripes in the win and seemingly validated where he was selected in this year's draft. Stroud completed 20 of his 30 pass attempts for 280 yards and two touchdowns, virtually outperforming his quarterback counterpart on the other side, Trevor Lawrence.
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Lawrence, who was playing from behind most of the day, was 27-of-40 for 279 yards, with one touchdown, and one interception.
"Coming from Ohio State, it's a pressure element that's pushed on every week that either you can't lose, and if you're playing a less than team that people think are less than, you have to win by 70-plus points," Stroud said after Houston's 37-17 win. "The preparation that I put in college, I almost did the same thing as I've gone to the league, and every week, my routine is almost the same. I've tweaked things here and there, but everything has been like I did in college."
Stroud showed much of the same accuracy he showed in college at Ohio State, where he finished with the second-highest completion percentage in school history of quarterbacks with at least 500 pass attempts.
Through three games, Stroud has completed 64.5 percent of his passes for 906 yards — the third-highest through three games for a rookie in NFL history — four touchdowns and no interceptions.
If the Texans can keep Stroud healthy and off the turf, what we saw on Sunday could become the norm rather than the outlier sooner than later.
