Why Last Week's Clash Spells a Shockingly Low-Scoring Showdown This Time

Texans vs. Patriots, 3:00 ET

We don’t have much football left, and we already have half of the Conference Championship game figured out. Now, we get to see who will be the other half in the AFC. This has been an awesome season with teams stepping up in unexpected ways. Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that either of these teams is here, but I will admit I am. One of the Texans or Patriots gets to punch their ticket to the AFC Championship game today.

The Texans went into Pittsburgh and didn’t just win the game; they might’ve ended Aaron Rodgers and Mike Tomlin’s careers. A quick note on that – I get you’re not winning Super Bowls, but there is too much success, in my opinion, to move on from him. I get that it was positioned as his choice, and if that is true, fine. I just don’t believe it. The story of that game, though, was not just the Texans defense, which was typically fantastic. The story was that the offense actually looked pretty good as well. If the offense can play at that level – which it will be harder to do against a good New England defense – there is nothing stopping the Texans from winning the Super Bowl. The running game was working well, CJ Stroud had a few mistakes but managed well otherwise, and Christian Kirk looked as good as he has all season. The Texans defense travels well and should still be relied on even against this good Pats offense.