Battle Red Blog
The Texans have clawed back from their 0-3 start, mounted a glorious return to the AFC playoff race that included a 5-game win streak, and have done the impossible: defeating the defending AFC Champion Kansas City Chiefs on their own turf with the season on the line for both teams. 2018 was a year for the books for Houston, but this year is quickly becoming one of the most improbable, unthinkable turnarounds in football history!
With a franchise-defining game like that, there’s a whole lot of takeaways to be thought of and talked about all across the Texans’ fanbase, but here are five things I took from last night’s historic win at G-Ge…GEHA Field (yeehaw!), at Arrowhead Stadium:
Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but the Houston Texans just annihilated a supposedly championship-caliber offense. Okay, maybe that’s a theme for Houston this season, but how about this: the Texans just held THE Patrick Mahomes to a completion percentage under 50%, only 160 yards, zero touchdowns, and THREE interceptions! What in the world happened last night?!?! While Houston’s defensive line definitely had an impact by rushing Mahomes and getting him off script, we all know that Mahomes is more than capable of winning games while scrambling around, which he did plenty of. The true culprit of Kansas City’s woes was Houston’s pass defense, which blanketed the Chiefs’ favorite receivers all night, perfectly complementing the d-line’s pressure. Derek Stingley Jr. and Jalen Pitre made Rashee Rice and Travis Kelce non-factors in the match, while Kamari Lassiter – still recovering from a foot injury – made two improbable plays on long bombs from Mahomes. The first was a brilliant pass-deflection in the end zone that prevented a Tyquan Thornton touchdown, which may be a beautiful enough play on its own to send Lassiter to the pro bowl. Then, on the very next Chiefs possession, he made another big play, intercepting Patrick Mahomes at the start of the fourth quarter after he launched the ball downfield towards Marquise Brown. Kamari Lassiter, once doubted by me and many others coming out of college due to his pedestrian 40-yard dash time, has completely proven my fears of his lack of speed to be unfounded.
Besides Houston’s DBs putting on a clinic to end all clinics last night, they also just got straight up lucky at times. Arrowhead Pride’s Rocky Magaña summarized it well in his post, 5 things we learned from Chiefs era-ending loss to Texans:
The Chiefs need a true X-receiver who can beat man coverage and win on the outside, or you know, just catch the passes that hit them in the hands. – Magaña
The entire Chiefs offense had a season-altering conniption last night when attempting to reel in passes from Patrick Mahomes. Rashee Rice had some big drops (one of fourth down), Kareem Hunt had a big drop (one on third down), and the always-reliable Travis Swi-KELCE had a disastrous,...
