Raiders vs. Texans 2017 final score: Houston defense dominates hobbled Oakland offense

It didn’t take much offense against a hobbled Oakland Raiders team, but Brock Osweiler and the Houston Texans were able to find enough success to get a 27-14 win to advance to the Divisional Round of the postseason.

Houston will learn its destination Sunday when the Miami Dolphins and Pittsburgh Steelers play. If the Steelers win, the Texans will face the New England Patriots, but if the Dolphins win, it’ll be a trip to play the Kansas City Chiefs. The Texans played both teams in September, beating the Chiefs in Week 2 before losing to the Jacoby Brissett-led Patriots a week later.

With Osweiler starting Saturday, the Texans’ offense found the end zone three times and the quarterback may have done enough to keep himself in the starting lineup, even if Tom Savage is ready to return next week. Osweiler finished with 168 passing yards, a touchdown pass and a touchdown run that put the game on ice.

He avoided mistakes and the Texans were able to stick to a conservative game-plan that fed Lamar Miller often. What may be even more encouraging was Osweiler’s ability to find wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins.

The pair have struggled to get on the same page in 2016, but connected five times for 67 yards Saturday, including a 38-yard pass down the sideline and a 2-yard touchdown before halftime.

But the real story of the game for the Texans was a defense that spent the majority of the day eating up a Raiders offense plagued by injuries.

Oakland started third-string quarterback Connor Cook after Derek Carr suffered a leg fracture in Week 16 and Matt McGloin suffered a shoulder injury in the team’s regular season finale.

The absence of veteran leadership was noticeable for the Raiders for most of the day:

Cook unsurprisingly struggled against the Texans — the No. 1 defense in the NFL — for most of the game. He completed just 18 of his 45 passes for 161 yards, and started his day with an early interception to Jadeveon Clowney on a screen pass.

It wasn’t until the fourth quarter that Cook finally found a bit of a rhythm, leading the Raiders down the field for a touchdown when he found Andre Holmes in the middle of the end zone from eight yards out.

On a subsequent drive, Oakland threatened to further cut into Houston’s lead, but Cook overthrew a pass to Amari Cooper that was intercepted. The second interception of the day for Cook essentially ended any slim hopes for the Raiders, and he threw a third interception in the final seconds.

The Texans didn’t do much offensively and will presumably need more to beat either the Chiefs or Patriots, but it was a conservative game-plan from the beginning that relied on the defense. On the first drive of the game, the Texans punted from Oakland’s 37-yard line, setting the tone for Houston’s priorities to lean on defense.

That defense rose to the occasion Saturday, and will need to rise again when Houston faces a tougher test next week.