"Off the field, Mario Williams hates having the spotlight on him. Post-practice group interviews at his locker especially unnerve him. But put him under the lights in prime time and he strides straight to the center of the stage.

Denver found this out last year, when Williams posted 3½ sacks in the first night game of his NFL career. Then, against Jacksonville on Monday evening, the once-maligned top pick in the 2006 draft added three more while also forcing a fumble on the last one that set up an insurance touchdown in what became a convincing, last-place escaping 30-17 Texans victory over the Jaguars.

“We finally got a chance for the whole world to see us,” Williams said, “so you’ve got to take advantage of it.”

His dominance was a conspicuous difference for the Texans over their early-season 30-27 overtime loss to Jacksonville. And the Texans have won two in a row now because they have started taking the ball away. Williams separating David Garrard from the football, which immediately preceded a seven-yard touchdown run by Steve Slaton that gave Houston a 23-3 lead, was the eighth turnover the defense has forced in the last two games.

That’s one fewer than they managed in the first 10.

“We’re pretty much just going out there and trying to make things happen,” Williams said, deflecting any notion that there has been a radical philosophical shift in how they choreograph their defense. “The thing with us is we’ve got to stay focused and tackle. We’ve got to keep working on that.”

The Texans made Cleveland cough the ball up five times in a 16-6 victory and, in Jacksonville, they encountered another opponent ripe for pilfering. The free-falling Jaguars were coming off a dismal five-turnover effort of their own against Minnesota. They proceeded to lose the ball twice in the first quarter, contributing hugely to the Texans taking an early 10-0 lead."