An epic turn of events
Texans only the sixth team out of 177 since 1980 to start 0-3 and make the playoffs
When touchdowns eluded the Texans again, hemoraging hope from their fan base and motivating outsiders to deem an 0-3 start the end of their season, Tyrann Mathieu looked around the locker room.
He saw Deshaun Watson, DeAndre Hopkins and J.J. Watt. He could not make sense of so much talent going winless.
“How are we 0-3?” Mathieu thought to himself. “What’s wrong? Why aren’t we finishing?
“That was the thought then, more than, ‘Damn, we’re doomed.’ ”
They questioned their results but not their capabilities. Mathieu appreciated that moment when the regular season ended nearly 100 days later, with the Texans (11-5) bound for the playoffs and coronated the AFC South champions after their 20-3 victory over the Jaguars (5-11) on Sunday.
Houston went from a debacle in September to “Reppin’ the South,” as their new t-shirts showed. A.J. Moore hooted, “Champ! Champ!” while he, Mike Tyson and Johnson Bademosi posed in their white division championship caps. Bernardrick McKinney donned Houston’s tribal headdress: a Texans foamhead.
Justin Reid considered his cap a hard-earned memento.
“It’s great,” he said, with a gleaming smile.” “I don’t know if I’ll be taking it off because, man, what we went through was a roller coaster.”
The Texans had felt lost before they started to win. After falling 20-17 to the Titans in Week 2, Watt gritted his teeth. The search for a solution gnawed at him.
“We need to find a way to do it, not talk about it,” Watt muttered.
The next defeat, 27-22 at home to the Giants, reduced Houston’s likelihood of playing in the postseason to 2.8 percent.
“None of us expected to be here,” Watt said then. “Not believing is the worst thing you can do. What the hell would the point be if I didn’t believe?”
The Texans would be rewarded for their perseverance.
“After starting 0-3, everybody writes you off,” Watt said Sunday. “Guys in the locker room believed, guys in the locker room never gave up.”
“That may have been the one that turned the tables, too,” Jonathan Joseph said of the loss to the Giants. “It woke us up a little bit. If we’re going to be the team we say we’re going to be, we have to win games like this.”
The winless stretch poisoned by penalties, defensive breakdowns, demoralizing turnovers, red-zone anemia and suspect play-calling, blossomed into a turnaround spurred by sacks, Hopkins breakouts, Watson highlights, overtime heroics and a franchise-record nine-game winning streak.
Houston lost receivers Will Fuller and Demaryius Thomas to injuries, claimed DeAndre Carter off waivers in early November, and kept winning. Carter had been plucked from the defending champion Eagles. He sensed Houston’s focus immediately.
“The eyes, the energy in the locker room,” he said. “We fought back when everybody counted us out.”
Houston became the sixth team out of 177 to start 0-3 since 1980 and make the playoffs.
“To be able to turn that around, and have the win streak that we did, and overcome all the adversity, all the overtime wins, all the close games, it means a lot to everyone in this locker room,” Reid said. “We have a great locker room here. We never fell apart. We never started pointing fingers at anyone. We always stuck together. That’s what allowed us to come out on top and win the AFC South.”
Reid expects the turnaround to propel the Texans further.
“That’s the best thing that happened to us,” he said. “We’re battle-tested and we’ve learned how to come out on top.”
The Texans had to wait for the late games until they could find out their playoff seeding.
“It doesn’t matter,” Reid asserted. “We’re ready for anybody to throw anything at us.”
“We’re a young team, but we’re experienced,” said Carter. “What we went through in the season, rookies are not rookies anymore, now to get into the playoffs — that’s national football league football. When you’re a little kid, throwing the ball to yourself, pretending like you’re catching the game-winners, that’s what you do it for.”
The blurring velocity of Carter’s words and the energy that had him swaying back and fourth evinced a contagious excitement for next week.
“When you come into the locker room and you see all the energy and the smiles, it’s an incredible feeling,” Reid said.
“I came here a few months ago not knowing what to expect,” said Mathieu, whose two tackles Sunday raised his total to 71, a singleseason high for him. “I’m grateful to be part of a locker room that everyone seems committed.”
The high of victory and a fresh wad of chewing tobacco sent Mathieu skipping toward the locker room exit. He let out a departing final whoop: “Champions!”