The Houston Texans first win of the season couldn’t have come at a better time.

The Texans had been faltering through the first weeks of the season. Having terrible fourth quarters and remaining winless through their first four games.

The team was unable to move the ball offensively and unable to stop teams in fourth quarters and it led to frustration in the locker room as they headed to Jacksonville last week, but the Texans answered many questions by earning a 13-6 win over the Jaguars, improving to 1-3-1 on the year while also outplaying the Jaguars in the final quarter of the game.

“You always wake up feeling a lot of better when you win,” said Texans head coach Lovie Smith. “But whether you win or lose it’s the same, you have to evaluate and move on from there. We’re excited about a lot of good things we did. We had been close, we needed to finish and we did that. Our offense needed a drive to go down and score and we did that in a way that befits who we want to be as a football team. It was a good day.”

The win came at an important time for the Texans, five games into the year and as the team heads into a bye week, bringing much needed positivity to the locker room and the organization.

“The bye came at a good time, it’s right there kind of at the end of the first quarter of our season and you have some bumps and bruises right now, and we get this week to heal up from those and we get a chance to evaluate what we’ve done through this first quarter and better ourselves from that. I’m excited to have this week to do that.”

The Texans rookies had a huge involvement in the win and Smith was quick to praise them. Dameon Pierce ran for 99 yards on 26 carries with a score with Kenyon Green blocking well for him upfront, and defensively, Jalen Pitre and Derek Stingley Jr. were first and seond on the team in tackles for the game while Pitre recovered a fumble and Stingley deflected two passes and came away with an interception.

“It seems like we’re saying it each week, but they’re getting better and they’re really talented,” Smith said. “They love playing and they’re improving, Pierce ran great, Kenyon Green has to do well up front and he’s doing that. In order for us to hold them defensively, Pitre had to do well, Stingley had to do well and it was good seeing him get his first interception. Our young players are getting better weekly and they still haven’t reached their potential.”

Now, with a bye week on their hands, the Texans can get healthy and get an extra week of preparation for a very good team as they face the Raiders in their next outing. But right now, the Texans aren’t focused on that, they’re just focused on themselves.

“You can see how we want to win football games, we just have to build on it,” Smith said. “We want to be able to run the football and that’s what allowed us to win last week was how we ran the football. Our special teams have been great all year and that continued as well. Defensively, we got a couple takeaways and forced them either through that or a turnover on downs to turn it over five times. If we keep continuing to do those thing,s we can win football games.