On a Sunday when everything seemed to go right for the Houston Texans, the one thing that went wrong could end up meaning more in the end. The Texans completely humiliated the Tennessee Titans 41-7 in Nashville, clearly established themselves as the bully of the AFC South that we predicted they'd be back on Aug. 20 and lost prize free-agent safety Danieal Manning to a broken leg.

Anyone who makes Manning's injury a mere footnote to a monster win knows as much about football as Rick Perry does about debate strategy.

Losing Manning — one of the keys to new defensive coordinator Wade Phillips' revamped defense and an important special teams weapon to boot — could haunt the Texans even longer than the 34-point defeat hounds a Titans team that's clearly not playoff worthy. Manning is a tone setter for the defense, with his hard hits in the secondary gaining the notice of teammates, opponents and the league office alike.

Remember how many justified the Texans decision to sign Johnathan Joseph rather than No. 1-rated free agent cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha because they felt the Texans almost landed a 2-for-1 in signing Manning for $20 million to go with Joseph?

Well, now the Texans are down to one.

Manning isn't officially out for the season yet. The injury is being cast as a four to 10 week affair, with even the usually crazily optimistic official reports leaning more towards 10 weeks than four. But this is a broken leg.

Manning would have to make a Terrell Owens-miraculous level Super Bowl comeback to be back in time for the playoffs. It's not out of the question. But it's not something Phillips and the Texans can count on either.

So now Phillips is down his No. 1 linebacker (Mario Williams, out for the season with a torn pec) and his No. 1 safety (Manning). This in a season when the Texans' top tailback (Arian Foster) missed most of three games and its top receiver (Andre Johnson) is likely to miss four games.

And the Texans thought they had bad luck last year when they kept giving up late touchdowns to lose?

Please. That's nothing compared to the injury curse of 2011. Considering how many of its stars have missed major time, it's amazing that Houston (4-3) is in first place in its division at the latest point in the season (Week Seven) in franchise history.

Like Williams and Johnson's injuries before his, Manning's seemed to come on benign play. The ballhawking safety jumped up to intercept an overthrown ball from Titans quarterback Matt Hasselbeck. Manning came down with the football and a broken leg. His left leg seemed to get caught in an awkward position as he landed, but it didn't look like a devastating fall by any stretch. This wasn't Joe Theismann gettting his leg snapped by Lawrence Taylor in that infamous Monday Nighter.

It was another largely non-contact injury for the Texans. Houston's stars are dropping in almost unfathomable ways. And now it's spread to the secondary, still the weakest and most unsure unit on the team.

"It's a big loss," cornerback Brice McCain said in a radio interview after the game. It's arguably even bigger than the one the Titans took.

You'd think that the Texans still should have enough to win a depressed division and make the playoffs for the first time in franchise history. That would be a huge step, one that would give coach Gary Kubiak a few more seasons to see how far he can take the team. But one has to wonder if all the injuries to critical players are robbing the Texans of the chance to turn a breakthrough season into a special run in the playoffs.