With their dominating win over the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday, the Houston Texans locked up the division title and a spot in the playoffs. As they get ready to take on the Kansas City Chiefs tomorrow in Houston, here are a couple of things to keep in mind that the Texans need to do to win:
It would be easy enough to say, “hey defense, just keep doing what you’re doing,” but there’s a little more to it than that. The Chiefs have been on a massively impressive 10-game win streak, and are one of, if not the hottest team in the NFL right now.
Stopping them starts on the defensive side. Alex Smith isn’t normally the name that pops into anyone’s head when they think of a playoff quarterback, but he does present a skill set that can provide problems for many defenses.
Smith has done a great job this season of taking care of the football, so making him feel as uncomfortable as possible is of the utmost importance. However, that game plan hasn’t always worked out for defenses because of Smith’s mobility. So, how do you stop his playmaking and mobility? Containment.
There needs to be strong containment on the edge of the line to prevent Smith from getting outside the pocket and creating plays like he’s proven he can. That containment policy stretches to the secondary as well. I’m sure we all would like to forget the first week of the season, when Smith and the Chiefs beat the Texans 27-20.
Much of the Chiefs’ offensive success in that game came from the Texans 
defense giving up big plays, as was their Achilles heel for much of the start of the season. Houston has done a much better job in the secondary in the last couple of weeks, but they need to make sure they don’t have any sort of lapse on defense.
It’s not just up to the defense playing a stellar game. That’s going to be a large part of it for the Texans, but if their defense plays the way it can, they’ll provide the offense with a lot of opportunities that they need to take advantage of.
Kansas City’s defense has been the driving force of their success, giving up just 12.8 points per game over their 10-game win streak. Houston isn’t going to get too many opportunities in this defensive battle, but if they can put together at least three solid, clock-eating scoring drives, they should put themselves in very good position to win.
Houston needs to have a similar run game to that of the last couple of games. Whether the strong effort comes from Blue, Grimes, or Polk, the Texans need to have a strong ground-and-pound effort to wear down the Chiefs defense and, more importantly, keep the pass rush off of Brian Hoyer.
Finally, they need to just ignore the history. Every media outlet wants to remind you that the Chiefs haven’t won a playoff game in 
22 years, since Joe Montana led them to victory over the Houston Oilers in Houston (except now that makes me just another one of those guys that’s telling you about the history…damn). As cool as the history of that all is, it’s just that: history. Nothing about a game 22 years ago has any impact on Saturday’s playoff, so just block the talk out and play tough Texans football.
The one thing the Texans can listen to in order to bring a little extra motivation into the game is the fact that they’re being listed as a 3.5-point underdog in a home playoff game. I’m sure JJ Watt and the Houston defense will have something to say about that on Saturday.
