A win that could change the franchise rides on Deshaun Watson.
Same ol’ Texans? Watson-led franchise can change narrative with one huge playoff win
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Let’s start with the obvious. • This is the biggest game in Texans history. •
And if Deshaun Watson’s team exits Arrowhead Stadium on Sunday evening with a W, and Patrick Mahomes’ team suddenly sees its 2019 season end on the 12th day of January in 2020, it will be a victory that immediately changes the Texans’ franchise. • No extra pressure. • No hyperbole. • Just stating facts.
“These guys really understand the opportunity in front of them and they understand what it’s going to take in Arrowhead Stadium against a great football team,” said sixth-year coach Bill O’Brien, as an AFC divisionalround matchup against Andy Reid’s 12-4 Chiefs drew near. “We feel like we have a good football team. And we feel like if we have a good week of practice, that … we’ll be in a very competitive ballgame. But I think these guys are very appreciative of the opportunity and they’re going to do everything they can to try to take advantage of it.”
If the Texans take advantage of this moment, the fourth-largest city in America will be proudly swearing its allegiance to the red and blue Sunday night. Houston will believe in the Texans with a faith that hasn’t been felt since 2012 — and that special season ended by hitting a divisionalround wall at New England.
The immediate reward if the road team is victorious Sunday?
The AFC championship will be played inside the Texans’ stadium, in an AFC South rematch against the highly impressive Tennessee Titans.
Andre Johnson never reached the AFC Championship Game. The same for Arian Foster and Brian Cushing. Matt Schaub led a franchise-best 12-4 team in 2012. But after starting 11-1 and putting the NFL on notice, those unproven Texans faltered down the stretch and were down 31-13 to Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and Co. by the end of the third quarter on Jan. 13 of that year.
Gary Kubiak was fired a season later as Schaub collapsed and the Texans started spinning their quarterback carousel. After eight seasons in Houston and a 61-64 mark, it took a partnership with Peyton Manning, Wade Phillips and Rick Dennison in Denver for Kubiak to reach his first AFC championship as a head coach. The Broncos then beat Cam Newton’s Panthers in Super Bowl 50, in yet another reminder that professional football has rarely been kind to an expansion franchise still staring up at its 20th season of existence.
The NFL has spent this season constantly reminding you about its 100-year anniversary.
The Texans would only get a couple pages in the book of NFL history and would trade their 131-157 all-time record for a single AFC championship appearance without blinking.
But you know it and I know it and we see it displayed every day in hundreds of high-tech, super-modern ways: Things change.
You felt the buzz of a new era during Watson’s first start, when he ran past, around and over Cincinnati during a “Thursday Night Football” road victory on Sept. 14, 2017.
You watched Watson’s 2019 team begin this season by nearly taking down the Saints in the Superdome on “Monday Night Football,” then beat up the Patriots on “Sunday Night Football” and outpunch the Titans at Tennessee.
Even when it’s 16-0 Buffalo in a wild-card game and NRG Stadium is booing again, Watson creates hope and magically keeps the Texans alive like only a true magician can. It was also 17-3 Chiefs at Arrowhead not that long ago; Watson’s resilient team won 31-24 in a game it never would have won during past years.
“(Deshaun has) got a great presence about him. He’s got excellent poise, he’s very smart, he’s got a great memory,” said O’Brien, recalling his pre-draft thoughts about the QB who instantly altered the franchise. “We brought him here to the facility and I just remember guys congregating around him in the lunch room, wanting to sit down and talk to him. That stands out to me that when he walked in the building, having never walked in this building before, that there were a lot of people that already knew about him based on what he had done at Clemson and then wanted to meet him, and you could tell they wanted to be his teammate.”
Watson erases cold, lazy cynicism. He answers negativity with warmth.
Texans fans filled my Saturday morning flight to Mahomes Land. Red jerseys and blue towels were everywhere.
You don’t fly to Kansas City in January when it’s 16 degrees and snowing for an early 2020 vacation. No one is that crazy.
You pay for the flight and book the hotel rooms and put down good money for the game tickets because the Texans have Watson and now they have J.J. Watt back, and there’s a shot that something very special could happen Sunday on the Chiefs’ field.
Because, as crazy as it was, 22-19 Texans over Buffalo in overtime ultimately left you feeling electric. And who knows what’s going to happen when Watson faces Mahomes again, with an AFC title game spot up for grabs.
“It’s cool to see a fellow friend of mine and a guy that’s playing the same position as me have so much success and see it in live action,” Watson said. “It’s definitely dope. It’s going to be a good experience. … We played earlier this year. It was a good game, went back and forth. But, yeah, it’s just two good teams going head to head and we’re just trying to be the best we can for our team and help our team win.”
The Texans are 0-3 in divisionalround games. As I type these words and the snow keeps falling in Kansas City, Houston’s NFL team is best known across Football America for two conflicting traits: divisional banners and playoff letdowns.
That will change one day.
Watson entered the weekend on the same national platform as Lamar Jackson and Mahomes, during an era when the league is rapidly changing.
This is the biggest game in Texans history.
Win it with a 24-year-old Watson on the Chiefs’ field, and no one can say “same ol’ Texans” anymore.