The Houston Texans and the early afternoon Saturday wild-card slot — name a better duo.
In what is nearing a tradition for Texans playoff teams, Houston will play their wild card game against the Buffalo Bills on Saturday, Jan. 4, meaning they will have six days of preparation after treating Week 17 as essentially a bye.
Though the numbers are against them, the Texans don’t view playing a must-win game on a shortened week as a disadvantage. By now, they know how to prepare for an accelerated or decelerated schedule.
“I don’t think you’re at a disadvantage,” coach Bill O’Brien said on Monday. “I would say at this time of the season, you can handle an accelerated schedule. So, I don’t think you’re at any disadvantage. It’s definitely accelerated, though, because you’re getting the game plan done last night, today, and then you’re getting ready to basically practice, introduce Buffalo, practice tomorrow, meet, start going almost like a Wednesday. You’re definitely a day ahead. It’s definitely accelerated, but at this point in the season where you’ve had hundreds of meetings and hundreds of practices, I think guys know what to expect relative to what we’re going to try to get done this week.”
Both the Texans and Bills have Saturday game experience in 2019, as both played on Saturday in Week 16; both games that clinched their respective playoff berths. That will only help Houston in their preparation leading up to the postseason.
“Yeah, I think any time you’ve played on a Saturday relative to that schedule when we played Tampa Bay, yeah, there’s some things that are similar to how we prepared for that game, just from a schedule standpoint, that the guys would be used to, so to speak, coming into this week,” O’Brien said.
Last season, the Texans played in a Saturday playoff game and saw the Indianapolis Colts thoroughly beat them. They are hoping for better luck in 2020, without a man named Luck passing against them.