Texans shuffle line with tackles Trent Brown, Aireontae Ersery injured, Tytus Howard back at tackle

HOUSTON – The Texans’ offense was forced to engineer a line shuffle Sunday during a narrow win over the Las Vegas Raiders.

In the second half, rookie left tackle Aireontae Ersery suffered a broken bone in his hand and left the game. He will undergo further evaluation on the next steps medically. Ersery was replaced by backup Blake Fisher.

In the fourth quarter, veteran right tackle Trent Brown sustained a left knee injury and didn’t return. He was limping noticeably after the game in the Texans’ locker room, but didn’t have a brace on his leg. Brown is expected to undergo a magnetic resonance imaging exam.

The availability of both players for a Saturday road game against the Los Angeles Chargers is undetermined.

The versatility and experience of Tytus Howard paid off as he stepped in at right tackle as Jarrett Patterson plugged in for him at left guard. The Texans managed to close out the Raiders with a 23-21 victory at NRG Stadium, their seventh win in a row as they improved to 10-5 overall and remain seventh in the AFC playoff standings.

“I’ve been preparing for that moment every week,” said Howard, a former first-round draft pick who has started at every position across the offensive line except for center. “Even though I’ve been playing guard, I’m always taking tackle reps because I know at any given moment, I gotta go back out there and I gotta be ready. So, that’s something I’m prepared to do if I had to go back to tackle. So, I’m ready.

“We’ve got guys that’s gonna step in like Jarrett and play some good football. Blake came in and played well for us, too. You’ve always gotta be ready in this league. You never know what’s gonna happen. I’ve been preparing my whole career, my whole life for moments like that in the game to step up and help the team.”

It was a choppy game overall for the offense.

They didn’t score a touchdown until the second half and leaned on kicker Ka’imi Fairbairn for three field goals from 55, 50 and 49 yards.

Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud got off to a slow start before rallying the offense in the fourth quarter with some solid drives. He was never sacked despite the presence of Raiders star defensive end Maxx Crosby, who had one quarterback hit. Stroud was hit four times overall.

The running game wasn’t good for the majority of the game except for a 30-yard run from Nick Chubb. Jawhar Jordan made some yards out of nothing with limited room to operate and finished with 53 yards on 15 carries with Woody Marks held out of the game due to a lingering ankle injury.

“We’ll look at the film and see overall how the offensive line did,” Texans coach DeMeco Ryans said. “I thought the protection was good. They sent a lot of pressure at us. I thought we picked the pressures up really well. For me, watching it from the sideline, the run game, we’ve got to get more movement, we’ve got to get a hat on a hat better. Too many guys in the backfield.”

The Texans rushed for 83 yards on 26 carries, a 3.2 average. There wasn’t a lot of traction gained in the trenches compared to the Raiders’ offense, which got 128 rushing yards from standout rookie running back Ashton Jeanty.

“The main thing is we couldn’t run the football,” Ryans said. “We didn’t control the line of scrimmage how we needed to control the line of scrimmage. They got a lot of negative tackles for loss, knocked us back a few times and we didn’t run the ball well.

“On the flipside of that, they were able to run the ball effectively and that was the difference in the game. If we control the line of scrimmage better, we can sustain drives a little bit better to be in better control of the game.”

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