Texans Wild Card showing shouldn't fool you, Chiefs should roll

Houston routed the Chargers 32-12, but it was a lot of smoke & mirrors. Don’t let one big win trick you into thinking they were not one of the teams you wanted KC to see in the Divisional Round.

Coming into the year the Houston Texans were heralded by many as at least the fourth-best team in the AFC alongside the Kansas City Chiefs, Buffalo Bills and Baltimore Ravens. They took a long and windy road, but here they are, in the Divisional Round for the second straight season. I say all of this to remember that as the Chiefs are about to attempt a three-game win streak that would result in being the first NFL team ever to go back-to-back-to-back, the Texans do come in with some degree of pedigree, even though Kansas City is 8.5-point favorites.

Any time a team turns a team over four times, as well as sacks the opposing quarterback four times, you have to give credit to the defense for forcing the issue. That is exactly what Houston did with their unit that is top-five in both sacks and takeaways, which was the catalyst to their upset 32-12 win over the Los Angeles Chargers. Having said all of that, I would argue that the Chargers were about a year early to their expected rise and this game had more to do with the failures of the Jim Harbaugh-led club than it was with Houston’s stellar play. If the Texans again score zero points on their first five drives, for example, that will likely lead to a double-digit deficit against the Chiefs.

Up until a minute left to go before halftime, Los Angeles had all of the momentum on their side before completely melting down. Before the game was over Justin Herbert had thrown four interceptions that included a pick-six. Houston turned the ball over three times themselves, only converted five of their 14 third downs and was riddled with penalties. Danielle Hunter, Will Anderson Jr., Denico Autry and Mario Edwards Jr. got after the quarterback with ease against some really good Los Angeles tackles, which is of note given Kansas City’s left tackle is still a question mark at this point, but this matchup had me thinking more about how I need to rethink all of my priors about Herbert than the fact that Houston is suddenly a power-house.