What was good, bad, and ugly from the 2024 season finale?
There is one good thing about Saturday football: it gives me 24 hours to process my feelings after watching that. One thing I will say off the bat is that I hate conspiracy theories. They are lazy and have maybe a one percent chance of actually being true. The officials were not in the bag for the Kansas City Chiefs. The NFL is the biggest entertainment product probably on the planet. They could promote any team in the conference championship game.
Yes, the Chiefs have Taylor Swift and all of the guys in the State Farm commercials. The Houston Texans could probably drag out Beyonce and several other local celebrities. There were bad calls, but the Texans likely lose the game without those bad calls. I could see the game being a lot closer, but there are other structural issues at play here. The worst part of conspiracy theories is that it causes you to ignore the real reasons why the Houston Texans lost the football game.
Key Numbers
Total Yards: Texans 65/336, Chiefs 50/212
Rushing Yards: Texans 30/149, Chiefs 21/50
Passing Yards: Texans 35/187, Chiefs 29/162
Sacks: Texans 3, Chiefs 8
Turnovers: Texans 0, Chiefs 0
Penalties: Texans 8/82, Chiefs 4/29
Time of Possession: Texans 33:26, Chiefs 26:34
I could focus in on the penalties as an example of how unfair the officiating was, but that would ignore what we have seen all season. The Texans normally commit more penalties than their opposition. They were one of the top five most penalized teams in the league. Neutral fans will focus on the discrepancy because the “fact” that the Chiefs get the favorable calls has become gospel now. Sure, two of the penalties were bogus, but if you look at every game, there are bogus calls.
We have a good six months of offseason before we get back to football. There will be free agency, the draft, and training camp but there will also be plenty of time for Monday morning quarterbacking. Believe me, I will dive pretty deep into this game and other games, but let’s focus on the basics for now.
The Good
When you go to the mountain top and look down on the ground from that height you start to see things a little more clearly. Big time players make big time plays that win games. Each team has two or three stars on offense and defense and usually the team that has their stars play the best win the games. The Texans’ collection of stars all played well. C.J. Stroud didn’t throw any touchdown passes, but also didn’t turn the ball over. He also made plays with his legs for the second consecutive game.
Will Anderson had two sacks and a tackle for loss while Derek Stingley helped the secondary shut down the Chiefs’ wide receivers. Joe Mixon scored the team’s only touchdown and Nico Collins made some big plays in spite of being double teamed most of the night. It was the other 40 players on the roster that didn’t do quite enough to win. Still, when you have the best players playing good football in January you have figured out most of it. Nick Caserio and company just need a few more good football players in key positions. The good news is they have enough great ones.
The Bad
Frank Ross is one of the best special teams coordinators in the business and one of the most intense coaches in the business. I was afraid he was going to shiv Kris Boyd on the spot. That might have been the worst special teams performance overall all season and it came at the absolute worse time. A 55 yard field goal in freezing cold temperatures is probably a big ask in retrospect. However, if you give the Texans four points from the blocked field goal and missed extra point and take away a field goal due to poor kickoff coverage and suddenly the game becomes 20-18.
The fact that this alone would not have made the difference between winning and losing is the reason why it would end up in the bad column and not the ugly column. I generally like Ka’imi Fairbairn and would never advocate cutting him after one football game. Still, that was not his best effort and this game was not Ross’ best effort either. While the pure point differential doesn’t work, we can have no idea how missing the extra point impacted the team emotionally. We can have no idea of how going down 3-0 to start the game impacted things either.
The Ugly
I’m calling my shot. Bobby Slowik needs to be fired. I know he likely won’t be. I also know the New York Jets likely won’t hire him either. A man can dream though right? Let me throw out some simple numbers that will drive home my point. Counting the wild card game I will simply outline the yards gained and offensive points. We can get a basic yards per point and see if you notice something.
Texans Division Round: 12 points, 336 yards, 28.0 yards per point
Chiefs Division Round: 23 points, 212 yards, 9.2 yards per point
Commanders Divisional Round: 38 points, 481 yards, 12.7 yards per point
Lions Divisional Round: 31 points, 521 yards, 16.8 yards per point
Eagles Divisional Round: 28 points, 350 yards, 12.5 yards per point
Rams Divisional Round: 22 points, 402 yards, 18.3 yard per point
Bills Divisional Round: 27 points, 273 yards, 10.1 yards per point
Ravens Divisional Round: 25 points, 416 yards, 16.6 yards per point
Texans Wild Card Round: 25 points, 429 yards, 17.2 yards per point
Chargers Wild Card Round: 12 points, 261 yards, 21.8 yards per point
Buccaneers Wild Card Round: 20 points, 284 yards, 14.2 yards per point
Commanders Wild Card Round: 23 points, 350 yards, 15.2 yards per point
Eagles Wild Card Round: 22 points, 290 yards, 13.2 yards per point
Vikings Wild Card Round: 9 points, 269 yards, 29.9 yards per point
Packers Wild Card Round: 10 points, 302 yards, 30.2 yards per point
Rams Wild Card Round: 20 points, 292 yards, 14.6 yards per point
Bills Wild Card Round: 31 points, 471 yards, 15.2 yards per point
Broncos Wild Card Round: 7 points, 224 yards, 32.0 yards per point
Ravens Wild Card Round: 28 points, 464 yards, 16.6 yards per point
Steelers Wild Card Round: 14 points, 280 yards, 20,0 yards per point
Most teams live between 15 and 20 yards per point. Six teams gained 20 or more yards per point and they all lost. Six teams gained 15 or fewer yards per point and they are 5-1 in the playoffs. The Commanders beat the Bucs in spite of them having 14.2 yards per point. Clearly, offensive efficiency is one of the keys to victory. Of course, one could argue whether a stat is actually crucial to a team winning and losing or simply a characteristic that winning and losing teams have.
The Texans had the highest total in the divisional round by a ridiculous sum. I’d chalk this up to one of those things, but it is pretty indicative of what this team has been doing all season. They move the football. They just don’t score points. Teams that outgain their opponents by 100 or more yards and commit zero turnovers are 49-1 in the playoffs. I’ll leave you to figure out who the one is.
The team was +3 in turnover ratio in two different games and lost. I would have to call Elias to find out for sure, but I’m guessing that’s also a first. It all points to one thing: this team needs a different voice on offense. You could replace half the offensive line and half the receiving core and if you have the same guy calling bizarre calls in the red zone it won’t matter. Obviously, I’ll have more on this throughout the offseason.