According to ESPN's current projections, with the results around the league on Sunday taken into consideration, the Houston Texans now have a 95 percent chance of making the Playoffs and a 42 percent chance of surpassing the Jacksonville Jaguars in the AFC South and having the opportunity to host a postseason game at NRG Stadium for the third straight year. There's a tremendously unlikely scenario where the Texans could even end up the 1-seed in the AFC, but most likely, a division win would net the Texans the 3-seed heading into the Playoffs.
Now while nothing has officially sorted itself out just yet, this still represents a remarkable turnaround for a team that was once 0-3 and had roughly a 14 percent chance of making the Playoffs. Hell, even four weeks ago, as the Texans were gearing up to host the Buffalo Bills on Thursday Night Football, Houston's chance of making the Playoffs was only 26 percent.
The fact that this group is now on the brink of returning to the Playoffs for the third consecutive season under head coach DeMeco Ryans is a testament of this team's steadfast resilence in the face of what felt like insurmountable odds less than three months ago.
The key to Houston's turnaround has been an unflinching commitment to maintaining the course, never blinking in the face of adversity, withstanding each and every challenge put in front of them by staying locked in on what now feels like an attainable goal for the season -- playing in the Super Bowl -- while never looking beyond the opponent right in front of them.
"It's that one-game-at-a-time mentality. I know nobody wants to hear it, but that's what I believe, that's what we control, is one game at a time. Come out, handle business each week," DeMeco Ryans told reporters on Sunday. "That's what we've got to do down the stretch here, we've got to go out and handle business. I told our guys: you go out and handle business each week, you're just putting yourself in a better spot."
The Texans have certainly done just that, winning six games in a row and establishing themselves as the scariest team in the AFC. Sure, they've benefitted from a few developments around the conference -- the Indianapolis Colts coming back down to earth, the Kansas City Chiefs collapsing, the general mediocrity of the AFC North -- but that stuff is all out of the control of the Texans, and DeMeco Ryans remains hell-bent on keeping his team on task as the season comes to a close.
"So, you just keep going out, controling what you can control, not really focused on what everybody else in the AFC is doing," Ryans added. "Focus on the Texans. Focus on stepping your game up and playing better."