Houston Texans missed the perfect chance to jump into first place

We knew the New York Jets' defense was going to be hard to overcome, they're very good. We also knew that the Houston Texans were coming in with several things to prove, and somehow proved them, and didn't all in the same vein. The defense contained Zach Wilson for three quarters, a sentence that shouldn't have been phrased that way, and the offense finally did start running the ball more, just far from enough.

The combination of an unbalanced offense and a defense that made Wilson look like Aaron Rodgers caused the Texans to fall apart and fall down the stretch, resulting in the Texans taking a 30-6 loss and dropping to 7-6. The Texans losing isn't the worst thing in the world, even if this was the easiest game they had left on their schedule. No, the worst thing is that when the Texans ended up losing, so did the other two teams ahead of them in the playoffs.

Somehow, both the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Indianapolis Colts ended up losing on Sunday, as the Cleveland Browns and Baltimore Ravens' legend Joe Flacco toppled the Jaguars in Cleveland, and the Colts lost to the Cincinnati Bengals and I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Joe-Burrows substitute, Jake Browning.

The perfect series of events played out one after another, resulting in the Texans just needing to win to take the AFC South lead from the Jaguars and leap-frog over the Colts in the process. It was the perfect series of events, it's just a shame that the Texans didn't take advantage of the situation and take control of the top of the division.

And what makes it even worse, it's the second time in three weeks that this happened. The Texans could've defeated the Jaguars three weeks ago and taken sole possession of first place in the AFC South then, but they blew it then too. Hopefully, this doesn't become a trend and the Texans can finally take advantage of the struggles of the teams around them.