HOUSTON – When Bill O’Brien decided to go for it on fourth-and-1 from the Texans own 34-yard line with a 3-0 deficit late in the first quarter, it was a statistically favorable decision.

While many may question his aggressiveness that early in the game, going for it gave the heavy underdog Texans a 3.6% greater chance to win the game, according to EdjSports.

The irony of this play against the Ravens is that Baltimore last year was the most aggressive team in the league on fourth down and really was the pioneer of this analytical approach in such situations. Rolling the dice with this field position this early in the game had been traditionally unthinkable, but it’s now relatively common around the league.

O’Brien also went for it knowing the Texans needed to score a lot of points Sunday to have a chance of upsetting the high-powered Ravens.

But after a Ravens timeout, Houston’s rookie play-caller, Tim Kelly, called for a play-action bootleg pass to tight end Darren Fells. Deshaun Watson’s pass was tipped at the line of scrimmage by Ravens safety DeShon Elliot to force the incompletion and turnover on downs.

Four plays later, reigning league MVP Lamar Jackson tossed his lone touchdown pass of the day to put Baltimore up 10-0. Even with just under 13 minutes left in the second quarter, the game by that point already felt over. The Ravens went on to win 33-16 in convincing fashion, dropping the Texans to 0-2.

The Texans’ point differential of minus-31 through two weeks is the third-worst mark in franchise history. Only the 2005 and 2006 seasons, when they went a combined 8-24 with a head-coaching change in between, were worse.

In fairness, the Texans' first two games were against arguably the two best teams in the NFL, so maybe they're better than their point differential shows. However, it's difficult to be optimistic about the rest of their season after looking completely overmatched for the second straight week.

Against a Ravens team that has now won 14 regular-season games in a row, Watson and the Texans offense needed to be almost perfect to have a chance Sunday. They weren’t.

Watson played fairly well against a talented Baltimore defense, completing 25 of 36 passes for 275 yards, with a touchdown and an interception. He spread the ball around, with seven players finishing with at least one catch. But the fact that Houston still lost by at least two touchdowns for the second week in a row illustrates a troubling trend.

Watson is one of the most talented quarterbacks in the league and is worth every bit of the four-year, $160 million contract extension he signed earlier this month.

But the O'Brien's failure to put the right pieces around him has now required Watson to carry the rest of the team each week in order to win. And that’s far too much to ask of any quarterback.

For as good as Watson is, the Texans failure to build around him has prevented them from maximizing his full superstar potential. When Brian Gaine was fired as the team’s general manager in 2019 after just one season in charge, rather than hire another experienced executive to replace him, the Texans instead gave O’Brien full control of all football operations.

The early returns have been disastrous, to say the least.

O’Brien first traded the Texans’ 2020 and 2021 first-round picks to the Dolphins, along with their 2021 second-round pick for left tackle Laremy Tunsil and wide receiver Kenny Stills, who has just two catches this year.

O’Brien then doubled down by signing Tunsil to a three-year, $66 million extension, which will pay him $4 million more per year than the next highest-paid tackle in the league.

Tunsil is a good left tackle, earning his first Pro Bowl selection in 2019. However, he also led the league in penalties last year among all offensive linemen and is nowhere near worth the draft capital the Texans forfeited in order to acquire him.

Even with all those resources allocated to Tunsil, Pro Football Focus still ranks the Texans’ offensive line in the bottom third of the league.

O’Brien said before the season that returning all five starters up front would provide a big boost to the rest of the offense, but if anything, it’s gotten worse.

Despite Watson's world-class athleticism and evasiveness in the pocket, he was sacked four times for the second game in a row and hit a career-high 13 times against the Ravens.

Arguably even more detrimental to Watson’s development was O’Brien’s indefensible decision to trade arguably the best wide receiver in the game, DeAndre Hopkins, to Arizona in the offseason. All he could land in return was running back David Johnson, and second and fourth-round pick draft picks.

Through two weeks, Hopkins has 22 receptions and is fifth in the league in receiving with the Cardinals while Johnson gained just 34 yards on 11 carries against the Ravens Sunday. Meanwhile, Will Fuller V, the top receiver Watson was left with, did not have a single target Sunday.

Houston's receiving corps is still a solid one with Fuller V, Randall Cobb and Brandin Cooks, who O'Brien also acquired this offseason from the Rams for a second-round pick. But losing Hopkins was massive.

To make matters even worse, the Texans are projected to have the seventh-lowest cap space in the league heading into next offseason. Without quality draft assets and a lack of cap flexibility, Watson’s supporting cast isn’t getting better any time soon.

The failure to build around Watson was magnified against the Ravens, who have been a model organization over the past few years under general manager Eric DeCosta and head coach John Harbaugh. They, on the other hand, have masterfully built around their star young quarterback in Jackson.

When the franchise decided to move on from former Super Bowl MVP Joe Flacco at the end of 2018, Harbaugh promoted Greg Roman to be the team’s offensive coordinator. Roman for years has been known for his diverse, creative rushing schemes, and his past experience working with Colin Kaepernick made him a great fit with Jackson.

Baltimore has two Pro Bowl tackles in Orlando Brown and Ronnie Stanley to anchor its offensive line. Stanley was the highest-graded pass-blocking tackle in the NFL last season and did not allow a single sack. Unlike Tunsil, Brown and Stanley are two homegrown stars still on their rookie contracts and did not cost the Ravens any additional draft capital to acquire them. 

Last year in Jackson's first full season as a starter, the Ravens surrounded him with an offensive line that included Stanley and Brown, future Hall of Fame guard Marshal Yanda and a quality veteran free-agent acquisition in running back Mark Ingram. With that group in Roman's scheme, the Ravens had a record-setting rushing attack last season, which greatly aided in Jackson's development as a passer. 

DeCosta then further added to an already elite ground game by using a second-round pick on arguably the best running back in the 2020 class in J.K. Dobbins.

On Sunday, the backfield trio of Ingram, Gus Edwards and Dobbins ran for the most fourth-quarter rushing yards since the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2017, producing 153 yards in the final quarter on 19 carries, according to ESPN Stats & Information.

The Ravens averaged 6.2 yards per rush before first contact in the final 15 minutes.

The Ravens' recent drafts have also surrounded Jackson with a rising star receiver in Marquise Brown (2019, 25th overall) and one of the best young tight ends in the league in Mark Andrews (2018, 86th overall) to aid his development as a passer.

Jackson deserves a ton of credit for how much he’s improved as a passer since he came into the league, but he would not be enjoying the success he’s been having without the Ravens supporting him with great coaching, excellent complementary players and a system perfectly tailored to his skill set.

DeCosta has also made several shrewd acquisitions over the past year to upgrade the Ravens defense to help Jackson even more early in his career.

When the team’s defense uncharacteristically struggled in the first few weeks of last year, DeCosta signed free-agent linebacker L.J. Fort to bolster an inexperienced linebacker corps.

Fort immediately stabilized the group and has also been a valuable contributor on special teams for Harbaugh.

Fort had the biggest defensive play of the game Sunday when All-Pro cornerback Marlon Humphrey forced a fumble on wide receiver Keke Coutee, and he returned the loose ball 22 yards for a touchdown. It was Baltimore’s seventh defensive touchdown in its last 12 games.

DeCosta also pulled off maybe the most impressive trade of the season last year, acquiring Marcus Peters from the Rams in October in exchange for reserve linebacker Kenny Young and a fifth-round draft pick.

The Ravens had ranked 25^th in the NFL in pass defense that season before the Peters trade, but since then they’ve had the top-ranked overall defense in the NFL and Peters was named to the 2019 All-Pro team.

He made yet another impact play for the Baltimore defense Sunday with an unbelievable diving interception on Watson late in the second quarter with the Ravens up 20-7. It was Peters' fourth interception in 12 games with the team.

While DeCosta's first full year at the helm has been filled with smart, savvy decision-making, the early O'Brien regime has been an abundance of head-scratchers.

This game was a mismatch and Jackson did not even have his best outing. He was efficient, completing 18-of-24 passes for 204 yards and a touchdown with no turnovers, but he didn’t make any electric jaw-dropping plays that we’ve grown accustomed to seeing for the past year.

That is perfectly fine because, unlike the Texans with Watson, the Ravens have built around Jackson so well enough that he doesn’t need to be Superman every week for them to win.

Baltimore has held teams to 21 or fewer points for 13 straight games and has also forced a turnover in 15 consecutive games, both the longest current active streaks in the NFL.

DeCosta since becoming Baltimore's general manager in 2019 has done an incredible job building his team and there's a chance they'll get even better in the future. They'll have the sixth most cap space in the league entering the next offseason.

The stark contrast in the way each organization has tried to support its franchise centerpiece in just the past year is astonishing.

Watson and Jackson are both incredible talents, but Watson was a far more polished passer coming into the league. Now both are among the top quarterbacks in the league, but Watson is in spite of his organization.

The Ravens have built around their signal-caller as well as any team in the league, and they are in an excellent position to compete for Super Bowls for a long time.

The Texans, on the other hand, have failed to supplement their star quarterback with a quality support system. Without a clear organizational structure, along with a lack of draft capital and salary cap space, they are in real danger of seeing a unique talent like Watson go to waste.