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DJ Bien-Aime
HOUSTON — The locker room was tense following the Houston Texans’ Week 3 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars. The defeat dropped them to 0-3, and their season was slipping away.
It was another loss on the final drive, similar to Weeks 1 and 2. But through the tension, there was no panic — as they felt they could easily be 3-0.
In their eyes, they were a few plays away from flipping the season.
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«We just have to find a way to finish on both sides of the ball,» linebacker E.J. Speed told ESPN in Week 3. «So once you get that done, and you get that fixed and the tides will turn, then the questions like this will stop being asked. And then it’ll be about how good we are.»
Then the next week, Houston did just that with a 26-0 win over the Tennessee Titans. The belief grew, as tight end Dalton Schultz said that Week 4 win was just a matter of having the ball «bounce our way.»
«We just needed to see the fruits of the labor,» Schultz told ESPN. «Sometimes faith in this thing only takes you so far. Soon as that hole gets deep. Like it’s easy for that stuff to kind of go away.»
Houston had a 14% chance to make the playoffs heading into Week 4, according to ESPN’s Football Power Index, and a loss to the Titans would have dropped that down to 6.9%. But history stated the odds were slimmer. Only one team since 1990, the 1992 Seattle Seahawks, had made the playoffs after starting 0-4.
Since the NFL went to a 14-team playoff format in 2020, there have been 19 teams that started 0-3, but none of them made the playoffs. In fact, the last 0-3 team to do it was the Texans in 2018.
Currently, the Texans sit at 5-5 after Matthew Wright kicked a game-winning field goal as time expired in Week 11 to sweep the Titans for the season. They have a 26% chance to make the playoffs now, but that would increase to 37% with a win Thursday night (8:15 ET, Prime Video) over the Buffalo Bills. With a loss, that number drops to 15%. As for history, of the 989 teams in the Super Bowl era to start 5-5 or worse through 10 games, only 89 of them (9%) have gone on to make the playoffs, according to ESPN Research.
Houston has won five out of its last seven — the fifth-most wins since Week 3 — and sits squarely in the playoff race, with a chance to defy the odds. As of Wednesday, the Texans are one game out of the last playoff spot in the AFC, trailing the Jacksonville Jaguars (6-4).
But leaping over .500 for the first time this season will present some challenges.
Houston is on a short week with the Bills (7-3) coming to town and will be without quarterback C.J. Stroud for the third straight game (concussion). Stroud did return to practice Tuesday on a limited basis, and according to league sources, he is expected to return against the Indianapolis Colts (8-2) on the road in Week 13.
But coach DeMeco Ryans isn’t allowing his team to get caught up in anything beyond this week.
«All that stuff, it doesn’t matter,» Ryans said. «Honestly, when the ball is snapped, nobody’s thinking about, ‘We’re going to play harder because of the standings.’ If you’re playing here in Houston, I expect you to play hard no matter when we’re playing, whether it’s preseason or it’s the playoffs. It should look exactly the same when you turn our tape on.
«It doesn’t matter who we’re playing, where we’re playing, when we’re playing, it should always look the same.»
Even though Stroud won’t play, the good news for the Texans is they’ve gone 2-0 with Davis Mills under center to keep their hopes alive. They’ve scored 45 points in his two starts, including a 19-point comeback win over the Jaguars in Week 10.
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The bad news is that the Texans are 2-5 against teams with a winning record, and four of their seven remaining opponents are over .500. But Ryans is «looking forward to» the opportunity to take on a team he views as one of the best in the AFC.
«The Bills are a really, really good team,» Ryans said. «They’re always a contender, [they] play great defense, of course they have a great quarterback in Josh Allen, who can make any type of play you need him to make.»
Week 12 is a rematch from last season that lived up to the hype, with Ka’imi Fairbairn kicking a last-second field goal to lift Houston to a 23-20 win.
Throughout that afternoon, the Texans’ defense harassed Allen, the reigning MVP who leads the league in total touchdowns (28) this season. He went 9-of-30, marking his lowest completion percentage of his career (30%) along with only 131 passing yards, his lowest of the season.
This season, Houston’s defense has been even better and has been its saving grace. The unit has allowed the fewest points per game (16.3) and yards (258.1), allowed the second-lowest completion percentage to quarterbacks (57.6%) and is tied for the third-most interceptions (10).
«It’s not caring about being the best in the league,» cornerback Kamari Lassiter said. «I feel like that’s what’s really allowed us to just go out there and play. We just go out there and play with the same mentality every game, and we try to get it out the mud.»
