The Kansas City Chiefs now know who their opponent will be for the divisional round of the NFL playoffs. The Houston Texans will come to Arrowhead to take on the number one seed Chiefs after they dismantled the Los Angeles Chargers 32-12 in the Wild Card round. While the Texans did put up 32 points and over 400 yards of offense, it was their defense that was the key to the game.
The Texans defense helped make the game a complete disaster for Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert. He was 14 of 32 for 242 yards with 1 touchdown and 4 interceptions. He was pressured on 19 of his 36 drop backs and sacked 4 times. Herbert looked really, REALLY bad in this game, but a lot of that had to do with how uncomfortable the Houston pass rush made him and then their defense took advantage when he forced some bad throws.
The Texans defense also shut down the Chargers run game. Jim Harbaugh famously likes to control the line of scrimmage, but their run game only had 18 carries for 50 yards. That's just 2.8 yards per carry. You mix together the turnovers, the sacks, the lack of a run game, and going just 3 of 11 on third down and the Texans defense just didn't let the Chargers get anything going.
So now the question becomes if the Texans defense can do the same thing against the Chiefs this week. They weren't as successful just a few weeks back when they went head to head in Arrowhead on December 21st. The Chiefs won that game 27-19. The Texans then struggled again four days later when the Baltimore Ravens pummeled them 31-2 on Christmas Day. Then the Texans rebounded in their regular season finale against the Tennessee Titans before beating the Chargers in the Wild Card round.
In their first matchup Patrick Mahomes was much more comfortable than Herbert was on Saturday. Mahomes was 28-41 for 260 yards and a touchdown and no turnovers. He was only sacked one time as Joe Thuney debuted at left tackle that game. It was also the first game where we saw KC focus on a quick passing attack that spread the ball around to DeAndre Hopkins, Travis Kelce, Xavier Worthy, and Marquise "Hollywood" Brown. That was the first game where it looked like Mahomes finally had all of the weapons that he needed.
The Chiefs also ran the ball more effectively than the Chargers did. They had 28 carries for 124 yards, averaging 4.4 yards per carry. So the Chiefs will be trying to replicate that same offensive success in this rematch while the Texans will try to ride the defensive momentum they built in the Chargers matchup. The Texans were 2nd in interceptions this season and 4th in sacks. So this defense is a very good unit.
That's not to say that the Chiefs don't need to worry about the Texans offense at all, but even in their 32-12 win the Houston offense looked stagnant for much of the game. The Texans were up just 10-6 at halftime. It wasn't until the Chargers turnovers started piling up and their defense wore down because of the lack of support the offense was giving them that the Texans finally started to run up the score in the 2nd half.
So what do you think Chiefs fans? Are you worried about how well the Texans defense played on Saturday or do you think that was more of a product of the Chargers struggling offense? The Texans had a very good defense this season, so this wasn't just a one game fluke for them. Do you think the Chiefs will be able to replicate their offensive success from just a few weeks ago? I'd love to read your thoughts in the comments below.