Houston Texans Arrive at Critical Crossroads Following Loss to New York Jets
This is where the rubber meets the road for the Houston Texans.
Things went about as poorly as possible for quarterback C.J. Stroud and company on Sunday, dropping a 30-6 game on the road against the New York Jets. It was raining, injuries piled up, and the franchise quarterback entered concussion protocol in one of his team's worst offensive performances of the season so far.
Yeah, it could have been better.
The Texans are one of the best stories in the NFL this season. After winning a combined seven games over the previous two seasons, Houston has already matched that mark in 2023 with a 7-6 record. The young talent on this roster utilized by a young head coach in DeMeco Ryans has fans excited, and even after Sunday's loss, the Texans can still challenge for a division title or, at worst, a wild card berth this season.
Houston Texans QB C.J. Stroud.
Vincent Carchietta-USA TODAY Sports
But there hasn't been this amount of adversity yet for this young core, and how it responds will determine just how far the upstart Texans can go this season.
In the final four weeks of the regular season, Houston will enter three division games (the Titans twice and Colts once) with a game against the Cleveland Browns thrown in for good measure. All of these games are winnable if the Texans are healthy, but that is obviously far from certain after the events of Week 14.
As of Monday morning, the Texans are currently "on the bubble" in the AFC playoff race, coming in at No. 8 in that pecking order behind the seven teams who would earn a postseason berth if the season ended today. Winning games will change that, but this is the point where all the growth that has occurred in Houston thus far has to pay off.
So far, the Texans have been a feel-good story. A franchise that has fallen on hard times in recent memory has a fun, young group of players that has surprised a lot of people across the league. At the end of the day, however, that doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.
The future is certainly bright in Houston, but what about now? That's what this team is playing for, and the next four weeks will determine just how far ahead of schedule the Texans are in this rebuild.
Will they be a playoff team in 2023, or will they simply be remembered as a team that was fun to watch but was unable to get the job done at the end of the season?
