In their third straight season in the National Football League Sectional Playoffs, head coach DeMeco Ryans and the Houston Texans promised this year would be different from the previous two.
Instead, it ended the same way, with another crushing defeat that made the Texans the only NFL team never to have reached the conference finals.
CJ Stroud delivered a dismal performance, with four interceptions in the first half in Sunday’s 28-16 loss to the New England Patriots.
With this setback, the Texans are 0-7 in the sectional playoffs. Their most recent failure follows a 23-14 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in this same phase last season, and a 34-10 rout to the Baltimore Ravens in the 2023 season.
“We have to protect the ball. We have to play better football when we get to that point,” Ryans said when asked what this team needs to do to get over the hump and advance to the conference championship game.
“In the last three years, we didn’t play well, we didn’t protect the ball well and we didn’t execute our actions well at the time. So there is no miracle cure that will allow us to get through the sectional playoffs. It’s still football, and you have to go out on the field and play really well in those moments, which we didn’t do. »
The Texans relied on their first-ranked defense to qualify for the playoffs. They finished the regular season with a nine-game winning streak and became the fifth team since 1992 to start a season with three straight losses and still earn a spot in the playoffs.
In the opening round against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Stroud lost control of the ball on five occasions, two of which were recovered by the Steelers. Stroud was also the victim of an interception.
However, the defense scored two touchdowns to allow the Texans to overcome these blunders and win a road playoff game for the very first time in their history.
Texans players and coaches spent all week discussing how they needed to better protect the ball to beat the Patriots.
But instead, they committed even more turnovers, with Woody Marks adding a fumble inside the 20-yard line with less than eight points separating the two clubs in the game.
The Texans led 10-7 in the second quarter when Marcus Jones intercepted a Stroud pass and ran 26 yards for a touchdown that gave the Patriots the lead for good.
Stroud’s struggles came as the Texans were without star wide receiver Nico Collins, who suffered a concussion last week. The team was further weakened when the Texans’ second-leading receiver, Dalton Schultz, suffered a calf injury in the first quarter and did not return to the field.
Despite this, Stroud, voted 2023 Offensive Rookie of the Year by the AP, took responsibility for his mistakes and the defeat.
“I’m devastated,” he said Monday. I don’t want to get carried away by my emotions, but we had so much hope of going further, and the fact that it fell on me and that I didn’t live up to it really hurts. I wish it hadn’t happened like this. »
His performance in no way diminished the confidence Ryans has in his young quarterback.
“I’m not going to let the bad actions in this match … dictate who CJ is,” Ryans said. I know who CJ is, I know what he is capable of. So we continue to seek to improve. No one feels worse than CJ about this situation. »
