HOUSTON (AP) — The Houston Texans entered the season with Super Bowl hopes.
Four games in, they’re still hoping to get their first win.
CeeDee Lamb had a career-high 17 catches for 189 yards and his 12-yard TD reception with 40 seconds left lifted the Dallas Cowboys to a 34-30 win over Houston on Sunday that dropped the Texans to 0-4.
The Texans went 12-2 last season after losing their first three games to become the first team in NFL history to make the postseason twice after opening the season 0-3.
Now they face an even bigger uphill climb if they hope to make the playoffs for a fourth straight season after their first 0-4 start since 2020. Only the 1992 Chargers have rebounded from a 0-4 start to make the postseason.
“It’s frustrating, but it’s the NFL,” defensive end Will Anderson said. “We’ve got to bow up, man. Nobody's coming to save us ... we’ve got to go out there and play grown man football and we’ve got to take accountability and really do our jobs.”
It was a second straight week where the Texans took a late lead only to have their defense give up a late score in a loss.
On Sunday, Dallas (2-2) trailed by 4 after a 6-yard touchdown run by Woody Marks with about 2 ½ minutes to play. The Texans were facing third-and-14 when a hook-and-ladder play with a 2-yard catch by Dalton Schultz and a 19-yard run by David Montgomery set up that score.
Dak Prescott then orchestrated an 11-play, 74-yard drive that included a fourth down conversion and capped it with the throw to Lamb to give the Cowboys the victory.
“Today was not a great finish by our team,” coach DeMeco Ryans said. “Defensively it was not good enough. The offense goes out and plays like they played to give us 30 points and defensively we have to find a way to close that game out.”
Houston’s defense has taken a huge step back this season after leading the NFL in yards allowed (277.2) and ranking second in points given up (17.3) last season.
This season the Texans are allowing 343.75 yards and 27.25 points a game.
Houston did a good job defensively in the first half and led 16-6 at halftime. But the secondary fell apart after that as Prescott threw for 248 of his 335 yards in the second half and receivers were often left wide open.
“We’ve got to play our technique better,” Ryans said. “In the second half it just wasn’t good enough. In the first half I thought everybody played the coverages the way they were supposed to play, limited the explosive plays and the second half we did not do our coverages the proper way.”
Ryans got annoyed at a question postgame about why the Texans haven’t been able to replicate last season's defensive performance this season.
“I understand a lot of people want to compare 2025 to 2026, but for me it’s not the same,” he said. “We’ve got a different team. We’ve got different people. It’s different. So as much as we would love 2025 to carry over into 2026 that’s never the case or how it works in the NFL. Just because you have prior success that doesn’t automatically mean you’re going to have future success.”
Quarterback C.J. Stroud spoke to the team postgame and implored his teammates to stay positive during his difficult stretch.
“I just wanted to get in front of them and let them know how much I believe in them and trust in them,” he said. “We’re not in a good spot and it’s not where anybody wants to be… but I have the utmost trust and hope in them. So I was trying to just keep everybody together.”
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