SO CLOSE!
Examining the intricate playoff landscape for the Houston Texans
Dec 23, 2023, 10:45 am
Can the Texans make the playoffs in DeMeco Ryans' first season as head coach? Photo by Getty Images.
Back in the 1950s, NFL Commissioner Bert Bell said his goal for the league was parity and “on any given Sunday, any team could beat any other team.”
Bell’s quote was turned into a football movie, Any Given Sunday starring Al Pacino in1999. True to form, the film broke even at the box office.
Fast forward, while it’s not an absolute must-win game, it’s a “given” that the Houston Texans should give serious thought to defeating the 9-5 Cleveland Browns on Sunday at NRG Stadium.
With just three games remaining, Commissioner Bell would smile at the AFC standings with three teams bunched on top with 8-6 marks: Jaguars, Colts and Texans. Their records may be even but they’re not equal.
As things stand today, because of an intricate tiebreaker system that would have Albert Einstein switching his major to phys ed, the Jags have a 76-percent chance of making the playoffs, the Colts are 64-percent likely to play in the post-season, and the Texans are at 52-percent for the playoffs.
Talk about parity (with a boost from the NFL’s expanded playoff system started in 2020), with only three weeks left in the season, only three of the AFC’s 16 teams are eliminated from the post-season: Jets, Titans and Patriots.
Vegas oddsmakers have been in a tizzy over the Texans-Browns game. The opening line had the Texans favored by 2-1/2 points. Heading into the weekend, the Browns now are the betting choice by 3 points, a wild 5-1/2 point swing. Of course, it was assumed that Texans rookie quarterback C.J. Stroud would escape concussion protocol and play against the Browns. That doesn’t appear the case as Case Keenum (or Casey Keenum as one Houston news anchor calls him) will be behind center for the Texans.
Keenum led the Texans to a last-minute victory over the Tennessee Titans (cosplay Houston Oilers) last week. So it’s not like the Texans are in desperate straits at quarterback.
Playing quarterback has been hazardous duty in the AFC this season. All three leaders in the AFC probably will start understudy quarterbacks on Sunday. C.J. Beathard likely will replace Trevor Lawrence who’s in concussion protocol for the Jaguars. Gardner Minshew replaced Colts starter Anthony Richardson early this season and has hung onto the job.
As Ron Popeil used to say, wait there’s more. Veteran Joe Flacco has risen from the scrap heap and will quarterback the Browns against the Texans on Sunday. Like Keenum, Flacco led his team to a narrow win last week. But Flacco had three interceptions against the Bears, while Keenum threw only one pass to the other team last week.
Seven teams in the AFC will qualify for the playoffs. Right now, the Texans are No. 8, on the outside looking in. The Jaguars are the No. 4 seed, the Colts are No. 7. The Texans still have a better than even shot at the post-season with their final two games against the Titans and Colts.
If they lose Sunday to the Browns, the Texans’ playoff chances drop to 23 percent and as Scarlett O’Hara would say, they’ll have to depend on the kindness of strangers to make the post-season.
But if the Texans win Sunday, it will lock up a winning season for the Texans. Their pre-season win total was just 5.5 games.
If the Texans win out, they will match their total wins for the past three seasons … combined. And DeMeco Ryans might start making room for his Coach of the Year trophy.
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It was midway through the third quarter of the Oklahoma City-Houston NBA Cup semifinal matchup on Saturday night. Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had just made a short jumper in the lane and, to his delight, a time-out was immediately called.
He needed it.
He retreated to midcourt, crouched down, propped himself up by his fingertips and took deep breath after deep breath. It was that sort of night. And given the way the Rockets and Thunder have defended all season long, such a game was predictable.
In the end, it was Oklahoma City 111, Houston 96 in a game where the teams combined to shoot 41%. The immediate reward for the Thunder: two days off to recover. The bigger reward: a matchup with Milwaukee on Tuesday night for the NBA Cup, with more than $300,000 per player the difference between winning and losing.
“That's what defense does for you,” said Thunder coach Mark Daigneault, whose team has held opponents to 41% shooting or worse a league-best 11 times this season — and is 11-0 in those games. “It keeps you in games.”
The Rockets-Thunder semifinal was basketball, with elements of football, rugby, hockey and probably even some wrestling thrown in. It wasn't unusual. It's how they play: defense-first, tough, gritty, physical.
They are the two top teams in the NBA in terms of field-goal percentage defense — Oklahoma City came in at 42.7%, Houston at 43.4% — and entered the night as two of the top three in scoring defense. Orlando led entering Saturday at 103.7 per game, Oklahoma City was No. 2 at 103.8, Houston No. 3 at 105.9. (The Thunder, by holding Houston to 96, passed the Magic for the top spot on Saturday.)
Houston finished 36.5% from the field, its second-worst showing of the season. When the Rockets shoot 41% or better, they're 17-4. When they don't, they're 0-5.
“Sometimes it comes down to making shots,” Rockets coach Ime Udoka said. “Especially in the first half, we guarded well enough. ... But you put a lot of pressure on your defense when you're not making shots.”
Even though scoring across the NBA is down slightly so far this season, about a point per game behind last season's pace and two points from the pace of the 2022-23 season, it's still a golden age for offense in the league. Consider: Boston scored 51 points in a quarter earlier this season.
Saturday was not like most games. The halftime score: Rockets 42, Thunder 41. Neither team crossed the 50-point mark until Dillon Brooks' 3-pointer for Houston gave the Rockets a 51-45 lead with 8:46 left in the third quarter.
Brooks is generally considered one of the game's tougher defenders. Gilgeous-Alexander is one of the game's best scorers. They're teammates on Canada's national team, and they had some 1-on-1 moments on Saturday.
“It's fun. It makes you better,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “That's what this league is about, competing against the best in the world and defensively, he is that for sure. And I like to think that of myself offensively. He gives me a chance to really see where I'm at, a good test. I'd say I handled it pretty well.”
Indeed he did. Gilgeous-Alexander finished with 32 points, the fifth instance this season of someone scoring that many against the Rockets. He's done it twice, and the Thunder scored 70 points in the second half to pull away.
“We knew that if we kept getting stops we would give ourselves a chance,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “And we did so.”