he end zone for a touchdown on Sunday against the Colts.On the next drive Stephen Anderson Color Rush Jersey , he shoved a lineman out of his path and tossed Andrew Luck to the ground for a 9-yard loss to force a punt.This is what the Houston Texans envisioned when they selected the defensive end with the first overall pick in the 2014 draft.After missing all but four games as a rookie because of a knee injury, Clowney has steadily improved each year and had the best season of his career in 2017 when he played all 16 games for the first time.He’s had some good games in the past, but Sunday was perhaps the finest performance of his career, a game where he made play after play to help the Texans to their first win of the season.Clowney finished with two sacks, four quarterback hits, four tackles for losses and that fumble recovery for a touchdown to earn AFC defensive player of the week honors for the first time in his career.The recognition meant a lot to Clowney after the struggles he’s had since being drafted out of South Carolina.“I’ve been through a lot from the day I walked in here, the first game ever I get hurt, battled back, got hurt again, battled back,” he said. “My back’s against the wall. Just keep battling, competing and showing up. That’s the way I live and that’s what I’m going to keep bringing every week, hopefully.”Coach Bill O’Brien said there’s a simple reason why Clowney has been playing so well this season.“I think he feels better,” O’Brien said. “I think with JD, when he feels good, body-wise, he goes out there and he’s hard to handle.”Clowney missed most of training camp recovering from offseason arthroscopic knee surgery and sat out in Week 2 with a back injury. But he’s feeling great now and it showed on Sunday.He said now that he’s not dealing with any injuries it makes it easier for him to improve during the week at practice.“I’m going to practice every day Jeff Allen Color Rush Jersey , working on my craft and just working on stuff I wasn’t good at, trying to get better at it and enhancing stuff I was already good at,” he said.The 25-year-old is trying to use his hands better and come off the corner quicker and said being healthy makes trying new things much easier.After his big game, the question is if this is the Clowney the Texans can expect every week, starting on Sunday night when they host the Dallas Cowboys.“Yeah, I hope so,” he said. “That’s what I expect out of myself. Just go and put all my effort to this team and my teammates and go out there and compete at a high level.”Clowney has paired with three-time Defensive Player of the Year J.J. Watt to power a fearsome defensive front.Injuries to both players over the past few years have made it rare for both Watt and Clowney to play together. Now that they are both back on the field they believe that they’ll only get better.“We know what our team is capable of when everybody is out there and healthy and flying around,” Watt said. “We’ve all had our issues in the past with health. If we can stay healthy and we can all put it together at the same time and play the game we know how to play, we have a chance to be pretty good, but it’s a matter of doing it, not talking about it.”Dallas coach Jason Garrett discussed the difficulty of dealing with both Watt and Clowney and how they might try double-teaming them or using tight ends or running backs to try and help slow them down.“Every time those guys go out there, they seem like they’re disrupting what the offense is trying to do,” Garrett said. “They’re both really good run defenders. They can pressure the passer and make those impact plays throughout a game. It’s obviously critical for the guys who are blocking them to be able to handle it and block them well.”But Clowney doesn’t care who they try to block him with, he has just one thought.“Go run through him, get to the quarterback, no matter who I’m going against,” he said. “Just try to run through this guy and get to that quarterback as quickly as possible.”He isn’t sure if Sunday was his best game as a Texan Zach Fulton Color Rush Jersey , but has a plan for trying to replicate that success.“I’m just trying to get better week by week, play by play and just keep competing at a high level,” he said. The Houston Texans have turned things around after opening the season 0-3, winning three straight games to move out of the AFC South basement.There’s still plenty of work to do though as their offense has struggled to move the ball and protect quarterback Deshaun Watson.Houston beat the Buffalo Bills 20-13 on Sunday, but needed an interception return for a touchdown in the fourth quarter to do it as they managed just one touchdown on offense for the second straight week.The Texans had a chance to put the game away on offense before the big defensive play but couldn’t get it done. They trailed by three with about two minutes remaining on Sunday when they reached the 1-yard line on a 41-yard penalty for pass interference in the end zone. But they lost 7 yards on three plays, capped by an incomplete pass intended for Ryan Griffin that Matt Milano knocked down and had to settle for a tying field goal.It was a particularly tough day for Watson, who entered the game dealing with a chest injury and was hit 19 times and committed a season-high three turnovers in the win.He knows that he must get better with a meeting with the Jaguars coming up on Sunday, but also pointed out that there are going to be some growing pains since he’s still very early in his career.“There’s always room to improve,” he said. “And this is only the 12th game of my career so I’m always experiencing and learning, and I’m going to continue learning for however long I play this game. Every game is a new experience, and for me to go out there (Sunday), I learned something new. I’m going to learn from it and move on.”The Texans made some moves to improve their offensive line in the offseason, but the group has continued to struggle. Watson has been sacked 25 times, which is the second-most in the NFL, and he’s taken 66 other hits.Despite this the second-year player wouldn’t criticize his line and said the problem is because of many different factors.“As a whole we’ve just got to do better,” he said. “Me getting the ball out, those guys doing their job Jay Prosch Color Rush Jersey , making sure the play-calling is right, just all on the same page. You can’t point fingers and pin it all on one group of guys. It’s a team sport. We’re all in it together, and we’ve got to come back, watch the film, correct it and move on.”Coach Bill O’Brien didn’t provide any specifics on what Houston can do to improve its offense, but insisted that it’s his responsibility to fix it.“We’ve got to get these guys to be more consistent in how they play,” he said. “That’s coaching. That’s really what we have to get done.”The Titans and Jaguars have lost two games in a row after starting out their seasons strong to leave them and the Texans tied with 3-3 records.After how terribly Houston’s season started the fact that the Texans could take the division lead with a win over Jacksonville is rather encouraging.“I feel good for these guys,” O’Brien said. “We know we have to improve in areas, obviously, but that’s what the league’s all about. I think winning the last three games the way we’ve won them shows a lot about that locker room and what they’re all about. If we can improve and get better in a lot of different areas, maybe we can do something.”“To come back from where we were is a testament to those guys, but there’s a long way to go,” O’Brien continued.