Oakland Raiders vs. Houston Texans 1st half summary, 2nd half open thread

The Mexico City crowd was rocking right from the get go in this one, and it sounded like a lot of Raiders fans. The Raiders fans in attendance would have to wait before seeing the Oakland offense hit the field though because the Texans got the ball first.

Houston's offense started out well and should have gotten a long touchdown to Deandre Hopkins from QB Brock Osweiler but the refs wrongly called Hopkins out of bounds on his run to the end zone. The mistake worked out in the Raiders favor because their defense held the Texans to a field goal after that. Nick Novak kicked the 32 yard field goal to make the score 3-0 Houston, but it should have been 4 points more if not for the bad call.

Oakland's first time on offense was not a good drive. They had 2 negative yardage plays in a row before a short screen pass on the 3rd and 19 set up Marquette King's first punt of the night. This time the Raiders defense came up with the early stop though, even if just by an inch or two. Of course it was Khalil Mack who came up with the big stop for the Raiders on the 3rd down wildcat run.

The 2nd drive for the Raiders went much, much better. Their drive went 79 yards in 8 plays, the longest of which was a 33 yard pass interference penalty on CB Johnathan Joseph who was covering Michael Crabtree. The final play of the drive was a 17 yard touchdown pass to Jalen Richard who wormed through 2 defenders on the goal line. The touchdown made the score 7-3 Raiders.

It got better after that when rookie Tyler Ervin of the Texans fumbled the following kickoff andTaiwan Jones recovered it at the Houston 19 for the Raiders. A 15 yard pass to Amari Cooper got the Raiders inside the 5 but they couldn't punch it in from the there. Their drive ended at the 1 yard line after 2 failed runs and a broken play that had a lineman as the target on a pass. They did at least get some points on the drive when Sebastian Janikowski kicked the 19 yard field goal to make the score 10-3 Oakland.

Oakland's defense was inches away from another quick turnover but rookie Shilique Calhoun dropped the sure pick 6 on Houston's first play of their next drive. The Texans offense then got a nice drive going which appeared to end in a score on a 34 yard run but Lamar Miller was out at the 1 yard line after review. No matter, the touchdown came 2 plays later on a pass to a wide open Braxton Miller to tie the game at 10.

Neither team did anything on the next few drives until the Texans got the ball back with 1:38 left in the half. It was the Raiders with the highlight play though when the first play of the drive was a Malcolm Smith jumping interception at midfield. They didn't do anything with the drive though, they ended up trying to go for it on 4th and 1 from the Texans 41 instead of attempt the 58 yard field goal in the high altitude of Mexico City.

The Texans did try to get some points with just 16 seconds left in the half. They came close too on a long pass play to Will Fuller but excellent coverage by David Amerson kept it from being a huge completion. Khalil Mack then finished the half off right with a Brock Osweiler sack on the Texans Hail Mary attempt.

Oakland will start out with the ball in the 2nd half in this game that is tied at 10.