It was Charles Dickens who once wrote “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” It’s almost as though Mr. Dickens had privy to a time machine and was in attendance to witness the same pain and agony that Texan’s fans saw first hand on Sunday after noon at Reliant Stadium.

The Texans narrowly missed from taking out the Colts back at their place a few weeks earlier, but lost as Kris Browns’ game-closing field goal attempt sailed wide right. The prevailing thought at Texans camp was that the Colts were now due for a loss this time around. Plus, the Colts would be without pass rushing extraordinaire Dwight Freeney, who did not even make the trip to Houston.

After jumping out to an impressive 17-0 first half lead on the undefeated Colts, the Texans did almost nothing right in the second half; falling 35-27 and placing their dire playoff aspirations in jeopardy.

“We just played very poorly in the second half,” Gary Kubiak said. “You play that poorly in the second half against a Peyton Manning-led team, and you’re in trouble. It’s very disappointing.”

The loss drops the Texans to 5-6 on the season with a huge showdown looming next weekend with the now 6-5 Jacksonville, Jaguars who were thwarted 20-3 by the 49ers on Sunday. The Jaguars will not be happy campers next weekend at their place.

The Texans came out on fire after a short week of preparations and appeared to be on track to deal the Colts their first loss on the season. Matt Schaub was sharp early, leading the Texans to scores on three of their first four drives. He finished the day 31-44 for 284 yards and two touchdowns. But he also had two costly second half interceptions that were paramount in the Colts’ second-half comeback.

MVP candidate Peyton Manning got off to an uncharacteristic start, tossing two interceptions early, but settled down nicely during the second half to rally his team to the AFC South Division-clinching victory.

=
"We don't get overexcited certainly when things aren't going the way we want them to," Manning said. "We don't panic. We don't yell. We don't throw helmets. We just try to put the series behind us and move on to the next one. There was a lot of that.”

Manning was 27 of 35 for 244 yards and three touchdowns, and two interceptions.

The Colts controlled the game on both sides of the ball during the second half. Safety Clint Sessions’ pick-six off of Schaub in the fourth quarter was the preverbal nail in the coffin for the Texans after Manning had just engineered a touchdown to put the Colts up for the first time all day 21-20.

The Colts would go on to find the end zone twice more before the Texans were able to tack on a meaningless touchdown with seconds to go.

To add insult to injury on the day, division rival Tennessee won with a scintillating last-second score to beat Arizona on Sunday. Vince Young engineered a 99 yard touchdown drive to bring the Titans dead-even at 5-6 with the Texans after starting the season 0-6.