The best of the 49ers’ three units Sunday were their special teams.

That ought to tell you a lot about how they lost 26-15 Sunday to the Houston Texans in a road game that wasn’t nearly as close as the score indicated.

Near as I can tell, there’s no such word as “uncomplementary” but there should if only to serve as a counterpoint to the longstanding notion of “complementary” football which during good times for the 49ers is one of their strengths.

There were few good times against the Texans, and only time will tell whether the 49ers have been exposed as a team that wasn’t as good as its record coming in, or simply had a bad day. Because a team as depleted as the 49ers simply can’t have a game where the offense doesn’t serve the defense and vice-versa.

“First half was unacceptable, and the second half didn’t get much better,” coach Kyle Shanahan told reporters.

The good news, aside from the 49ers having a 5-3 record, is that it only counts for one loss even if it felt much worse.

The offense couldn’t get first downs. The defense couldn’t get off the field. It was a recipe for disaster. If the Texans had been better in the red zone — Kai Fairbairn kicked field goals of 33, 34, 37 and 30 yards — the score would have been much, much worse.

The 49ers were outgained 475 to 223 and ran only 44 plays to Houston’s 75. The Texans possessed the ball for 41:22 and had drives of 16, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 10 plays. The 49ers had one 12-play drive and no other longer than eight.

With the 49ers defense already compromised without Nick Bosa and Fred Warner, they also lost defensive end Sam Okuayinonu, defensive tackle Jordan Elliott and linebacker Dee Winters during the course of the game.

At halftime, the 49ers trailed only 16-7 but had run just 14 plays and were being outgained 299-65. A 46-yard kickoff return (hip, hip hooray!) by Brian Robinson set up the 49ers up for a short-field dive that ended with a 17-yard touchdown pass from Mac Jones to a tightly-guarded George Kittle.

“We didn’t do anything to help our defense in the entire first half,” Kittle said. “I thought they played well for the pieces that were lost in the first half. If you’re holding a team to four field goals and two touchdowns, our offense has to score points.”

Jones finished 19 of 32 for 193 yards, two touchdowns and an end zone interception by Kwame Lassiter intended for Jauan Jennings with 2:01 to play. Like Kittle, he took ownership of some of the defensive struggles simply because the 49ers couldn’t get things going.

“When you’re out there for that many plays, it’s hard not to get tired,” Jones said. “Obviously you want to score points, but even just moving the ball and flipping the field can be good. I want to get us to the fourth quarter, and our defense has come up clutch in those situations.”

Quarteback Mac Jones was only sacked twice but spent much of the afternoon dodging the Houston pass rush. Getty Images

Defensive coordinator Robert Saleh spent much of the week dodging bouquets for the job he’s done with the 49ers’ defense without Nick Bosa and Fred Warner, in particular last week’s 20-10 win over Atlanta. He tried blitzing Houston early with Malik Mustapha and Winters but to no avail in terms of getting after the quarterback.

The Texans, with Will Anderson Jr. torturing right tackle Colton McKivitz all afternoon, had no such problems.

Without a hint of a pass rush, things came way too easily for Houston as C.J. Stroud was 30-for-39 for 318 yards and two touchdowns and 157 yards rushing.

And the hard truth in a “next man up” world is there’s a reason the next man is, well, the next man. Because he’s not as good as the one in front of him.

Linebacker Tatum Bethune wasn’t blaming the offense for their defensive showing.

“We were out there for a long time because of us,” Bethune said. “We’ve got to get off the field. We’ve just got to get it done.”

He got no argument from Lenoir.

“We need to be more locked in on the details and be making those plays and getting off the field so we can get the ball back to our offense,” Lenoir said.

Lenoir cost the 49ers’ a potential three points when he intercepted Stroud on the last play of the half and failed to get down so Eddy Piñeiro could attempt a long-distance field goal to make it 16-10. Imagine being outgained 299-65 and still being within six points. Instead, the clock ran out.

“I should have slid,” Lenoir said. “I wasn’t aware of how much time was left on the clock.”

The 49ers are doing their best to avoid blaming all the injuries, even if it’s obvious they’ve put them in a precarious position when it comes to getting to 10 wins.

“We don’t focus on  a lot of the stuff that the outside world focuses on because you don’t have time,” running back Christian McCaffrey said. “We’ll come in watch tape, move on to the next week. We want it to be about urgency and diligence.”

Added Lenoir: “We don’t want the injuries to happen, but they keep happening. It’s something we have to deal with. Everybody has got to be great.”

Which puts the 49ers in the difficult position of doing more with less. Coming into the game, the 49ers’ 5-2 record didn’t seem possible for a team with nine sacks, no interceptions and only a plus-7 scoring differential.

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Being a better whole than the sum of the parts is a difficult challenge over the course of a 17-game season. The 49ers didn’t come close to managing that against Houston, and even with a 5-3 record getting to 10 or more wins seems like a lot to ask even with Brock Purdy and Brandon Aiyuk possibly retuning soon, and the trade deadline approaching on Nov. 4.

“Credit to them,” Shanahan said. “They kicked our ass and we have to take it like men and be pissed off and hopefully come back next week and play better than we did this week.”