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HOUSTON (AP) — A season so promising just a few - liny195 - 05-31-2019
short weeks ago is on the verge of falling apart for the Houston Texans.One of only three winless teams in the NFL Christine Michael Sr Jersey , the Texans are desperate to get a victory on Sunday against the Colts and try to salvage their season.“We have to win this game,” safety Tyrann Mathieu said. “We just have to win.”After going 4-12 last season, the Texans had high expectations entering this year with the return of stars J.J. Watt and Deshaun Watson, who both missed big chunks of last season with injuries.Instead three straight close losses have the Texans searching for ways to escape the NFL’s basement.“These are close games and it’s the team that doesn’t beat themselves that ends up winning, and we’ve been beating ourselves too much,” coach Bill O’Brien said.It is Houston’s worst start since opening the 2008 season 0-4. If you add the six games they lost to end the 2017 season, the Texans have lost nine straight. It has been more than 10 months since they won a game with their last victory coming against the Arizona Cardinals on Nov. 19.Watt said the importance of ending the skid this week can’t be overstated.“We have to,” he said. “We don’t have one. Haven’t had one in a long time so we really need to get a win. It’s very tough opponent, a very tough place to play so we have to go on the road and put our best foot forward.”The Colts aren’t doing much better than Houston this season and enter the game 1-2. But the Texans haven’t had much success against Indianapolis and have a 7-25 record in 32 meetings. They’ve had even more trouble in Indianapolis where they’ve won just twice in 16 visits.Despite their struggles, O’Brien isn’t worried about the psyche of his team and knows that getting a win against an AFC South opponent will go a long way toward getting things on the right track.“We’ve only played one divisional game,” he said. “We’ve got a big one this week. So, we just have to keep grinding. There’s no other way out of it. There’s no choice. I think when you have the role that I have, it’s easy. There’s no choice. You have to go to work and you have to figure it out.”For Watson, trying to end a skid is a new experience. Watson, who helped Clemson to a national title in the 2016 season, lost just two games combined in his last two seasons in college. He said this stretch has already taught him some lessons.“Just dealing with adversity,” he said. “Try to take the good with the bad and really dig down each and every week to find out what the problem is.”The problem, according to Watson and O’Brien is not paying attention to details. The Texans rank eighth in the NFL by averaging 396.3 yards a game, but are tied for 22nd in scoring with just 19.7 points a game in part because of an excessive amount of penalties and negative plays in the red zone.Houston’s three losses have been by a combined 15 points, giving the Texans hope that if they tighten a few things up they’ll be able to get over the hump and into the win column this week.“We’re not that far off,” Mathieu said. “We just have to do better at preparing, building up throughout the week and then on gameday, starting fast and then finishing strong. So Pat McAfee Color Rush Jersey , if we can do those things and if our five-star players could play like five-star players, then we’ll be good.” INDIANAPOLIS 鈥?Three postseason losses taught Anthony Castonzo some valuable lessons about playoff football.The Indianapolis Colts left tackle hopes his teammates find an easier way to learn."Basically, my advice is not to take it any differently," Castonzo said Wednesday as the Colts prepare for Saturday's wild-card game in Houston. "Practice the same way, work the same way, play the same way. You have to not make it more than it is."It's a mantra coaches and players in Indy have stuck to since the Tony Dungy era.The Hall of Fame coach, who brought Indy its first football title, often talked about how most playoff games were lost rather than won because of the natural temptation to try and do too much 鈥?and the ensuing mistakes.Young players, the Colts know, tend to be the most vulnerable and Indianapolis (10-6) has one of the league's least-experienced teams. Twenty-four of the 53 players on the active roster are in their first or second NFL seasons and only 15 have participated in a playoff game.Castonzo, T.Y. Hilton, Andrew Luck and Adam Vinatieri are the only remaining active players from Indy's previous playoff team, which lost in the AFC championship game at New England in the 2014 season.Of the seven who own Super Bowl rings only three 鈥?linebacker Najee Goode, defensive end Jabaal Sheard and Vinatieri 鈥?have actually been on the field for those title runs.The other 47 players on Indy's roster have won a total of six postseason games, with midseason acquisition Mike Mitchell accounting for half.So first-year coach Frank Reich recruited some help this week."I was sitting around thinking, ‘OK, how many playoff games has (Vinatieri) played?'" Reich said, noting the answer was 30. "So I said, ‘All right, tell me Vinny what have you learned?' The (text) message he sent me, I thought, was vintage and we shared that with the team (Tuesday) morning and we had Vinny share a few extra thoughts on that. A lot of wisdom in what he was saying."Vinatieri didn't need a handful of Super Bowl rings to provide credibility for his message.The league's oldest active player, at age 46 https://www.coltsfanshop.com/Jack-Doyle-Jersey , became the NFL's career scoring leader earlier this season and heads into his 31st playoff game already holding the title of career postseason scoring leader."I told them it's a playoff game but it's the Houston Texans we're playing," Vinatieri said. "There are a lot of ebbs and flows and you've got to stay focused on your job."His words appear to have resonated.Rookie linebacker Darius Leonard, the league's top tackler with a franchise-record 163, said he's sticking to his regular routine and Pro Bowl guard Quenton Nelson, another rookie, isn't making any changes either. Both are eager to get started.Reich acknowledges there is one significant difference between the regular season and postseason: Mistakes are magnified.So the Colts will spend the rest of this week on cleanup duty after having two turnovers and 12 penalties in Sunday's 33-17 playoff-clinching victory at Tennessee."I would say the needles adjust slightly. For instance, the importance of running and stopping the run, the importance of the turnover battle, the importance of penalties or lack thereof," said Reich, who played on all four of Buffalo's AFC championship teams in the 1990s."I think we have proven we can win a game throwing it 50 times, but in my experience that gets harder to do in playoff football. You can do it if you have to, but you want to establish dominance."Being young also has an advantage."They have no idea how big a moment it is and if they go on a run they'll have no idea how special it is," former punter Pat McAfee said after doing his first NFL broadcast for Fox Sports last weekend. "My rookie year we didn't lose until we chose to lose in the Super Bowl and I thought, we'd be back the next year."Instead, McAfee never made it back and Castonzo missed out on the playoffs each of the past three years.But this time feels different to Castonzo, who believes the young guys such as Leonard and Nelson have changed this team. They didn't crack under the pressure all season and none of the Colts expect them to start now."They bring a lot of energy and are playing at a high level," he said. "That's one of the big reasons we're here."Notes: Center Ryan Kelly (stinger), safety Clayton Geathers (knee), linebacker Anthony Walker (shoulder) and running back Jordan Wilkins (knee and ankle) were full participants at practice Wednesday. Geathers and Kelly were inactive last week, but Kelly said Wednesday he expects to start Saturday. … Pro Bowl tight end Eric Ebron took the day off while four-time Pro Bowl receiver T.Y. Hilton missed another workout because of his injured ankle.