Texans offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik on pivotal 3rd-and-15 play against Packers: ‘Starting point, it’s a bad call’

Texans offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik was dialing up plays late Sunday afternoon at Lambeau Field against an aggressive Green Bay Packers defense that had relentlessly pressured quarterback C.J. Stroud all game.

Despite the attrition in the Texans’ backfield, they still had a good shot to win the football game.

After a clutch 11-yard pass to wide receiver Xavier Hutchinson on third down, the defending AFC South champions were well-positioned.

Instead of manufacturing a late victory after an extremely frustrating and unproductive offensive performance, the Texans left Lambeau Field disappointed and contemplating how the outcome could have been different with one more play or a different strategy.

What happened? Slowik was accountable Thursday in his first comments on the failed sequence.

“The third-and-fifteen, the starting point is that it is a bad call,” Slowik said.

Five keys to 5-2 Texans’ narrow, 24-22 road loss to Packers

‘I’m never the bigger person,’ tempers flare between Texans’ Stefon Diggs and Packers, Jaire Alexander

Down on the scoreboard 21-19 on a historically bad day for the passing game, the Texans were engineering a drive that put them ahead briefly, 22-21, with 1 minute and 44 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter.

When Stroud, who was limited to 10 of 21 passing for just 86 yards and 55 net yards as he was sacked four times by the Packers’ unpredictable defense engineered by defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley, they had a first down at the Packers’ 12-yard line at the two-minute warning that stopped the clock. On the ensuing two plays, the Texans ran Joe Mixon up the middle twice for a combined loss of five yards as the Packers burned two of their three timeouts. On 3rd-and-15, instead of calling one more running play before kicker Ka’imi Fairbairn’s go-ahead, 35-yard field goal, the Texans called a pass as Stroud threw incomplete to Tank Dell on a sideline throw that was short of the sticks. Even if Dell caught it, against tight press coverage from cornerback Eric Stokes, he would have been short of the first-down marker and it would have stopped the clock out of bounds. Meanwhile, Stefon Diggs, who was held to 23 yards on five catches, was double-covered.

That left the Packers with too much time and they engineered a game-winning drive capped by kicker Brandon McManus’ 45-yard field goal as time expired.

The incompletion halted the clock and the Packers preserved their third and final timeout for their game-winning drive.

“We go into it hopefully thinking we can get side leverage or off-corner, really what they have shown in similar situations,” Slowik said. “Three guys across the end zone, off-corner inside leverage on Tank. Gave him a route that he scored on last year (against the Indianapolis Colts), really the same part of the field. Instead, we got outside leverage press, which is hard. That is not what the route is for. They doubled Stefon, so really for the quarterback you have to get all the way to the backside, which he would have been good on that play but he has already been hit 12 times. Everything trickles down in the NFL.

“It is not always one given play. I think what C.J. did in that moment was 100 percent right. We can’t hold on to the ball. We have to get the ball out of our hands and look be darned a little bit. To me, it is the fact that we have had the protection issues early in the game that we are not confident being able to hang in the pocket.”

On a day where the Texans had no touchdown passes and the defense and special teams created three turnovers and Mixon rushed for 115 yards and two touchdowns, they ultimately came up short and their three-game winning streak was snapped.

“A touchdown,” Slowik said when asked what’s the goal on the play. “Tank is not the only option of that play that I talked through. When you have protection issues, and you feel like the quarterback can’t hang in the pocket long than that trickles down to a lot of stuff. At the end of the day, I didn’t call a good play. What they played is not at all what I called the play for and that stinks for me as a coordinator to look at that and think that play call stinks.

“That happens sometimes, sometimes you get the opposite. Sometimes, it is the end of game against Tampa Bay last year and I call a play with really one option, and they play the coverage I am hoping for and we score a touchdown. It is some give-and-take right there. That is why in the NFL it is so hard when you get in situations like that. I always look at what led to that situation. If we are in 3rd-and-8, I think all of us on offense feel very strongly that we are in a good position right there.”

Stroud passed for a career-low after the Texans entered the game ranked fifth in passing offense. The Texans lost 31 yards on sacks, meaning they had a net passing game of 55 yards.

“I just try to execute every play that I can, that I get called,” Stroud said. “I don’t really have a philosophy right then and there. I’m trying to talk to (Texans coach DeMeco Ryans), but I really can’t get over there. But what it seemed like is we were trying to just run out the clock and then try to kick the field goal before we ended up having to throw the ball on the third down and give them the ball back with like 1:40 left. I think that it was a good plan, just got to execute better.”

Mixon was the bell-cow for a one-dimensional offense that couldn’t solve its protection issues.

“Along the same lines, we are 1st-and-10 from the 12-yard line or something like that from the first down,” Slowik said. “We call a run because Joe was in a groove. We get blown off the ball and the next thing you know it is 2nd-and-12. They run the same pressure, I call a run play that we have called five times in the game, and it is out best run by far, which is premier against the pressure. We executed it worst than we did the other five times. We lose three more yards. Now, 3rd-and-15 is tough anyway. It was a bad situation all the way around.”

Dell finished 0 for 4 on targets with a dropped touchdown pass.

“We had a one-on-one opportunity there.,” Texans coach DeMeco Ryans siad. “And we have to win that one-on-one opportunity which we put Tank [Dell] and C.J. in that spot to win a one-on-one opportunity and we didn’t make the play, didn’t get it done.”

Was the goal to go out of bounds and stop the clock?

“The goal is to complete the pass,” Ryans said.

Ryans said he thought the Texans had a chance to score, but the pass to Dell just didn’t work out.

“Our goal is always to go score, that’s our goal,” Ryans said. “They did a good job of stopping us. Didn’t get in. Obviously, we didn’t pass the ball well all day. So, wasn’t good all the way around.

“We thought we had a completion there to Tank. He was open, just a little tight on the sidelines. Thought we had a good completion. I credit the Packers. They finished it the right way. Made the plays when they needed to make it, and they finished the game the right way.”

Hutchinson was the lone receiver to catch a pass besides Diggs.

“Playing on the road is obviously tough, but when you’re going on the road, you got to execute at a high level,” Diggs said. “You can’t ride the roller coaster. You’re going against a good team and they came to play. When you go into someone else’s house, you’ve got to have a mindset and you’ve got to execute.”

The Texans went 4 for 13 on third downs, including Stroud completing just 2 of 7 throws on third down for 13 yards while absorbing three of his four sacks.

“We kept shooting ourselves in the foot once again,” Stroud said. “That’s just a recipe for disaster when you’re playing against a great team.”

Aaron Wilson is a Texans and NFL reporter for KPRC 2 and click2houston.com