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HOUSTON -- When the Houston Texans host the Tennessee Titans on Sunday, it will be the first time since 2010 theyll play without J.J. Watt.A person familiar with Watts condition said the star defensive lineman he had back surgery Thursday and it is expected to miss the rest of the season. The person spoke to The Associated Press on Thursday night on condition of anonymity because the team hasnt announced the surgery.Watt was placed on the injured reserve Wednesday. Its his second back surgery in two months after he missed training camp and Houstons four preseason games after surgery in July to repair a herniated disk. He will miss a game for the first time in his career after starting 83 straight games since he was drafted in 2011.Watts loss is a huge blow to a team looking to bounce back after a 27-0 loss to New England last week. The Texans know that one person cant replace what Watt brought to their team, but coach Bill OBrien expects everyone to pitch in to help make up for his absence.OBrien was with the Patriots in 2008 when they went 11-5 despite playing without Tom Brady for all but one game.Ive been around teams where a top player goes down and the mentality of the team, which needs to be the mentality of a team, is that if a good player goes down -- if any player goes down -- the next guy has to step up, he said. Thats the mentality of this team.Defensive coordinator Romeo Crennel wouldnt say who would start in Watts place. But he did say that other stars of his defense like Jadeveon Clowney and Whitney Mercilus will have to continue to improve to keep the defense afloat.Tennessee coach Mike Mularkey said their game plan wont change with Watt out and knows Houstons defense has plenty of other threats the Titans will have to deal with.They have a pretty good front there, so we have a lot of guys we have to handle up there, he said.The Titans have struggled against Houston the past two seasons and have lost four in a row in the series. Tennessee defensive tackle Jurrell Casey knows that if they hope to contend in the AFC South theyll have to figure out a way to beat the Texans.Its something thats been haunting us for the last couple years ... its a ... divisional opponent thats been on top of our division for a long time, he said. If we want to take our division by storm, its got to start this week.Some things to know about the Titans-Texans game:ROAD WARRIOR: Marcus Mariota has been at his best away from Tennessee so far in his young NFL career. In seven games on the road, Mariota has thrown for 1,612 yards with 12 touchdowns with only two interceptions for a 104.9 passer rating. He also has a rushing TD and caught a TD catch on the road. This will be his first game in Houston, and Mariota has five TD passes with a 92.6 passer rating in his last three games against divisional opponents. Mariota isnt sure why hes played so much better on the road, where three of his four career victories have come.Thats going to have to change, Mariota said. Really, again, Ive got to continue just to prepare like any other game, focus on what I have to do and what this team asks me to do, and just continue to be a better player each and every single day.NO EXCUSES: Houston quarterback Brock Osweiler is in his fourth year in the NFL, but spent most of that time as a backup and has just 10 career starts. Hes struggled so far this season, throwing four interceptions and three touchdown passes. He isnt using his inexperience as an excuse.I dont use my lack of starts as an excuse for anything, he said. I expect myself to play at an extremely high level. I have great confidence in my abilities and what I can do, and I have great confidence in the teammates around me to help me do my job. Im never going to use my lack of starts for an excuse or say: `Ill figure it out eventually or anything like that.OFFENSIVE BOOST: The Titans are hoping tight end Delanie Walker is back against the Texans; he missed the Oakland game with a right hamstring injury. He had a career season last year with 94 catches for 1,088 yards, and Walker has been the Titans biggest deep threat so far, with the longest reception this season at 32 yards. Barring a setback, wide receiver Kendall Wright also should make his season debut in Houston. Wright caught Mariotas first career touchdown pass but has been hampered by injuries over the past season. His return would provide a speedy boost to the offense.RETURNING TO HOUSTON: This will be the second straight season Andre Johnson has returned to the town where he played his first 12 NFL seasons and still keeps a home. Johnson had six catches for 77 yards and two TDs when he played the Texans as a member of the Indianapolis Colts last season, and he said its fun to go back home.Itll be good to go back and see some faces I havent seen in a little while, Johnson said.---AP Sports Writer Teresa Walker contributed to this report.---AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org and http://twitter.com/AP-NFLTyler Zeller Jersey . Instead of dwelling on the negative, Oates focused on what was good about the clubs recent play. It worked. John Henson Jersey . There are some early surprises in the race for the Hart Trophy, but two of the contenders are the leagues biggest stars over the past decade. There are many more players in contention for the awards than just the three that Ive named, and a good or bad week can easily alter the landscape, but through the first 20 or so games of the NHL season, this is how the awards races look to me. http://www.cheapbucksjerseys.com/ . It was hard for Luck to pull off another comeback, or even get into the end zone, while standing on the sideline. Rivers threw a 22-yard touchdown pass to rookie Keenan Allen and Nick Novak kicked four field goals to give the Chargers a 19-9 victory against the Colts on Monday night. Oscar Robertson Jersey . Scott won the Australian PGA last week in his first event in Australia since winning the U.S. Masters in April. American Matt Kuchar, ahead by two strokes with four to play and even with Scott with one to go, double-bogeyed the 18th after taking two shots to get out of a bunker. Cheap NBA Jerseys . The Islanders dealt Thomas Vanek to the Montreal Canadiens after less than a year on Long Island. Meanwhile, the Oilers dealt long-time sniper Ales hemsky to the Ottawa Senators on Wednesday for a fifth-round pick in 2014 and a third-rounder in 2015.CONCORD, N.C. -- Denny Hamlin didnt just have an engine failure with 26 laps remaining Sunday in the Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.It was an engine failure that all of a sudden gave four other drivers a whole lot more hope of advancing out of the second (quarterfinal) round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup.With four drivers sitting outside the top 30 and four drivers eventually being eliminated after the quarterfinal round, having five drivers finish outside the top 30 means that at least one driver who had trouble Sunday will advance.Kevin Harvick fell out of the Sprint Cup race with 183 laps remaining because of an oil pump bearing coming apart and left the Cup garage at the time 27 points behind the driver eighth in the standings. As other Chase drivers had trouble through the event, he is now just eight points out of the transfer spot with two races left in the quarterfinal round.I went to sleep and woke up and had gained 25 points or whatever it was, Harvick said after completing the Xfinity race later in the day. It definitely was a better situation than what it was when we first fell out. Its still not what you want, but it definitely could be a lot worse.Harvick is 12th in the standings after his 38th-place finish thanks to that faulty oil pump bearing.Weve had some crazy stuff go wrong this year and I guess you could just add that one to the list, Harvick said. But weve been here before, so we know what weve got to do.What he had to do got a whole lot easier after Hamlins issue. Hamlin, who finished 30th and sits in eighth, has a three-point edge on Austin Dillon (32nd, crash) and Chase Elliott (33rd, crash) and six points on Joey Logano (36th, two crashes). Hamlin is 16 points behind seventh-place Martin Truex Jr., and if he didnt have a problem, all of those who did would likely have been at least 19 points from the current cutoff spot.You at least have a chance now because there for a while, it was looking like four and that wasnt very good odds, Harvick said. The odds definitely got better. You at least have another option [other than winning].As crazy as this thing can be, anybody can have trouble, so it can even up pretty fast.Four of the drivers -- Hamlin, Harvick, Logano and Elliott -- would not surprise anyone if they win one of the final two races of the round at Kansas and Talladega. Dillon hasnt run as much up front, but he also could be a threat at Talladega.Were going to quite possibly our best racetrack, said Logano, who swept the round last year. I think Charlotte and Kansas are our two best racetracks, so I felt very confident going into this round and I had a very good car today.Im looking forward to getting to Kansas and seeing what weve got and seeing if we can break through to get a win, but, if not, a solid points day. We can manage with what weve got, but we cant afford to make any miistakes with Talladega coming up.ddddddddddddhile Elliott doesnt have a win, he has been knocking on the door. He led 103 laps at Charlotte.Its unfortunate for us, Elliott said after his crash. But we just have to have more race cars like we had today and I think we will be fine. ... We can just try to have another car like we had today and not make any mistakes next week.The driver who made the mistake Sunday was Truex. After Dillon took two fresh tires instead of four on a pit stop, Truex accidentally turned him on the ensuing restart. That crash collected Elliott and others.I flat-out ran Austin over, Truex said. It was stupid. He got going pretty good and started to spin his tires a little and I tried to give him a shove to get him going thinking I was going to help him out.I guess I hit him way too hard. I thought I was square and we were good. ... I feel awful for him and [his crew chief] and his guys and all the other guys I tore up. I just misjudged it. Just a stupid move.And there could be more stupid moves. There are two races left in the round.Each race youre going to have a handful that are going to have issues -- Kansas I dont think will be any different, and Talladega we know will be crazy, Hamlin said.Thats why were not out of it by any means. We just have a little hole we have to dig out of.Xfinity Series: Koch the big surpriseIn the Xfinity Series, Blake Koch was the big surprise as he finished 12th Sunday night at Charlotte to finish seventh in the first round. He had a two-point edge on Darrell Wallace Jr., who had a one-point edge on Ty Dillon for the final spot.Opening-round winners Daniel Suarez and Elliott Sadler earned automatic bids to the semifinal round, while Justin Allgaier, Brendan Gaughan, Ryan Reed, Erik Jones, Koch and Wallace advanced on points. Dillon, Brennan Poole, Ryan Sieg and Brandon Jones failed to advance.Koch, whose Kaulig Racing team started this season and moved during the year to a shop it bought on the Richard Childress Racing campus, had finishes of 11th,14th and 12th to advance.I thought it would take an average finish of 10th, but some people took themselves out of the Chase and we knew we couldnt do that, Koch said. We have been making our cars better. ... We had a pretty good race car this weekend. We raced real hard and the car stayed together for 200 laps.Erik Jones -- a favorite to win the Xfinity title -- was the only driver to go from outside the bubble to advancing. He finished fifth and ended up moving up four spots to sixth in the standings with a six-point cushion on the cutoff.I tried to keep my mind off it all week, Jones said. I went golfing a couple of times ... and tried not to think about it. I played good, so that was a good omen for mit. I played good, so that was a good omen foll Jerseys[/url] ' ' '