Houston ? With less than a minute to go and the end zone in sight, Byron Leftwich once again had the game in his huge, capable hands.
Surprisingly, Leftwich let it all slip away.
Demarcus Faggins returned Leftwich’s errant pass 43 yards for a touchdown with 42 seconds left, sending the Houston Texans to a 20-6 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday.
“I just knew with all my heart we would find a way to put this thing into overtime,” Leftwich said. “This is the first time that we’ve ended up on this end of it.”
David Carr upstaged Leftwich in a showdown of emerging young quarterbacks, going 26-of-34 for 276 yards and a touchdown to lead the Texans (4-3) to their fourth win in the last five games.
Houston’s only loss during that time came in overtime against Minnesota, and the Texans finally moved above .500 for the first time in franchise history this late in a season.
In the latest edition of this developing AFC South rivalry, the Texans moved the ball with ease on offense, held Jacksonville (5-3) to 39 yards rushing and avoided the costly emotional outbursts that doomed the Jaguars.
“They definitely came in with some cockiness,” Texans linebacker Jamie Sharper said. “And we handed it back to them.”
A week after leading the Jaguars to the winning field goal at Indianapolis, Leftwich had another chance for some late-game heroics in the stadium where he made his rookie debut last year. Instead, Faggins stepped in front of receiver Ernest Wilford for the interception and never broke stride on his way down the sideline into the end zone.
“I wanted to throw to someone else and my legs weren’t adjusted and it just got away from me,” Leftwich said.
Leftwich finished 25-of-40 for 227 yards with two interceptions, but got almost no help from the ground game after Fred Taylor left the game in the third quarter with a hip pointer. He should be available to play next week.
The Jaguars compounded their problems by committing a handful of stupid penalties, two that directly led to 10 points, and looking totally flat after their big win over the Colts.
“You can’t lose your head there,” Jacksonville coach Jack Del Rio said. “For us to take the next step … that is something we need to be better at.”
Meanwhile, the Texans showed uncommon poise down the stretch for a team that’s usually been out of the playoff race by autumn.
Midway through the fourth quarter, Texans coach Dom Capers made a bold decision to run a fake field goal on fourth-and-2 from the Jacksonville 17. Holder Chad Stanley made the gamble pay off with a nifty bit of running.
Stanley took the snap, ran to the left and stopped a defender in his tracks with a pitch fake before finishing a 5-yard run. Jacksonville’s John Henderson shoved Stanley to the ground well after the play, drawing a personal foul penalty.
Three plays later, Kris Brown kicked a 21-yard field goal to give Houston a 10-point lead.
“It was a risky play, but we executed it right,” Stanley said. “I know I looked pretty slow coming out of there.”
An earlier Jacksonville blunder allowed the Texans a chance to score just before halftime.
Brown missed a 53-yard field goal attempt as time expired but Jaguars defensive lineman Marcus Stroud drew a flag for trying to climb over the pile to block the kick.
The 15-yard penalty gave Houston another chance, and Brown nailed the 38-yarder to give the Texans a 10-3 lead at the break.
The Texans made a few silly mistakes of their own, including one on Jabar Gaffney’s 15-yard run off a reverse late in the first quarter. Gaffney lost the ball during a premature celebration just before crossing the goal line, and Jacksonville challenged the score.
The touchdown was overturned after a quick replay review and the Jaguars quickly seized upon Gaffney’s gaffe, going 54 yards in 12 plays for a 44-yard field goal by Josh Scobee.
“I was trying to get a hold of it to spike it,” Gaffney said. “I guess it’s a lesson learned. I don’t want to see what would have happened if it came out the other way.”
Notes: Faggins recorded his second career interception and first for a score. … The Texans held an opponent without a touchdown for only the second time in team history. The last came in a 24-6 win over Pittsburgh on Dec. 8, 2002. … This was the first game this season in which Leftwich didn’t throw a touchdown.
