The Texans have clawed back from their 0-3 start, mounted a glorious return to the AFC playoff race that included a 5-game win streak, and have done the impossible: defeating the defending AFC Champion
Kansas City Chiefs on their own turf with the season on the line for both teams. 2018 was a year for the books for Houston, but this year is quickly becoming one of the most improbable, unthinkable turnarounds in football history!
With a franchise-defining game like that, there’s a whole lot of takeaways to be thought of and talked about all across the Texans’ fanbase, but here are five things I took from last night’s historic win at G-Ge…GEHA Field (yeehaw!), at Arrowhead Stadium:
1. This Texans’ defense is historically good, and lucky.
Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but the Houston Texans just annihilated a supposedly championship-caliber offense. Okay, maybe that’s a theme for Houston this season, but how about this: the Texans just held THE Patrick Mahomes to a completion percentage under 50%, only 160 yards, zero touchdowns, and THREE interceptions! What in the world happened last night?!?! While Houston’s defensive line definitely had an impact by rushing Mahomes and getting him off script, we all know that Mahomes is more than capable of winning games while scrambling around, which he did plenty of. The true culprit of Kansas City’s woes was Houston’s pass defense, which blanketed the Chiefs’ favorite receivers all night, perfectly complementing the d-line’s pressure. Derek Stingley Jr. and Jalen Pitre made Rashee Rice and Travis Kelce non-factors in the match, while Kamari Lassiter – still recovering from a foot injury – made two improbable plays on long bombs from Mahomes. The first was a brilliant pass-deflection in the end zone that prevented a Tyquan Thornton touchdown, which may be a beautiful enough play on its own to send Lassiter to the pro bowl. Then, on the very next Chiefs possession, he made another big play, intercepting Patrick Mahomes at the start of the fourth quarter after he launched the ball downfield towards Marquise Brown. Kamari Lassiter, once doubted by me and many others coming out of college due to his pedestrian 40-yard dash time, has completely proven my fears of his lack of speed to be unfounded.
Besides Houston’s DBs putting on a clinic to end all clinics last night, they also just got straight up lucky at times. Arrowhead Pride’s Rocky Magaña summarized it well in his post, 5 things we learned from Chiefs era-ending loss to Texans:
The Chiefs need a true X-receiver who can beat man coverage and win on the outside, or you know, just catch the passes that hit them in the hands. – Magaña
The entire Chiefs offense had a season-altering conniption last night when attempting to reel in passes from Patrick Mahomes. Rashee Rice had some big drops (one of fourth down), Kareem Hunt had a big drop (one on third down), and the always-reliable Travis Swi-KELCE had a disastrous, bobbled reception that ended up sending the ball behind his head and directly into the waiting arms of Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair. Calling all of these plays “drops,” however, wouldn’t be giving the defenders enough credit. Al-Shaair, Jalen Pitre, and Myles Bryant, laid down the lumber upon Chiefs’ receivers with the most intense ferocity I’ve seen in a football game on this side of 2000 Ravens team. We just have to highlight this hit on Rashee Rice by Jalen Pitre that forced an incompletion. This moment, as improbable as it may seem, was the end of the Chiefs dynasty.
2. No Tim Settle, no problem!
The defensive line has been the saving grace for the Houston Texans all season. Whenever they were down and out and had exhausted themselves of options on offense, they could trust on that big line manned by Will Anderson, Danielle Hunter, Tim Settle, and Sheldon Rankins was going to make life hell for the opponent. Unfortunately, Tim Settle suffered a foot injury in last week’s victory over the Indianapolis Colts that required surgery, ending his season as one of the unsung heroes of the defense. Settle was not a beast of the interior, but he was a frequent nuisance to opposing QBs looking for somewhere to step up in the pocket, and had his fair share of tackles against running backs.
With Settle now out for the year, the d-line would need to find a band-aid quickly to prevent the Chiefs from running all over them. The next men up: a heaping spoonful of Tommy Togiai, with a mixing of Denico Autry, Dylan Horton, and Mario Edwards. These four defensive linemen saw a lot of action on the line of scrimmage and in the backfield as they clogged up rushing lanes and tried to contain Patrick Mahomes, and, for the most part, they excelled. Now, they may have had to fortune of going up against a Chiefs offensive line missing three of its five starters, but all of these linemen had their shining moments in squishing RBs Kareem Hunt and Isaiah Pacheco. Both Chiefs’ tailbacks finished the game with a combined 60 yards rushing on 21 attempts and one touchdown, the only one Houston would give up all night.
3.The CJ Stroud to Nico Collins connection is alive and well
Earlier in the season, much was made about the connection (or lack thereof) between WR Nico Collins and QB CJ Stroud. Going into backup QB Davis Mills’ first start in Week 10 against the Jacksonville Jaguars, Collins had only totaled 80+ receiving yards once before. After Week 10, Nico Collins saw his role in the offense explode, tallying 90+ receiving yards in four of the last five games, which have coincidentally all been wins. It was nice to see Stroud pick up where Mills left off when he returned to the starting lineup in week 13 against the Indianapolis Colts by continuing to repeatedly target Collins, but it was even sweeter to watch them rip the hearts out of Chiefs fans nationwide last night. After a three and out the start the game, Stroud uncorked a 46-yard bomb into the hands of Collins, ultimately resulting in a Texans field goal.
In the following Texans possession, Stroud would scramble away from pressure and fire a cross-body pass to Collins, who would one-up his big play from mere minutes ago and evade tacklers down the sideline for a massive catch-and-run reception of 53 yards!
Thanks primarily to CJ Stroud and Nico Collins, the Texans would have a 10-0 lead on the defending conference champions in the first half. Now, the game was a whole lot more than just two big receptions, but these were back-breaking plays for the Chiefs’ defense, both resulted in points going on the board. Houston’s offense was still a sort of enigma for the majority of this matchup, so two big plays like this are like striking gold. Speaking of which…
4. The offense as a whole still has plenty of work to do
In the entire second half, the Houston Texans had 62 total yards of offense. In the third quarter, on four total possessions, they ran 12 plays for -2 yards and four punts. I don’t know about you, but after we witnessed Davis Mills nearly lose a game where his defense sacked MVP QB Josh Allen EIGHT TIMES because of how bad the offense was in the second half, I was desperate for CJ Stroud to come back. Wins like the one they had against the Buffalo Bills just couldn’t be sustainable, they need a quarterback like Stroud, who has the accuracy, athleticism, and awareness when the play is broken to find completions and keep drives moving. Well, after yesterday’s game, I’m not so sure about anything anymore!
Okay so, despite my ravings, this was a very different mess from Mills’ collapse against the Bills’ defense. The offensive line largely did a good job at keeping Mills clean, while they completely floundered at keeping Chiefs DT Chris Jones from wreaking havoc on Stroud’s body and mind. Chris Jones took RG Ed Ingram to the cleaners in the third quarter, smashing through him and getting right in the face of CJ Stroud time and time again. This was the impetus to Houston’s turtling up in the second half, but it is still not an excuse of not gaining a single first down the entire third quarter. They still, miraculously, scored 10 points in a second half, thanks almost entirely to Houston’s defense forcing turnovers deep in K.C. territory, but they could have scored a third time off of a turnover on downs if the Texans offense hadn’t managed to goof this up with a false start penalty, as well. False start was the flavor of the day for the zebras in this game, and the Texans, as usual, were the worst offenders. DeMeco Ryans even had to use a timeout to avoid a delay-of-game penalty after the Texans’ offense had an entire commercial break to figure out what play they wanted! These kinds of communication errors are acceptable in like, week two, but in week fourteen against the Kansas City Chiefs? For a playoff spot? Completely unacceptable to me, and a sign the whole offense needs to do some basic work in practice sooner rather than later, before it kills them.
Besides an ugly second half on offense, though, this was one of the best Houston Texans football games I’ve ever watched. The defense indescribably dominant, unlike anything I ever remember seeing in 2023 or 2024. They are capable of bringing any offense, no matter how great, down to the level of their own offense, which is a feat that I believe should earn DeMeco Ryans so Coach of the Year Award consideration.
What do you think, though? Is this the best regular season win you’ve seen from the Texans in the Ryans/Stroud era, or are you still frustrated by this offense? Let us know your thoughts on the game down in the comments below!
GO TEXANS!!!!!
