A 23-14 loss ends the season for the Houston Texans. For the second time in as many years, their campaign ended in the Divisional Round.
This time, it was hard to watch as the Texans had several calls go against them. The most egregious was a late hit called against them, which sent Troy Aikman and most of social media into a frenzy.
After the game, head coach DeMeco Ryans wasn't thrilled with the loss. He said he was discouraged and then appeared ready to throw some shades on the refs when he said they were going against "everybody."
“We knew going into this game, man, it was us versus everybody,” Ryans said via Josh Alper, Pro Football Talk. “When I say everybody, I mean everybody. The naysayers, the doubt. Everybody we had to go against again today. Going into this game knowing what we were up against, we can’t make the mistakes we made. We had a lot of self-inflicted mistakes.”
Ryans covered himself by bringing up naysayers and doubters, but it's not hard to connect the dots. The head coach had to sit there and watch as his defenders were handcuffed against Patrick Mahomes. One of those included a roughing call on Will Anderson Jr., who hardly touched Mahomes.
Texans miscues were as costly as officiating
He also brought up the mistakes Houston made, which is a fair criticism. Kai'imi Fairbairn missed three total kicks, including one that was blocked. C.J. Stroud was sacked eight times and didn't do enough to counter the blitz.
This is all without getting into the play-calling from Bobby Slowik, which was also put on blast. Add all that up and the Texans made history in the worst way on Saturday.
Ryans is a smart coach and knows his team still had a chance to win despite the refs. But he's also human and is surely as upset (probably more so) than all the fans.
