Landry Locker grades the Texans' performance. Here are the grades for the win over the Tennessee Titans. Follow Landry on YouTube.
Quarterback: A
C.J. Stroud is playing at an elite level. His game looks more complete than it ever has.
He is using his legs to extend plays and even had a touchdown on a designed run. He is spreading the ball to multiple receivers. The accuracy has returned. He’s also doing this with an inconsistent offensive line and run game.
Despite the 1-4 start to the season, the quarterback play has been worthy of a win in every single game this season.
Running Backs: B
Woody Marks is the best running back on this team. That was obvious very early in training camp. More Marks means a better offense in every aspect.
Marks had a touchdown taken away by a Brevin Jordan hold, but there’s clearly more juice when he has the ball. He makes the most of the blocking in front of him. He was also more involved in the pass game, but there could still be more.
David Montgomery will miss time with a groin injury, which means more Marks.
The depth behind Marks will be something to monitor, but the backfield could have more juice, like it did last season when the staff was forced to play Jawhar Jordan during Nick Chubb’s absence.
Wide Receivers: A
Nico Collins continues to be reliable when the offense needs it most. He makes tough, physical catches look routine.
Kayshon Boutte doesn’t get a lot of opportunities, but when he does, it feels like it’s always a big play. His sideline catch on the opening drive of the second half was a thing of beauty.
Xavier Hutchinson is playing his best football. It will be interesting to see what that looks like moving forward with the recent trade for Marvin Harrison Jr.
More Jaylin Noel is a good thing for the offense. This hasn’t been a secret to anyone not on the Texans offensive staff.
Anyone who watched practice during training camp saw what Noel was capable of in the red zone. Sometimes things take longer to realize with this staff. He put that on display in a game with a beautiful red zone touchdown from Stroud where he showed off his feel and strong hands.
I would love to say we continue to see this from Noel consistently, but you never know what you’ll see week-to-week from this staff. I wonder if Noel’s talents can continue to be maximized now that the Texans added another receiver to the mix.
Can offensive coordinator Nick Caley and company be trusted to maximize multiple weapons at once, or is that too much to ask?
Regardless, the wide receivers were solid in Nashville.
Tight Ends: C+
Good: Cade Stover picked up two blocks on Stroud’s designed touchdown run.
Bad: The holding call on Jordan that negated the Marks touchdown.
Dalton Schultz had some nice catches. The tight-end blocking was solid.
Foster Moreau did his job.
Offensive Line: B
The offensive line was as solid as you could expect. Titans defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons did not wreck the game.
Stroud had plenty of time to throw, and there were two sacks allowed. One of the sacks was when Stroud scrambled out of bounds. The other sack was a scary one late in the game where Aireontae Ersery got beat badly, and Stroud got lit up from his blind side. Caley probably shouldn’t have had Stroud in that position late in the fourth quarter.
It was a good day for the offensive line and provided some momentum heading into a huge challenge against a solid Jacksonville defensive front in London.
Defensive Line: A
Will Anderson Jr. leads the league in sacks and was moved around more by DeMeco Ryans this week. Anderson has done a lot of productive things that haven’t shown up on the stat sheet and was able to run up the sack total against the Titans.
For the second time this season, Danielle Hunter forced an interception, this one to linebacker Jake Hansen for his first career interception.
Kayden McDonald looked really good in his NFL debut. Way better than he did at any point in practice during camp. It was interesting to hear Ryans say that McDonald had some struggles in practice earlier in the week, but played well in the game. It’s not an effort thing, but maybe McDonald is just one of those guys that performs better in games. He looked solid against the run.
Jadeveon Clowney offsides penalties are just part of the package, but the defense is way better when he is in the rotation. McDonald allowed Logan Hall to be more of a hybrid with limited reps in run situations.
Linebackers and Safeties: B
Azeez Al-Shaair makes everything better at the linebacker position. Things should get even better when Henry To’oTo’o returns.
Hansen has a really good game with his first career interception and a consistent presence in the trenches.
Calen Bullock saved a touchdown late in the second quarter when Jalen Pitre got beaten by Tate on a deep Ward pass. Pitre was also beaten for a likely touchdown on the opening drive, but fortunately for him, Ward was playing quarterback.
Reed Blankenship played his best game. It will be interesting to see how he’s used if Pitre misses time.
There will be a huge increase in competition this week against the Jaguars, but it feels like this unit will be up for the challenge, even without Pitre.
Cornerbacks: B-
I’m not ready to eliminate the standard and expectations Kamari Lassiter set in his first two seasons. He has played below the expectations that he set. Even in a dominant victory, there were glimpses of Lassiter’s 2026 struggles.
Lassiter just hasn’t made plays when given the opportunity and continues to get penalties. This week Lassiter whiffed on a perfectly dialed-up third-down blitz, allowing Ward to escape. Fortunately for him, it was Ward at quarterback and the pass was incomplete, but Lassiter should be expected to make that play. Against better competition, this mistake could be more costly.
Derek Stingley Jr. was fine and held it down on his side of the field.
Titans rookie wideout Carnell Tate was a complete non-factor.
Special Teams: A
Ka’imi Fairbairn provided enough points to win the game in the first half. There was no clear gap in the return game. The third phase carried their weight in Nashville.
Coaching: B-
Ryans did a good job in his return to calling the defense with some nice wrinkles, including the movement of Anderson and some blitzes. Caley did a good job of being appropriately conservative early in the game and then dialing up the kill shot to start the third quarter.
However, there were two coaching decisions that could have been costly against better competition, and I don’t want to ignore in victory what would not be ignored in defeat. Contrary to Ryans’ beliefs, coaching decisions aren’t judged by result.
Decision One: The bizarre use of timeouts at the end of the second quarter.
After the Texans took a 12-3 lead in the second quarter, the Titans seemed content with taking it to the locker room on a third down from their own 30. In the moment, I praised the decision to comfortably take the 12-3 lead and head into the locker room with a two-possession lead and the ball to start the second half.
However, Ryans took a timeout with 53 seconds left rather than taking the two-possession lead to the locker room. On the next play, the Titans converted on third-down and then decided to be more aggressive.
The Titans then used their first timeout and took a deep shot in the end zone that would have been a touchdown if Bullock hadn’t bailed out Pitre. This would have made this a two-point game rather than a nine-point game heading into the half.
Ryans then took a timeout with 16 seconds left to force the Titans to punt to Noel, who has struggled to consistently field punts inside the 20. After Noel unnecessarily fielded the punt, the Texans then decided to take it to the locker room with the lead, which is what they should have done from the beginning.
There ended up being no harm, but the whole process was unnecessary, not worth the risk, and could have been a disaster.
Decision Two: Putting Stroud in harm’s way in a blowout against a frustrated team.
Caley isn’t always aggressive, but it seems like he loves to get aggressive late in games against bad teams during blowouts. Last year it was the Ravens. This year it was in Nashville against the Titans.
In a 26-3 game with 6:43 remaining in the fourth quarter, Stroud took a free shot from his blind side when he dropped back to pass, and Ersery got beat by Titans defensive end Jacob Martin. This could have been a season-ending decision if Stroud had gotten hurt.
In this situation, the Titans are likely looking to take out their frustration on whichever Texans player has the football. Putting the franchise quarterback in that situation isn’t ideal or smart. Stroud was clearly shaken up after the hit, but disaster was avoided.
What made the decision even more dumb is that the Texans were at the 29-yard-line and the sack took them out of field goal range. A field goal would have made it a four-possession game, which is a small nugget compared to the obvious foolishness. You can make a case that Stroud shouldn’t have even been out there in this situation.
perfectly said. Great team win but not worth much in the grand scheme of things