PODCAST: Recapping Eventful Win Vs. Colts, Playoff Percentages, Keys For a Win Against The Chiefs

On an "Immediate Reaction" episode of the H-Town Rundown Podcast, Garret, a.k.a. 'Houston Stressans (@TexansCommenter on X) joined the Texans Roundtable again to cover a myriad of Texans topics. There were three main points to be made:

- Did the officials really gift the Texans a win on Sunday in Indianapolis?

- Can the Texans make the AFC playoffs with the Chiefs, Chargers and Colts still on their schedule?

- What are three keys for a Texans win against the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday night?

(NOTE: The Transcript of the interview is found below)

Garret: No, I mean, yeah, as you've seen, I'm sure it may be exhausting or annoying to some people or fans that follow me, but I just can't stand every game the Texans win this year. It comes with caveats, either from our own fans or opposing fan bases.

There's always some reason why to discredit the win, like the Ravens, because their whole teams hurt. The Niners, their defenses hurt. Oh, you beat the Titans, they're a bad team. You beat the Jags, okay, they were good, but now they're a bad team again. It's just like, It always has to come with something.

So, I mean, it bothers me, obviously, but, like, not that bad. But, like, I just feel like I need to, like, highlight and expose that. And so what I've done with the Colts fans is, like, I mean, yeah, there was some questionable calls on their side, which I think most of them, which they're highlighting, aren't as questionable as they think. But even if you want to give them that, there's just as many, if not more, on the flip side.

So, you know, and that's kind of what I've been doing. And I'm kind of beating them at their own game by complaining or crying about the rest, even though I'm not really complaining or crying. I'm not one to do that. Like, yes, I can. You can. I think two things can be true. You can acknowledge calls, but then also say, like, we lost the game. And last year against the Chiefs in the divisional round, terrible officiating, bad call. Some of it's bad rules. Some of it's Mahomes. I did not say that's why we lost the game. I wasn't sitting there pouting. We got beat. Despite all that, we still had a chance to win the game and we didn't do it.

Meanwhile, Colts fans, majority of them, and I'm hoping too that it is the minority, the loud minority as opposed to the majority. I am starting to see in my most recent post more Colts fans like, no, you guys won fair and square. I'm like, okay, thank you.

There are some sensible fans, but I think the biggest reason why they're all crying foul is because I rewatched I was at the game in Indy and when I'm sitting in the game fans in the stadium are like oh my friend texted me this my friend texted me that I'm like okay so like they're watching the game and they're getting their analysis from the TV but the commentator so I rewatched the TV copy and J.J. Watt love him to death but like I really feel like JJ Watt is overcompensating to not become biased.

And on that game, he was overly critical and like trying so hard to back up the Colts. That's my personal opinion and sense on it. But regardless, like, and like in all these dialogues I'm having with Colts fans, everyone uses their argument, their, their rebuttal as, well, the commentator said that, I'm like, that doesn't mean anything to me.

The commentators can be wrong and have been wrong plenty of times. So it's just funny to me that that is like, that's the end of the argument. Like, no, that's not true. And, and so I think there's the element of JJ Watt doing that. And sometimes they just don't see it live and they don't just go back and rehash everything.

But like, they controlled the narrative you know I mean because you listen to them you trust them they're professionals if they said it it must be true and there's no like chance to go back and and recheck it so um no they did not hand us the game I mean we had more penalties but Even if it was like that, like my whole philosophy on that in general is like, that's just ridiculous. And the way I look at it is, again, it's another game where the Texans are being discredited.

And that's why people are so surprised that the Texans are going on this run. Well, guess what? Yeah, because y'all been crapping on this whole time when you shouldn't have been. Like all their losses have been one score games in the final minutes against playoff teams. But, you know, we want to act like every loss is the worst loss and every win is the worst win. So obviously you can tell I feel some type of way about it.

G: Oh, it's very high. I mean, to me, it's like, what seeding do we win the division? Like, are we a two seed? I mean, you know, I know the Patriots keep winning, but I mean, there's a good chance that we could win out. You know, I mean, the way I look at it, it is like a coach's mindset. It's one game at a time.

You look at each game. I think we have a chance to win each game. And so, and it's, and I've, I've remained in this belief when we were oh and three, when we were three and five, like after the Broncos game, a lot of fans right before the trade deadline were freaking out. I get it. You know, trade this guy, trade that guy, be sellers. To me, it never made sense. You were, Under five hundred again, all five year losses against playoff teams in the final seconds.

And to me, the biggest issue, you know, that a lot of us fall victim to is each year going into a season. You have a belief of what teams are and what they're going to be. And then halfway through, you want to declare who's who based off of that first half schedule. But then, you know, it's always different.

The strength of schedule before the year and after the year. And so now the picture is a little more clear, like, Oh, maybe the Colts were overhyped. Maybe the Texans were over-criticized.

Like, and so that being said, like the one thing I've always believed in is like this defense, like this is even last year, it was a Superbowl caliber defense. And this year it's even better. It's a historically great defense. I've been saying that even before the season has a potential, potential to be a historically great defense.

So with that belief, like you are in every game, we've seen it. Every game we lost was a play here, a play there, like a legit play in the final seconds. And so, To me, like, if you have a defense like that, you're going to be in every game.

And that's – they say defense wins championships. So, as long as – and then, like, if you want to boil it down to its simplest form, too, like, as far as the Houston Texans go, as long as D'Amico Ryans and C.J. Stroud is here, I'm not stressing. Like, we always got a shot.

G: So I haven't dove too much into it, but a couple of initial thoughts. Shout out Black Lion. I interact with him on X. I think he joins you guys on the all twenty two sometimes. But he kind of raised my attention to a good point that he made.

But, you know, it's going to be cold night game, twenty degrees. typically we haven't played well like that in these cold, hostile environments on the road. But you know what? Last year, I'm just thinking of this right now, last year, twice, we went into Kansas City in cold weather games and had legit chances to win both of those.

So, one, those experiences will help us. But, you know, one of the keys for me as far as that goes is, believe it or not, like, know about our defense our defense is a physical defense probably the most physical unit out of any unit in the NFL so I mean that's without question but I feel like the offense I know we all kind of laugh at Caley when he says I want to be a physical outfit like I think we are more physical than we think and it may not be pretty like even in this Colts game like And I know it's frustrating, like we're watching these runs early not work.

And most people think we run the ball a ton. We actually throw the ball more than we run. Like we're above average as far as our pass to run splits. But I still think we're a physical offense. And the big part of that has been the advent of adding Trent Brown. So now you're talking about on the offensive line, you got Trent Brown, who's a big, obviously a monster. Ariante Ersery is a big dude. Now you got Titus playing guard.

That's another big guy. Ed Ingram, he's not massive, but he's been mauling. So, I mean, you have a pretty legit O-line who all year has been over-criticized in pass protection, but now is starting to be okay and run blocking.

So I think that that kind of suits us, and this suits up to be a typical Texans game or the way we want it to be as far as a defensive battle, field position, lean on your defense, offense, just wear them out late in the game, run the ball. So key to the game for me is sticking with the run and being physical there. on defense again, having not really thought about it to kind of just, you know, draw on some ideas right now, obviously my homes.

I mean, I would say, you know, I was highlighting this and people kind of like roasted me for it, but you know, obviously like from the numbers standpoint last week, Cowboys was first chiefs. The obvious answer is you want the, Cowboys to win to now put us above the Chiefs, but there's also the downside where now this is a team with a championship team for the first time since like what, twenty twelve or something crazy with a chance to miss the playoffs. Their season is legitimately on the line at home on primetime like that matters. I know.

Players and coaches will say, well, you don't play any less hard or more hard on circumstances. I mean, it's a subconscious thing. And then the more important part of that for me would be coaching. Like, coaches, you can pull out all the stops. I know you don't just hold stuff back. But, I mean, I see Andy Reid.

We've seen the crazy creative plays that he runs. I would say on offense, like, discipline and staying home will be massive for two reasons. Because of that factor where they can, you know, pull out all the stops and run trick plays. So, eye discipline, not falling for fakes and stuff like that. And that also obviously goes into account with Mahomes.

Anytime you play him, he's notorious for escaping the pocket. So which, you know, you just do what you did against the Bills with Josh Allen. You had a great game plan there. So emulate that. So those are my two keys off the top of my head.