Coach David Culley says penalties, turnovers have occulted the Texans’ good results

The Houston Texans spent the bye week taking a look at themselves in the mirror — or, rather, on tape as they seek to improve upon their 1-8 start.

According to coach David Culley, the Texans players had the bye week off, and the assistant coaches were able to take some time off toward the end of the week.

Before the coaches got away from NRG Stadium, the staff took a look at how the team has performed in all three phases, offense, defense, and special teams, through nine games.

“What we found our during that time was, what you do is, you look at what [have] you been doing good?” Culley said. “The things you haven’t been doing good, eliminate those things, regardless of how we felt like these plays would work. They weren’t working. They weren’t very good. And what we found is that if you go back and look at the things you were doing good, we want to do more of those things now in the run game and the pass game. And then the other thing about that is when you look and you see what that is, you sit here and you say we got to get better at doing those things.”

Culley didn’t get into specifics of what the team does well, although the passing game involving receivers Brandin Cooks and Nico Collins seems self-evident, along with the pass rush led by Jonathan Greenard.

Culley did identify what has ailed the Texans.

Said Culley: “Now, what’s been hid through all the good things that we have been doing, especially offensively, is the penalties and the turnovers. So, with that being said, moving forward, we got to have a relentless effort in practice from our coaches, our players, every play, every practice, every meeting of doing things the right way. Because if you eliminate those things and see the reason the good things get blinded is because of us having bad penalties — penalties are going to happen. Some penalties are bad penalties. We’ve had some bad penalties. And then the turnovers. We go back and look at it and talk about the self-evaluation. We feel like there were three ballgames that we played this year that if we don’t have bad penalties and we don’t turn the ball over, you have a chance to win the game.”

The Texans will get a chance to see if it is merely penalties and turnovers that are the problem when they take on the 8-2 Tennessee Titans Nov. 21 at Nissan Stadium.