The Houston Texans vanquished the Tennessee Titans, who had won six of their last season games, to take a convincing lead in the AFC South with a 24-21 win Sunday at Nissan Stadium.
However, that wasn’t enough to convince Pat Yasinskas of the Touchdown Wire to move up the Texans any higher in the top-10. In fact, the Texans dropped to No. 10 in the latest power rankings.
With a 24-21 victory at Tennessee, the Texans took control of the AFC South and their own destiny. Houston can clinch the division with a win Saturday at Tampa Bay. Even if the Texans and Titans, who play again in Week 17, end up in a tie, Houston would win the AFC South because of a better division record. If the Texans are going to go anywhere in the postseason, they’ll need a better performance than they got from quarterback Deshaun Watson on Sunday. Watson was intercepted twice, marking only the second time in his career that Watson has thrown multiple interceptions in consecutive games. Both interceptions happened in the end zone. If this team is going anywhere, it needs Watson to be at the top of his game.
There is no truer statement that the fact that Watson has to be at a high level for the Texans to make any postseason noise. However, he needs complementary play from the other two phases of the game, and that’s precisely what the Texans got with the field goal block from Angelo Blackson and the Whitney Mercilus interception. Houston will get more big time performances from Watson this year and possibly in the playoffs. If they can couple those with splash plays from the defense and special teams, the Texans will be a force to be reckoned with.
Houston can clinch the division with a win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Saturday at 12:00 p.m. CT at Raymon James Stadium.