NEWS » t.Stewart remains a staunch sup

HOUSTON -- Despite mounting criticism in recent weeks, Brock Osweiler continues to look pretty comfortable in Houston.Osweiler bounced back from an ugly performance by throwing for 186 yards and a touchdown to help the Texans remain perfect at home this season with a 20-13 win over the Detroit Lions on Sunday.The Texans (5-3) have lost all of their road games, including a 27-9 loss to Denver on Monday.He had a good day, coach Bill OBrien said. Youre judged as a quarterback by helping your team win and I thought he did a nice job of helping us win.Osweiler has struggled in his first season with the Texans, but has been better at home where hes thrown eight of his nine touchdown passes.Im not concerned about the criticism, Osweiler said. Getting a win at home going into the bye to really put an exclamation mark on the first half of the season means so much to me.On Sunday, he gave the Texans a 7-0 lead on a 6-yard touchdown pass to C.J. Fiedorowicz in the second quarter. The Texans made it 14-0 when Lamar Miller bulled his way into the end zone from a yard out later in the quarter. That score was set up when DeAndre Hopkins used one hand to make a 12-yard reception.Osweiler believes hes starting to find chemistry with his star receiver.Every time I break the huddle, Im looking to see where hes at ... trying to see if I can get him the football, he said.Hopkins finished with four receptions for 44 yards.The Lions (4-4) cut the lead to seven when Theo Riddick connected with Matthew Stafford on a 1-yard touchdown reception early in the fourth quarter.Houston added a field goal after that before a 34-yard field goal by Matt Prater got Detroit back within a score. But Houston recovered an onside kick and ran out the clock to secure the victory.We couldnt put enough points on the board, offensively, in the first half, we were just stagnant, Lions coach Jim Caldwell said. Defensively, we stopped the run until midway through the third quarter and they really took control on the ground. We just didnt play as well as were capable of.Stafford threw for 240 yards and a touchdown for Detroit, which had a three-game winning streak snapped as the Lions were unable to continue a string of late-game comebacks.I wish I could have done it earlier in the game, Stafford said. Ive got to play better and we have to play better as a team, as an offense, earlier in the game so were not in that situation.INJURIES: The Lions were without top cornerback Darius Slay, who missed the game because of a hamstring injury. Houston receiver Jaelen Strong injured his ankle in the second quarter and didnt return. Texans nose tackle Vince Wilfork didnt return after injuring his groin in the third quarter and receiver Will Fuller left the game in the fourth quarter with a leg injury.OBRIENS OUTBURST: Houston coach Bill OBrien was seen yelling at special teams coach Larry Izzo after the Texans had just 10 men on the field for the opening kickoff of the second half. OBrien got in Izzos face and yelled for several seconds before being pushed away by another member of the staff. He turned around for a second and started to walk away before whipping back around and screaming at him for several more seconds.But OBrien denied the incident.I dont know what you guys are talking about, he said. No idea.Then he was asked about being pushed away by a staff member.No, I dont think so, he said. I dont remember that one bit.A second follow-up yielded perhaps the most telling answer of the exchange.Theres conversations that happen on the sideline, he said. Thats just kind of the nature of the game.CLOWNEYS CONTRIBUTIONS: Houston defensive end Jadeveon Clowney, who was the top overall pick in the 2014 draft, sacked Stafford for a 9-yard loss to give him three sacks this season. It was his ninth tackle for a loss this season, which is a career high.UP NEXT:Lions: Detroit visits Minnesota on Sunday.Texans: Houston is off next week before visiting the Jaguars on Nov. 13.---AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org and AP NFL Twitter feed: www.twitter.com/AP-NFL Yeezy 350 Canada Online . The Croatian served 21 aces and hit 42 winners against Sijsling, who double-faulted to give Cilic a 4-3 lead in the deciding set. "All the players, they know me and they were really happy to see me and they were really happy that this is over for me," Cilic said. Cheap Wholesale Yeezy . -- The St. Johns IceCaps weathered a wild first period with the help of goaltender Jussi Olkinuora, before finding offensive inroads in the second. http://www.cheapyeezy350canada.com/ . -- In a span of seven Washington Redskins offensive plays, Justin Tuck sacked Robert Griffin III four times. Cheap Yeezy 350 . Speaking to the Chicago Tribune at baseballs Winter Meetings in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, Boras called the former home of the Expos a "tremendous environment" for baseball. Yeezy 350 Cheap Real .Y. -- Marcell Dareus and the Buffalo Bills defence made life miserable for Super Bowl MVP Joe Flacco. Tony Stewart got back to his happy place on Tuesday, in more ways than one.Stewart, who grew up in Rushville, Indiana, and owns a ranch near Columbus, spent much of the day at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the track that captivated him as a boy and ultimately motivated him to be a champion racer of both stock cars and Indy cars.The prospect of going to IMS perks up Stewart anytime, even if it means doing hours of media and promotion for the 23rd annual Brickyard 400, set for July 24. But IMS president Doug Boles had a trick up his sleeve this time to make a working day more pleasant: He and the IMS team conceived and built a temporary 3/16-mile dirt track inside Turn 3 of the IMS oval and brought out a handful of USAC Midget cars and drivers for hot laps.Talk about Stewarts happy place.Im addicted, he admitted. As soon as I saw it, I thought, Well, Im going to need to run a couple laps. I knew it was a possibility but I didnt know for sure. I had stuff [a drivers suit and helmet] with me. The worst thing you can do is drop me in the middle of a racetrack ... of course Im going to drive.Theyve been sending me pictures and videos of the progress since Day 1, Stewart added. So Ive been looking forward to this day. Its pretty impressive to be able to do something like this in such a short amount of time.Stewart had actually been talking to Boles on and off for the past three years, having what-if conversations about the possibility of a short track on the IMS grounds. With the popular local driver having announced his retirement at the end of the season from full-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series competition, the opportunity was there for IMS to give the Hoosier native a unique parting gift hes not likely to forget anytime soon.Every year we talk and he said, We could do pavement and it would be fun, but man, you need a dirt track, Boles related. It was a pretty easy decision for us. Tony has meant a lot to the Speedway, not only because hes been able to run both of our big events, but as much as anything because he grew up here. He is pretty vocal in saying that this is his favorite race track and the place hes always wanted to win.So we wanted to have some fun with Tony and our friends at USAC helped us lay this out, he added. This is temporary, but if it makes sense, there may be a day that you see something like this here for special events at the Speedway.For Stewart, it was an opportunity to reconnect with his short track roots in a low-key environment out of the public spotlight.Following the trail blazed by Jeff Gordon a few years earlier, Stewart blitzed the USAC championship trail in the early 1990s, becoming the first driver to win all three Triple Crown championships (Midget, Silver Crown and Sprint) in the same season in 1995. He parlayed that into championship success in the Indy Racing League before switching disciplines to stock car racing in 1999.Now 45, Stewart has become one of NASCARs top stars, winning the Cup series championship three times (2002, 05 and 11) as well as nearly every important stock car race with the exception of the Daytona 500. Hes also a successful team owner, both at the USAC level as well aas the co-owner of the Stewart-Haas Racing Cup team that he drives for.ddddddddddddut in recent years, he has grown tired of the demands of a modern NASCAR driver. He expressed his unhappiness as recently as two weeks ago, just prior to the surprise victory at Sonoma Raceway that should land him in this years Chase for the Sprint Cup.He has made it clear that even though he is retiring from the Cup series, he clearly still wants to compete somewhere.He always continued to run Sprint and Midget cars on the side throughout his IRL and NASCAR career, and despite a pair of life-altering sprint car accidents in 2013 (when he broke his right leg in an accident at Southern Iowa Speedway) and 2014 (when his car fatally struck driver Kevin Ward Jr. at Canandaigua Motorsports Park, resulting in a lawsuit that remains unsettled), his love for grass-roots racing remains intact.Fallout from the Ward accident, as well as a sand buggy accident in January in which he sustained a broken back, has kept Stewart out of his beloved dirt track cars for nearly two years. Thats why it was such a treat for him to turn laps on the dirt at IMS in a Midget prepared by his old car owner, Keith Kunz.The smile on his face when he stepped out of the No. 71 car normally driven by Carson Macedo said it all. Stewart lapped with former USAC and Indy car driver Sarah Fisher and multiple USAC titleholder Bryan Clauson, running three-wide at one point on the narrow, flat oval.That was fun -- a good time, he exclaimed. It brought back a lot of memories. I havent been in a midget for 2? years and I miss it. The tough part is I dont fit this car very well. These drivers are much smaller than I am. It was great to get back in a Keith Kunz car and I guarantee you it would be fun to do this more often. Bryan was getting around there pretty good.This is the ultimate, he added. We all wish we had this in our backyard to go play. Only six more months and I get to play in these all I want.Stewart remains a staunch supporter of the USAC trail, whether a driver wants to pursue stock cars or Indy cars as a career goal.If you can control a car on a track like this, thats the kind of car control you need to race an Indy car or a stock car around the speedway, he said. The skills that these guys learn and pick up at an early age running these type of cars go a long way.But its hard to get here. I hit the lottery; I got lucky getting my opportunity to come here. Theres a lot of drivers that deserve the chance to come race at Indy and they have the talent to do it.Stewart never accomplished his original goal of winning the Indianapolis 500; his best finish was fifth in 1997. Even though he never got to drink the traditional winners milk, a pair of Brickyard 400 victories (2005 and 07) served as a fair consolation prize.On Tuesday, Boles presented Stewart with a commemorative IMS milk bottle -- filled with dirt from Smokes Turn 3 playground.I dont know if it will taste that good, Stewart quipped. But thats as close as Im going to get to drinking milk. ' ' '