Following worst loss in team history, Texans looking ahead to the Patriots

HOUSTON — The Houston Texans may have hit their lowest point as a franchise Sunday afternoon at Highmark Stadium.

With a losing streak that extended to three, the Texans sustained their most lopsided defeat in team history amid a 40-point blowout loss to the Buffalo Bills.

In an attempt to not dwell on the embarrassment, the Texans have immediately turned the page to their Week 5 match against the New England Patriots at NRG Stadium. And first-year coach David Culley says there is no added pressure to get the Texans back on track.

“There is no more pressure going into this New England game than there was going into Jacksonville, Cleveland, and Carolina,” Culley said. “There’s pressure every week. There is pressure on us and pressure on our players to make sure we’re doing the right things to win football games. In this league, the only way that guys get better is to feel that, because there is a way to do things and we didn’t do those things yesterday.”

The Texans and Patriots will enter Sunday’s game with an identical record at 1-3 through the first four games. Similar to Houston, the Patriots will start a rookie quarterback in Mac Jones, who Culley believes is playing pretty well to begin his NFL career.

Jones will be playing his first professional game in Houston as arguably the best rookie quarterback from the draft class of 2021. He has thrown for 1,012 yards while completing 77.5 percent of his passes, to go along with four touchdowns and four interceptions of the season.

But similar to the days when Tom Brady was under center for the Pats, Culley believes it’s going to take more than slowing down New England’s quarterback in hopes of ending their losing skid.

“Whatever they are doing offensively, and whatever they are doing defensively, they don’t make mistakes,” Culley said. “You have to beat that football team.”

“Obviously, we were not mistake-free on Sunday and when you have those kind of things happen to you, you lose football games, and that’s what we did. This football team that we are playing has a history of not doing that.”

Running back David Johnson co-signed with his coach that the team is not under any added pressure. Stating that the most important element for the Texans as a whole is to watch film, learn from it and don’t look back as they prepare for the Patriots.