Final score, Ravens 34, Texans 10.
As weird as this sounds in a 24 point loss, there's not a ton to get angry about here if you're a Texans fan. On Saturday afternoon, they just got beat by a better, more talented team. The Ravens are likely going to the Super Bowl, and if they do, they'll likely be the favorite to win it. There is zero shame in what happened in Baltimore.
There were winners and losers, so let's get to them!
WINNERS
4. The big picture
As overwhelmed as the Texans looked on Saturday, particularly in the second half, the future is very, very bright. We had linebacker Blake Cashman on the team's postgame show on Saturday, and he said that he thinks the Texans are going to own the AFC South for a long time. C.J. Stroud is already one of the best ten quarterbacks in football, maybe best five. The Texans have one of the brightest young head coaches in DeMeco Ryans. Saturday was a dismal day, but the long term is extremely bright here in Houston.
3. Steven Sims
(Not so) fun fact — the Houston Texans, in two full games at M&T Bank Stadium this season, did not score a single offensive touchdown. The only touchdown they scored came on this Steven Sims punt return on Saturday:
The ironic thing about this touchdown is that Steven Sims isn't even on the roster if Noah Brown doesn't hurt his shoulder last week against the Browns. I hated to see Noah Brown's season end with an injury, but at least there was ultimately a small silver lining.STEVEN SIMS 67-YARD PUNT RETURN TD FOR THE TEXANS.
— NFL (@NFL) January 20, 2024
📺: #HOUvsBAL on ESPN/ABC
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus https://t.co/mOqD2jfu4M pic.twitter.com/y0miqMggP1
2. Christian Harris
As we head into the 2024 offseason and eventually training camp, there will be plenty of articles listing out all of the young foundational roster pieces on the Houston Texans. The obvious names will be heavily highlighted, guys like C.J. Stroud, Will Anderson, and Derek Stingley, Jr. However, Harris' name should be on that list, too. Nobody improved more over the second half of the season than the second year linebacker out of Alabama, and when the Texans' defense was at its best on Saturday, during the second quarter, forcing three three-and-outs, Harris was right in the middle of it.
1. Lamar Jackson
If you're a Texans fan, your biggest hope for victory on Saturday probably had something to do with Lamar Jackson's sketchy playoff history. In the postseason, coming into Saturday, Jackson had a 1-3 career record and a 41.5 QBR. On Saturday, he had the best postseason game of his career, and made at least a half dozen plays that only Jackson can make, mostly on scrambles during a play breaking down. Jackson finished with 152 yards passing and 100 yards rushing. He may eventually need to throw the ball more downfield and more accurately to get to the Super Bowl, but on Saturday, his stat line was more than good enough against the Texans.
LOSERS
4. Pre-snap discipline
If you're the less talented team in a game against the Ravens, you're probably going to need to achieve near perfection in areas like turnover margin and penalties. The Texans protected the football just fine on Saturday, but the penalties were a different story. The Texans had 11 flags for 70 yards, and a vast majority of them were undisciplined, pre-snap infractions. In fact, all four of the non-center offensive lineman had false starts in this game. Laremy Tunsil, the Texans' highest paid player, had two. You give yourself NO chance to win with that lack of attention to detail.
3. Ka'imi Fairbairn
If there was a juncture in the game where the Texans really could have taken some degree of control of the game's "feel," it was right before half-time, with Fairbairn attempting a 47 yard field goal to take a 13-10 lead. Instead, Fairbairn shanked the kick, the game was tied at the half, and the Ravens came out and scored three straight touchdowns on three straight possessions. Fairbairn is a free agent now, and I would guess he is a priority for the Texans, but he missed two big kicks down the stretch, the aforementioned field goal attempt and the PAT attempt on the final touchdown versus the Colts in Week 18.
2. Bobby Slowik
I don't really blame Slowik solely for the paltry output on offense. Against THAT Ravens defense, he was clearly operating with a set of knees as his chosen weapon at a gunfight. However, some of the goofy misdirection plays the Texans run are frustrating to watch. That double flea kicker whatever-you-call-it that ended in a -5 yard pass play to Xavier Hutchinson, I would scrap that. Slowik is a focal point fo several head coaching searches over the next few weeks, and if I were an NFL owner, I would want to know why it was so difficult to build even a mediocre running game in an offense where you have several highly paid offensive linemen and one of the ten best quarterbacks walking the planet.
1. Run defense
While the Texans have not been good running the football on offense all season, they have been largely good (if not, great) at defending the run. On Saturday, though, they had trouble locking down Lamar Jackson's improvisational plays, and in the second half, the Ravens ran the ball right down the Texans' throats. They finished with 229 yards rushing on 42 attempts, and a whopping 15 minute advantage in time of possession.
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