Houston Texans Stifle Oakland Raiders To Advance To Divisional Round

When you’re the Houston Texans, equipped with the No. 1 defense in the National Football League, that exact situation is the most golden of opportunities – the best of any best-case scenario – particularly when that rookie QB is making his first career start in a playoff game in the hostile environment of your own home stadium.

Houston knocked off Oakland on Saturday afternoon to win its Wild Card game. “The teams that are able to have key guys go down and still have the next man mentality and still be able to remain good and still be able to win are the teams that go further off into the playoffs and go to the Super Bowl because everybody’s exhausted right now, everybody’s banged up, but it does affect the team, it affects everybody”.

Even without feared pass rusher J.J. Watt, who missed the majority of the season after surgery to fix his injured back, the front seven remains one of the strongest in football. Houston RB Lamar Miller is expected to play after missing two games with an ankle injury. He also scored a touchdown. He completed just 59-percent of his passes for 2,957 yards with more interceptions (16) than touchdowns (15).

Coach Jack Del Rio hopes his team can build on what happened this year and be better next season. They make sure that we’re all prepared.

Seahawks 24, Lions 14: Matthew Stafford and the Lions have made a season out of come-from-behind victories.

Both teams come into the wildcard game without their star players and how they cope in their absences will decide the outcome of this matchup at the NRG Stadium. Meanwhile, the Lions hung within a possession of the Seahawks for the first three quarters, and then the wheels fell off in the fourth quarter. Interestingly, it was not the turnover battle that ranked them so high this season, but it was something that helped them win on Saturday. Houston lost their final game of the season to the Tennessee Titans, who played without their starting quarterback, Marcus Mariota, after he suffered a broken leg last week. The Texans ended the regular season ranked first in the National Football League for the first time in franchise history by allowing 301.3 yards a game. The Raiders only ran for a total of 64 yards in the game, and while they did score two touchdowns, the game was never in doubt. It was aided by a 37-yard Jalen Richard punt return to the Houston 38.

With just a couple weeks remaining the Texans actually benched their opening day starter in favor of former fourth-round pick Tom Savage.

The end result is a game that truly lives up to the title of the round.

Early in the game Osweiler targeted tight ends Ryan Griffin and C.J. Fiedorowicz, before DeAndre Hopkins got involved in the offense.

The Texans rebounded after an embarrassing 30-0 wild-card loss to Kansas City last season to advance to face either the Chiefs or New England in the divisional round next weekend. It was thought to be a win for the Houston brass; that is, until Osweiler started misfiring on the regular.

The Texans’ next opponent was determined by the victor of the Pittsburgh vs.

Houston really isn’t that great on offense (no surprise there), but being able to sustain drives and put up points with their defense will be important to any success they have in this game.