Week 8 Results and Their Effect on the AFC South Playoff Race

Houston Texans (3-4)

It’s always sad to see a player suffer a serious injury. It’s even more disheartening when that player is one of the league’s biggest new stars. Deshaun Watson has been a pleasure to watch as he carried the Texans on his back with one of the best performances by a rookie quarterback that we have seen since RGIII. His playmaking ability in college has translated directly to the NFL with a creative offense designed by Coach Bill O’Brien that emphasizes Watson’s strengths. For a team that has been stuck in quarterback purgatory for years, this injury hurts the fans even more. Where before the defense has proven capable of carrying subpar quarterback play, the team already lost its best player in J.J. Watt as well as important defensive cornerstone Whitney Mercilus. In recent weeks, Watson and the offense have been keeping the team in games by putting up tons of points.

Now, Tom Savage is the starting quarterback, which does not bode well for this team based on his performance at the beginning of the season. Furthermore, the Texans traded their starting left tackle, Duane Brown, to the Seahawks after a lengthy holdout, which makes life even harder for a quarterback who has proved he should not be a team’s starter for any considerable amount of time. This Texans team is still perfectly capable of making a playoff run, but deprived of two of their best defensive players and their biggest offensive playmaker, their road to success is an uphill battle. This week, they face the Indianapolis Colts, who also had the wind let out of their sails with Andrew Luck being placed on IR. Even led by Savage, this Texans team has enough talent on the rest of the roster to make short work of the floundering Colts and return to a .500 record.