Week 12 Thursday Night Football Statistical Review: Texans keep rolling with Davis Mills at the helm

The Texans hounded Josh Allen: Sacks formed the main storyline of the game — that the Bills couldn't stop Will Anderson Jr. and Danielle Hunter, among others, from generating pressure.

Late-down efficiency kept the Bills in the game: The Texans earned the win with dominant defense and just enough offense, but Buffalo kept the score close with some late-down magic, producing a 39.1% success rate on such plays.

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Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes

The Texans made the AFC playoff race much more interesting by winning 23-19 against the Buffalo Bills in an upset on Thursday Night Football to open Week 12.

Game Summary

According to the PFF noise-canceled score metric, this wasn’t a fluky win by an underdog. The Texans were simply so dominant on defense that even their struggling offense outpaced the Bills' offense and, thus, fueled a deserving win. The Bills mightily struggled in scoring range and made it close only because they were fairly efficient on late downs.

Passing Summary

The elephant in the room is that the Bills allowed eight sacks, whereas Texans quarterback Davis Mills wasn’t sacked at all. It’s surprising that the game was even close, but that’s mostly because the Texans' passing offense couldn’t get anything done outside of not getting sacked.

Receiving Summary

With the Texans' passing game struggling, their receivers were relatively quiet in the game. It’s notable that Nico Collins was targeted only three times all game.

Tight end Dalton Kincaid and wide receiver Keon Coleman were both out, so Khalil Shakir was the Bills‘ No. 1 receiver. But given the dominant Texans pass rush, he was hardly targeted downfield. Most of his value stemmed from a trick play on fourth down late in the game.

Rushing Summary

The Texans trusted their run defense to hold an otherwise strong Bills rushing attack to mediocre numbers. They also ran the ball decently themselves, as the struggles of the Bills' run defense continued.