HOUSTON (CBS HOUSTON) – One week after one of the most embarrassing showings in the franchise’s history the Texans defense bounced back to help lead the team to its third win of the season.

It finally clicked.

“This is kinda what we expected to be,” said Jared Crick who had a sack in the game. “You know just things didn’t go our way the first part of the season, but guys came this week, we worked hard. We stayed late. Put in the time and effort and it paid off for us today.”

J.J. Watt echoed the same sentiment.

“Obviously we haven’t always been that so we want to be that, that’s our goal, to be that.”

The Texans defense recorded a franchise tying record seven sacks, with Whitney Mercilus snagging three and a half, Watt two and a half, and the aforementioned Crick sack.

“It was a lot more fun, that’s for damn sure,” said Watt. “We just played better. It started early in the game. We started to get some energy, some momentum, and we kept it rolling all game.”

The team knew they were close to breaking out.

“I think we have some pretty good pass rushers on this team,” said outside linebacker John Simon. “We’ve been pretty solid on third down all season long and we just haven’t been recently been able to get them in third and long situations where we’ve really got after the quarterback.”

There was certainly a different attitude from the Dolphins debacle.

“We rushed with a vengeance,” said Vince Wilfork. “We didn’t want to be denied. Everything we did we wanted to do it full speed even if it was wrong.”

With the bye week ahead, the Texans can build on the performance they were expecting to see from early in the season.

“We expect to play well,” said Brian Cushing. “We’ve been kind of up and down. Obviously some weeks not playing up to our capabilities but today we did.”

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