Eagles at Texans Week 9 TNF

 Week 9 of the NFL season kicked off with the Texans playing the Eagles.  Coincidentally, this game was being played at the same time that World Series game 5 between the Astros and Phillies was being played in Houston.  The Eagles came into this game red hot at they were undefeated boasting a record of 7-0.  The Texans came into this game on the opposite end of the spectrum being 1-5-1.  Due to their contrasting records, the Eagles were favored by -14.5 points and their Moneyline was only paying 1.1x your money. 

(ESPN, Sam Smith)

The Texans started out strong running the ball well on their first drive which went for a total of 75 yards and was capped off by a two yard touchdown pass from Davis Mills to rookie tight end Teagan Quitoriano.  This was the first time that the Texans were able to score any points on their opening drive all year.  But the red hot Eagles were able to respond on their opening drive gashing the Eagles on the ground and the air capping off the 18 play drive with a 2 yard rushing touchdown from Miles Sanders. 

(ESPN, Tom Atkins)

After having to punt the ball off to the potent Eagles offense, the Texans defense was able to step up and force a fumble from Jalen Hurts.  However the weekend Texans offense wasn't able to capitalize off of this turnover and they had to punt the ball away.  The Texans went into this game down two of their best receivers including star receiver Brandin Cooks.  This meant that they had to largely rely on rookie running back Dameon Pierce to do the heavy lifting in moving the ball up and down the field.

The Eagles and Texans were then able to trade touchdowns and the score was tied right before half time.  The Eagles had a chance to go into halftime with the lead, but they missed a field goal right before halftime.  The Texans defense held up surprisingly well in the first half limiting the Eagles to just 14 points giving their offense a chance to pick up the pace and win the game.

Unfortunately for the Texans, their defense started to get run down in the second half as their offense had two costly turnovers that gave the Eagles prime field position and kept them on the field longer than they should have tiring them out.  

The Eagles were able to score two touchdowns in the second half from the likes of A.J. Brown who has been on fire recently and Dallas Goedert who has shown that he deserves to be considered an elite tight end over the course of the season.  The Texans depleted offense was only able to muster up a field goal in the second half which proved costly as they lost the game 17-29. 

(469 Words)