For a second straight year, the Houston Texans' season ended in the Divisional Round.
It's a place most teams would like to reach, but after entering 2024 with Super Bowl aspirations, Houston's 23-14 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs on Saturday was far from satisfying.
As in most cases, context is important here. The Texans embarked on their playoff run with few folks expecting them to survive Wild Card Weekend, yet their bludgeoning of the Chargers gave them newfound hope they might find a way to live up to expectation after all. When the Texans scored to make it a one-point game late in the third quarter of their Divisional Round meeting with the defending champion Chiefs, those hopes were very much alive.
Ultimately, they fell short. However, instead of discouraging the Texans as they enter the 2025 offseason, they feel invigorated by the results.
"We're right there. I don't care what nobody says," edge rusher Will Anderson told reporters on Monday. "This is a fantastic team. We've got our quarterback. We've got everything we need. We've got to keep stacking and keep persevering. We have a squad. We have a great team. We just gotta keep finding ways.
"If you look at all the teams that's in the AFC, they're just finding a way to win, and that's what we've got to do a better job of. Finding a way."
Houston found a way to get the job done against the Chargers on Wild Card Weekend. That way can be described with one word: defense. The Texans' four takeaways powered them to a victory that ended up looking more like a romp than the close contest most expected to see between the AFC South champions and the upstart Chargers.
Defense ended up proving to be the Texans' calling card over the final couple of months in 2024, with Anderson playing a key role. He's seen enough to know what needs to be included on the Texans' goals sheet if they want to achieve the ultimate dream in 2025 -- win more games.
"It's great, but we've got to win these regular season games so we can get home-field advantage," Anderson said. … "We can't lose to these teams like the Titans and Jets. We've got to beat Detroit. We can't suffer losses. We've got to get homefield advantage. And that's really going to help us. But if we don't, we gotta find a way on the road to win."
In each of the last two years, the Texans finished 10-7 to win the AFC South and the right to host a wild-card game. They've won both in lopsided fashion, but haven't found the same magic in the Divisional Round, losing in Baltimore last year and in Kansas City on Saturday.
If they want to reach their highest goals, home field advantage certainly would help, especially when considering how effective they've been in Houston in the postseason. But this 2024 tale is likely different if the Texans fix a few personnel weaknesses and avoid the worst injuries.
Houston lost Stefon Diggs to an ACL tear months ago, played a stretch without Nico Collins (who eventually returned to play an essential part in their passing game) and also watched Tank Dell suffer a season-ending injury for a second straight year during their earlier meeting with the Chiefs just before Christmas. Joe Mixon missed time due to two separate ankle injuries suffered in his first season with the team, and Houston lost a few key players on defense late in the season, too. Their offensive line was also incredibly inconsistent throughout 2024, hampering quarterback C.J. Stroud's ability to elevate their offense and stack the wins Anderson spoke of.
Generally, injuries are unavoidable. Staying healthy is a key to a deep playoff run, but it's guaranteed no team makes it unscathed. Instead, the best clubs tend to prepare for such losses by adding quality depth in the offseason, which the Texans now know should be a focus in 2025.
Improving the offensive line also must be a priority. Stroud was sacked 52 times in the 2024 regular season and -- perhaps fittingly -- took eight sacks in the Texans' postseason loss to the Chiefs, tying for the most in a single game in his career with another outing earlier this season (Week 9 against the Jets).
Houston has seen enough to know it's not far from reaching its goals. Often, though, that final hurdle tends to be the most challenging of all. Anderson and the rest of this organization will enter the 2025 offseason with a clear purpose: Find a way to clear that obstacle.
