HOUSTON -- When the Texans' offense was really hitting its stride on Monday against the Pittsburgh Steelers, it was able to do so on the back of a potent running game led by Arian Foster. With Foster, the Texans sliced through Pittsburgh's defense, scoring on their first drive for only their third first-quarter touchdown of the season and second first-drive touchdown.

After the first quarter, though, the running game struggled. When the running game struggled, so did the rest of the Texans' offense. It illustrated how important it is for the Texans to run the ball well, especially given that they have an elite running back but don't have an elite quarterback.

Consider these stats from ESPN Stats and Info: In the first quarter Foster rushed seven times for 73 yards, all between the tackles. That's an average of 10.4 yards per rush with 6.3 yards after contact per rush. In the next three, Foster had 11 rushes between the tackles and dropped to 2.7 yards per carry and 1.7 yards after contact per carry.

It happened because of Pittsburgh's adjustments after getting so thoroughly dominated on the ground to start the game.

"Linebackers were flowing very fast to try to stop our run and try to get in their lanes," Texans left tackle Duane Brown said. They also started to blitz us more to try to throw off our zone scheme some. I think that was, and they brought Troy Polamalu in the box more so those few things I think were their adjustments to what we were doing."

It's not something they'd seen much of on Steelers film.

"Not as much; not as much," Brown said. "I didn’t see anyone have as much success early on as we did to start a game off."

Adjustments will happen in games. The Texans' coaches and players' ability to react to those adjustments dictated that the Texans' fast start didn't translate to a win.