At first glance, a 28-16 loss in the Divisional Round to the New England Patriots would appear to be a failure on the part of the Houston Texans defense. This unit, which was 2nd in the league in points allowed during the regular season and had one of the most dominant postseason performances ever in their Wild Card Round victory against the Pittsburgh Steelers, picked an unfortunate time to give up the third-most points they've allowed all season.
But again, this is a first glance reaction based only on the final score of the game. If you actually suffered through all of CJ Stroud's historic lousiness today, then you also were witness to a Texans defense that did everything in their power to prop up an offense that was failing them in real time.
Consider, the Texans gave up 28 points in New England this afternoon, but 7 of those came on a Marcus Jones pick six in the 2nd quarter. Amazingly, following Houston's other four turnovers today, the Texans defense managed to not give up a single point.
Now sure, you could say that New England's other three scoring drives negate any possible good will that the Texans defense could've accrued today, but when you're playing desperate and from behind all afternoon -- especially against a potent Patriots offense that averaged 28.8 points per game this season -- the dam was due to break at some point.
Yet still, the Texans defense fought until the bitter end, even when it was clear that Stroud was having a Shane 'Footsteps' Falco style breakdown with 40 million people watching on ABC. Matt Burke's group forced three turnovers of their own. They sacked Drake Maye 5 times -- and forced 4 fumbles -- registered 9 tackles for loss, limited the Patriots to just 250 yards of total offense, and held up on 11 of New England's 14 third-down attempts. Just about any way you slice it, that's clear-cut dominance by a group that made a habit of such performances this year.
Regardless of how well Houston's defense played today, this is still a bitter way for the season to have to end. Taking a nine-game winning streak into the Playoffs, there was legitimate hope that this could be the group that could get Houston over the hump and into uncharted waters -- the AFC Championship Game or even the Super Bowl -- but now coming out of this 12-point defeat, there may be legitimate questions about the state of this team... at least on one side of the ball.
Changes around the margins are natural, and hopefully, in meaningful ways, the Texans can add pieces in the offseason that bolster a defense that's already championship caliber. But on the other side of the ball, the least that the Texans could do is put more dynamic pieces around CJ Stroud who could ease some of that burden. But regardless of how well Houston does with improving their offensive supporting cast, we're about to endure eight months of chatter about whether CJ Stroud is capable of taking the Texans to the next level.
Each of the last two weeks, it certainly didn't look like it. Despite playing only two Playoff games, Stroud became the only player in NFL history with 5+ interceptions and 5+ fumbles in a single postseason. It's been two full seasons now where it's felt like he's regressed from his rookie season.
Fortunately for Stroud, he has the luxury of playing alongside a defense that can actually keep Houston in striking distance even as he's in the midst of one of the worst postseason performances from a quarterback in recent memory. That shouldn't change going into next season.