Three days before the Texans beat the Cowboys at AT&T Stadium, Jake Paul beat Mike Tyson on the same field. On Monday night, Dallas looked every bit like the 58-year-old former heavyweight champion.
In a 34-10 win, the knockout blow for the Texans (7-4) came courtesy of 28-year-old Derek Barnett. With Dallas lurking early in the fourth quarter, the defensive end Cooper Rush, forcing a fumble caught in mid air by rookie Tyler Guyton. A split second later, after Guyton tried to advance the ball, Texans safety Jalen Pitre blasted the ball loose again. That’s when Barnett scooped it up and raced 28 yards for a touchdown. And as fate would have it, former Texans All-Pro J.J. Watt was a live guest on the ManningCast.
“That’s a D-lineman’s dream,” said the three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year. “You go for a sack, he does not have a celebration ready because he did not see this coming whatsoever. Just excited to get in the end zone and now get as quickly as he can to the oxygen tank.”
If Barnett’s low-key celebration looked like he’d been there before, it was because he had. As a rookie with the Eagles in 2017, he returned a fumble 23 yards for his first career touchdown in a Christmas Day win over the Raiders, en route to the Eagles’ first Super Bowl championship.
Could Barnett be headed to another Super Bowl? Houston has a long way to go but don’t discount the Texans simply because they beat the sky-is-falling Cowboys (3-7). Houston now has consecutive games against Tennessee (2-8) and Jacksonville (2-9) and could be 9-4 entering their December bye two weeks from now. They have a playoff-tested quarterback in C.J. Stroud, one of the league’s best receivers in Nico Collins and a premier back in Joe Mixon.
Playing his first game in 43 days, Collins returned from a hamstring injury and immediately caught a 77-yard touchdown on the game’s first snap, although an ineligible-man-downfield flag negated the score. Six plays later, Mixon scored on a 45-yard burst through the middle of the line. Acquired in a trade from Cincinnati in March, Mixon had 120 yards and three touchdowns – one shy of his 2022 career best – on 20 carries.
And as they proved on Monday night, the Texans also have a pass rush. Including Barnett’s game-turning play, they totaled five sacks, the third time this season they’ve had at least five, and cashed in a Derek Stingley interception when Mixon scored his second touchdown late in the first quarter. Danielle Hunter, who had two sacks on Monday, and Will Anderson each have 7½ sacks this season, tied for seventh in the NFL.
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