The Houston Texans have made the playoffs in each of the last two seasons behind the partnership between young quarterback C.J. Stroud and head coach DeMeco Ryans. However, things haven’t gone as planned through the early parts of the 2025 campaign, with Monday night’s loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers sending Houston to a 0-2 start to the year.
After the loss, Ryans talked about a late-game goal-line sequence that Houston failed to turn into points that could have gone a long way toward securing a victory.
“We went to try to throw the ball,” he said in his postgame press conference. “Thought we had some matchups. I thought we had opportunity to hit Nico in the corner. The ball was out of bounds.”
Ryans also addressed the collective effort needing to be better across the board.
“I have to look at the film, but, obviously it’s a collective effort, we go two for nine on third down,” Ryans said. “What do we expect if we can’t get the ball in at the goal line? What do we expect is going to happen? Our guys, everybody on offense, have to make plays.”
For his part, Stroud is also ready to have whatever conversations are necessary to get things turned around.
“As a team, we’ve just got to stay together,” the quarterback said. “Everybody’s going to talk crazy — ‘we suck, we this, we that.’ At the end of the day, we’ve got to stay together and mesh well. Be honest and have hard conversations. I think right now we need more confidence, at least on offense, confidently playing better together. I think that’s a big thing.”
The Texans’ next opportunity to right the ship is on Sunday against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
About Qwame Skinner
Qwame Skinner has loved both writing and sports his entire life. In addition to his sports coverage at Comeback Media, Qwame writes novels, and his debut; The First Casualty, an adult fantasy, is out now.