In the 2015 film Creed, there's a moment between the 11th and 12th rounds during Adonis' fight with Ricky Conlon when Rocky Balboa, reeling from a cancer diagnosis, implores his protege, "I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna fight this thing, but if I fight I want you to fight too. I want you to go across this ring and knock that son of a b**** down. Can you do it?"
In typical Adonis Creed and boxing film fashion, Donnie does just that, nearly knocking the reigning champion out just before the final bell rings. The son of the legendary Apollo Creed doesn't earn the victory nor does he walk out of Goodison Park with the championship belt, but for a night, Adonis proves he belongs in the conversation with his father and his adopted 'Unc.'
This brings me to the Houston Texans.
I have no idea if the Houston Texans are going to end up being able to dig themselves out of an 0-3, and then 3-5 hole to make the postseason, but I do know that on Sunday afternoon, facing a 29-10 deficit entering the 4th quarter against the Jacksonville Jaguars, Houston showed the same sort of grit and resilience that Donnie did across the pond 10 years ago.
And it turns out, Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans was delivering a similar message to his team before the game and in the midst of their incredible 4th quarter comeback.
"It's going to be a heavyweight fight, and we got to keep throwing punches no matter how it looks," Ryans told the Texans on Saturday night. "It may look rough, it doesn't matter. I didn't want anybody to blink."
The Texans didn't blink. Even down 19 points with just 15 minutes to go -- or in boxing terms, down big on the scorecard heading into the final three rounds of the fight -- the Texans keep throwing punches. A body blow here, an one-two combination there, and just enough haymakers to go on a 26-0 run in the final frame to stun the Jaguars and keep their season alive.
"I look at the game as I look at life. Bad things are going to happen. Do you hang your head and go run and hide? Do you quit? Do you give up? No, you keep punching," Ryans said after the game. "In life, in football, you got to keep punching and that's what this game showed today."
The Texans may have survived this one, but more heavyweight fights await Houston over the course of the next few weeks. A home game versus the Tennessee Titans in Week 11 could be looked at as a trap game, but assuming the Texans handle business against their division foe, they'll get back to .500 right before the most critical stretch of their season -- a three-game run in which Houston plays Buffalo, Indianapolis and Kansas City.
At first glance, that appears to be a hill too steep to climb, but if the Rocky/Creed movies have taught us anything, there is no such thing as a hill -- or a mountain -- that's too steep to climb, especially now that Houston has found something that DeMeco Ryans belives his team was lacking to start the 2025 season.
"For us to battle and have that resilience, that's what good football looks like. That's what we've been missing," Ryans declared after the win.