NFL Week 3: Wild stats on the Texans, Saints, Chargers, more - ESPN

If you had the Raiders at 3-0 and Texans at 0-3 after three weeks, good on you. The NFL is always wacky in September — and never wackier than when Marcus Mariota leads the Commanders to a win over the Super Bowl champion Seahawks.

Every Sunday, I'll find several of the coolest advanced stats from the day's NFL action to share with you — stats to explain all the action and what it means. Some call them NFL Next Gen Stats. I call them Next Ben Stats: the data that might not make it on the broadcast but will make you a smarter fan (and laugh a little bit, probably).

Let's start Week 3's list with coaching mistakes that might have cost the Texans a much-needed divisional win.

Jump to an eye-popping stat on:
Texans decisions | Jones up the middle
Rodgers time to pass | Styles impact
Chargers takeaways | Raiders-Saints TEs

That was via ESPN's model. The NFL Next Gen Stats model was even worse at 5.5%.

The Texans are 0-3 for a lot of reasons, and clock and game management is a solid chunk of it. This particular fourth down came with Houston losing 16-7 with 7:36 remaining. The Texans knew they'd need a touchdown to get back into it but elected to instead kick the field goal from inside the 10-yard line.

It looked like it worked out. Houston forced a fumble on the ensuing drive, then scored the go-ahead touchdown with Woody Marks. But with the score at 17-16, all the Colts needed to get back on top was a field goal. They ultimately got it to go ahead 19-17. But that wasn't the real concerning part — it's how much clock Houston coach DeMeco Ryans let run on Indy's drive before using his timeouts. After a first-and-10 run of 5 yards from Jonathan Taylor, the clock rolled from 1:04 to 0:29 (and an expiring play clock)… and then Rya