Resilient.
If one word keeps circling back to define this Texans season, it is that.
Just reaching the postseason, capped by a Monday night trip to the Steel City, already feels like a quiet triumph. On paper it is the Houston Texans against the Pittsburgh Steelers. In reality it is DeMeco Ryans versus Mike Tomlin, two leaders who spent much of this season absorbing punches and refusing to flinch.
Both were embattled at various points. Both endured stretches where belief mattered as much as scheme. And both kept their locker rooms upright when the margins grew thin.
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Tomlin’s early success is part of league lore. He won a Super Bowl in just his second season, setting a standard that has followed him for nearly two decades. Ryans has not lifted hardware yet, but reaching the playoffs in each of his first three seasons carries real significance in a league that rarely waits for growth to mature.
History helps frame it. Before Tom Landry built a dynasty, Dallas was dreadful, so bad that it took five seasons just to reach the break even point. Bill Parcells needed three years to reach the postseason with the Giants, only to be sent home scoreless by the 1985 Bears. Bill Walsh won it all in his third season, but his first two produced only eight total wins. Even Don Shula, the winningest coach the league has ever known, endured a seven year stretch without a single playoff victory. It still feels unthinkable.
Placed against that backdrop, Ryans is not merely on schedule. He is ahead of it.
Among today’s contemporaries, few are keeping pace. In Cincinnati, Zac Taylor is now three years removed from a playoff appearance after once being the toast of the AFC. In New York, there are incoming high school freshmen who have never known the Jets to be postseason bound.
Nothing about Monday night guarantees a breakthrough. Nothing promises a fairytale ending. But moments like this are fragile in the NFL. They arrive quietly and disappear without warning.
So celebrate it. Because this stretch, right here, very well may be remembered as the golden age of Texans football.
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