DeMeco Ryans resuscitated the Texans’ playoff hopes by torturing Justin Herbert

All year long, DeMeco Ryans’ Houston Texans were a picture of inconsistency and rhythmless football.

At times, they looked like a classic AFC South division champion. They were a team qualifying for the NFL’s postseason by default, almost out of pity with the league’s seeding format prioritizing division winners. No one on the outside looking in had much faith in a deep Houston playoff run.

After the Texans embarrassed Justin Herbert’s Los Angeles Chargers in the AFC Wild Card game on Saturday, you can toss that narrative out the window. Thanks to Ryans’ steady hand and guidance at the helm of a relentless, well-schooled Houston defense, the Texans upended everyone’s expectations.

Herbert was probably among those with low expectations of these Texans.

But Ryans’ stalwart defense forced the prolific Chargers quarterback into the worst game of his career:

Texans pick off Justin Herbert FOR THE FOURTH TIME TODAY

Reminder: He only threw 3 ALL SEASON pic.twitter.com/0ioN7gR71p

— NFL on CBS (@NFLonCBS) January 12, 2025

At the start, it looked like the Chargers would coast over a seemingly inferior opponent. L.A. engineered a scoring drive on each of its first two possessions without much resistance from a Houston defense playing on skates on a turf field. The Texans looked like they were ready to roll over.

Instead, Ryans ensured that his defenders simply got their feet wet before pinning their ears back. After those two initial Chargers’ field goal drives, the Texans’ defensive performance regarding a shaky Herbert was akin to Montgomery Burns’ vicious hounds chasing a desperate Bart Simpson around his mansion’s premises.

Frankly, Herbert is lucky he got over the fence with a significant hole in his blue shorts as the only real long-term damage because he had no answer.

All told, the Texans neatly packed Herbert in a tight box on nearly every chance they got. The Chargers’ quarterback was pressured 19 times, hit nine others and was sacked on four occasions on just 32 pass attempts. He was pressured on 50 percent of his dropbacks, a mind-boggling number that speaks to Houston’s complete dominion over the line of scrimmage.

In any instance where it felt like the Chargers could maybe, perhaps, start building some momentum, the Texans snuffed it out. An awry pressure from the interior by Denico Autry. Will Anderson Jr. continually running circles around Rashawn Slater and Joe Alt. A late blitz that caught Herbert off guard when his receivers couldn’t get open.

It didn’t matter.

In one way or another, Herbert spent most of his second career playoff game lying on the turf.

He spent the rest of it throwing backbreaking interceptions. As Ryans’ pass rush came in waves, it rattled Herbert to the point of looking like he was seeing ghosts. At times, he waited a beat too late — long enough for some Houston defensive lineman to come in and rock his world. In others, Herbert began forcing the issue in a manner that suggested he had the yips. He threw the ball short of the sticks in high-leverage situations. His accuracy was off enough to let Texans defenders recover and take away throwing windows.

When a frenzied Herbert started forcing the issue, exhausted from a game’s worth of unstoppable pressures, he started giving Texans defensive backs a bunch of generous gifts.

This one over Ladd McConkey’s head on a basic curl route sealed the deal:

ABSOLUTELY ELECTRIC

: @Nickelodeon and @NFLonCBS pic.twitter.com/XO4Op75vRa

— Houston Texans (@HoustonTexans) January 12, 2025

Let’s not get any of this twisted. Herbert did not meet the moment on Saturday. The Chargers will have to reevaluate how they support him moving forward.

But he’s not the main story here. He didn’t play poorly just because he didn’t come “ready to play” in some rote cliché. The bulk of his uninspiring play came at the hands of a shutdown Texans defense that flat-out flexed its muscles over and over while gradually turning Herbert into a fine paste. This was an overmatched quarterback meeting a confident defensive unit galvanized by its mastermind of a head coach. The ensuing carnage is usually what we see when that happens.

Saturday night in Houston was not a referendum on Justin Herbert.

It was a validation of Ryans’ ambitious vision for the Texans and his status as a genuinely elite NFL coach.