Houston Texans: The absolute two best playoff scenarios for the team

The Houston Texans will be clinching a playoff berth soon and it’s time to start talking playoff scenarios. Here are the two best ones. Take a look.

The Houston Texans are heading up to the Big Apple for a showdown against the 3-7 Jets, a win would have them at 10-4 with a shot at one of the Top 3 seeds in the AFC. What seed is this Texans squad best suited for?

At around this time in December, the season was pretty much over as the injury bug made its through the Houston Texans‘ locker room, taking out key players such as Deshaun Watson, J.J. Watt and Whitney Mercilus. This season is a much different story because the Houston Texans have a legit shot at getting a one, two or three seed in the AFC for the playoffs.

This is truly a remarkable run since the team started 0-3 and it’s rare that a team is in a situation like this. Kansas City lost a heartbreaker to Los Angeles Chargers Thursday night and that puts them both at 11-3 on the season.

Kansas City has a rough last two games coming up as they face the Seahawks in Seattle and the gritty Oakland Raiders at home. The Texans have the Jets, the Carson Wentz-less Philadelphia Eagles and the Jacksonville Jaguars. It’s clearly obvious which schedule most people would rather have.

If they win out, they have a shot at the one or two seed. But if they go 1-3 or 2-3, there’s a good chance they clinch the No. 3 seed — their current positioning — or move up to the No. 2 seed.

Here are the two best playoff scenarios that the Houston Texans will encounter:

1st Scenario: Home Sweet Home

Congrats, the Houston Texans are the first 0-3 team in NFL history to turn it around and get the one or two seed. What an accomplishment! The good news is that they get to stay in Houston for the remainder of the playoffs and host at least two playoff games.

The bad news is that high-powered offenses would much rather play in a dome than outdoors. In the AFC, there are two high powered offenses, with latter’s playoff contention still up in the air. Who are they?

The Kansas City Chiefs and the Indianapolis Colts.

God forbid if we have to see one of those two teams at home this postseason. No tough conditions means that the ball will be flying everywhere and that will expose the Houston Texans‘ corners such as Shareece Wright; and, at times, Johnathan Joseph.

Andrew Luck has tossed for more than 700 yards on this defense this season and T.Y. Hilton pretty much owns NRG Stadium as he’s one of the biggest Texans killers of all-time. A scarier thought would be facing Patrick Mahomes, Tyreek Hill, Travis Kelce, Spencer Ware and Kelvin Benjamin. Kansas City would pose the biggest problem for the Texans if they played at home.

Of course, they would have a shot at seeing Tom Brady travel on the road to Houston and attempt to win a playoff game in H-Town. We know the history between Bill O’Brien and the New England Patriots as he has never beaten them in the regular season or playoffs since he has been at the helm of this team.

However, he only had Deshaun Watson at 100 percent health for one of those games and Watson was a problem for Bill Belichick all day long. Demons can eventually be beaten and it feels like O’Brien is due for a win against the Pats.

Against the Pats, history would be on their side…

There has never been a quarterback to win a playoff game at 41-years-old or older and the Pats

More from House of Houston

haven’t won a road playoff game in nearly 12 years. The last time they won a playoff game on the road was with a bit of luck — it was when San Diego Chargers’ safety Marlon McCree fumbled an interception late in the game during the AFC Divisional Round back in the 2006 season. The Pats ended up defeating the Chargers 24-21.

It would be absolutely electric at NRG Stadium if the Texans secured home field throughout but will the electricity be taken out by either K.C., N.E. or Indy?

2nd Scenario: The long haul

If they get the three seed, they will have a playoff game at home and then they would be on the road for the remaining two games. Going on the road during the playoffs is always tough but there have been teams to complete this task and head to the Super Bowl. However, this might be the best scenario for the Texans.

HEAR ME OUT…

In the first game, you’ll draw a team like Baltimore which has a rookie QB under center but has veteran Joe Flacco sitting right behind him. I think the Texans get it done against a team like that considering Romeo Crennel’s solid history against rookie QBs.

For the next round, they’ll head up to either Kansas City, Los Angeles or Foxboro. Two of those cities are cold weather ones in January. This will equate to more running of the football, which the Texans do a fantastic job of combating and performing this pivotal strategy.

This tweet from Matt Hammond shows you the rankings of the rush offense and rush defensive rankings of the top AFC teams. Look who has the better rankings.

Hammond has a tremendous point, the Texans are built for those type of games. How you combat those high-flying offenses is playing great defense, which the Texans do and running the football which chews more clock.

It’s a perfect scenario.

Next. Why the Texans should tag and then trade Clowney. dark

The Texans surely do control their own destiny and it will be interesting to see how the cards fall coming up to the playoffs.

Do you agree with my scenarios? Feel free to comment in the section below.

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