by By DALE ROBERTSON, Houston Chronicle , The Houston Chronicle

Record: 1-2.

Sunday: Oakland at Reliant Stadium, noon.

TV/radio: CBS; 610 AM, 100.3 FM, 1010 AM (Sp.).

GETTING BURNED

In their three games, the Texans have given up big plays eight times on third-and-6 or longer when a stop likely would have forced a punt. On each occasion, their opponent went on to score points (result in parentheses):

Opponent Situation Result

Jets, 1st quarter 3-10, Jets? 43 18-yard pass (FG)

Jets, 2nd quarter 3-9, Jets?38 20-yard pass (TD)

Titans, 1st quarter 3-15, Titans? 36 16-yard pass (TD)

Titans, 1st quarter 3-19, Titans? 43 57-yard TD run

Titans, 3rd quarter 3-10, Titans? 9 91-yard TD run

Jaguars 1st quarter 3-6, Jaguars? 12 17-yard pass (FG)

Jaguars, 2nd quarter 3-11, Jaguars? 23 16-yard pass (TD)

Jaguars, 3rd quarter 3-10, Texans ? 47 28-yard pass (TD)

EXTRA: Join John McClain at 11:30 a.m. Thursday for his weekly chat. Also, see video of wideout Glenn Martinez promoting health awareness at a local charter school. chron.com/ Texans

It begs the obvious to say the Texans are playing poor defense across the board. But it boggles the mind to see how utterly ineffective they have been in situations that should be hugely to their advantage. For the Texans through the first three games, third-and-long has become the "third-and-look-out!"

"It's definitely been our Achilles' heal," weakside linebacker Zac Diles said. "We've just got to be a lot more assignment sound. We need to be locked in on every play."

Adds defensive end Mario Williams: "We've got to step up and get it fixed. Don't talk about making plays - make plays. Talking about it don't help."

Third down in general has been the Texans' weakest down defensively, although they did preserve their victory at Tennessee with an impressive series of short-yardage stuffs in the fourth quarter, when, defensive captain and middle linebacker DeMeco Ryans pointed out, "everybody on the field was accountable."

But the Texans wouldn't be last in the NFL in yards allowed - nearly 500 of them coming on third down alone - if the defense were getting itself off the field quicker. Instead, the Texans are also last in the league in thwarting third- and fourth-down conversions, and they have saved their most embarrassing gaffes for when they seemingly had opponents cornered.

"If we can get some three-and-outs or just kill some drives," safety John Busing said, "we'll be in a position to win a lot of games. It's frustrating. We've got to get off the field on third downs."

Give a team a third-and-6 outside your own 45-yard line, and you should reasonably be expected to force a punt a majority of the time. Yet at eight such junctures, the Texans have surrendered gains of at least 16 yards, with each of those plays either going for the touchdown or setting up a touchdown or a field goal.

Call it human error

The most dramatic breakdowns happened against the Titans - in the game the Texans won - when Chris Johnson ran 57 yards for a touchdown on third-and-19 in the second quarter, then topped himself with a 91-yard scoring sprint on third-and-10 from his own 9. In both cases, one player's getting caught out of position proved costly.

Even more costly, in what became a disheartening 31-24 loss to Jacksonville on Sunday, would be Dave Garrard's 16-yard completion on third-and-10 from his 23 - which he immediately followed with a 61-yard TD pass - and his subsequent 28-yard completion on third-and-11 from the Texans' 47 late in the third quarter, keeping alive the drive that produced the Jaguars' winning touchdown.

The Texans have allowed seven third-down plays of more than 25 yards.

"Nobody's going to straight-up dominate us," Ryans said. "It's going to take us messing up for something bad to happen. If we line up where we're supposed to line up and do the things we're supposed to do, we can be a hell of a defense. We kind of started to do it right at the end of the (Tennessee) game, but we need to do it for 60 minutes.

"(Defensive coordinator Frank Bush) has given us good calls. It's been missed assignments here and there. It's about technique, knowing your assignments. Players need to make plays. If you get 11 guys doing what they're supposed to do, most of the calls are going to look pretty good. Let's settle down, and let's get where we're supposed to be."

?It's been an anomaly'

Bush, for his part, suggests, "The guys are really buying what we're selling on the earlier downs, but when we get into those third-and-long situations ..."

He shook his head.

"It's not that they're not trying to do what we're asking them to do," Bush said. "It's just that we have been coming up short. Sometimes those kids try too hard to make a play, so they get out of whack, and the angles get screwed up. Structurally, we know what we're doing. We're confident in our scheme. We've just got to make sure everybody is on the same page every time. It's been an anomaly."

dale.robertson@chron.com

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