It couldn't be more fitting that the Houston Texans regular season ended on a defensive touchdown. Even more fitting... it was scored by Tommy Togiai, one of the few Texans starters who hasn't emerged as a Pro Bowl candidate this season, highlighting the talent and depth of a unit that will finish the season 1st in yards allowed, 2nd in points allowed and 3rd in forced turnovers. The fact that it was the second time this season that a Texans win has concluded with a defensive touchdown on the final play of the game -- on a thicc-six nonetheless -- serves as the cherry on top of the sundae.
But what do you say we throw some sprinkles on this sucker too?
With that Tommy Togiai score, Houston's margin of victory against the Indianapolis Colts ballooned from 2 points to 8 points, a seemingly negligible difference in the NFL, where there's no selection committee that uses margin of victory as one of the determining factors to determine what teams will play in the postseason, but in Texans lore, this score was a big one.
That last play of the game pushed Houston's point differential for the season to +109, which is officially the best mark since the organization's inception in 2002, surpassing the 2011 team that won 10 games and earned the AFC South crown for the first time in franchise history. That version of the Texans, led by an Arian Foster-led rushing attack and a defense that, similar to this one, was among the NFL's best, outscored opponents by 103 points and saw its season extend to the second weekend of the Playoffs, concluding with a 20-13 Divisional Round loss to the Baltimore Ravens.
The fact that this particular Texans team now sits alone at the top in this particular category feels like an appropriate representation of how this season has progressed. Despite an 0-3 hole, this team never gave in. They dug their heels in, kept believing that talent and resilience would win out, and here we are nearly four months later, and it doesn't feel like a mischaracterization to say this could go down as the best team in franchise history.
Of course, that will ultimately be dictated by the postseason. The Texans have still never played in an AFC Championship Game, but in what looks to be a relatively wide open AFC, this could be the year Houston finally breaks through.