HOUSTON — After beating Jacksonville Sunday, the Houston Texans get a bye next week and then are in the home stretch of the season. If you look at the standings, they're in firm control of the AFC South.
At 8-5, Houston has a two-game lead over the second-place Colts, who sit at 6-7. Houston also swept the season series with Indianapolis, which means if the two teams have identical records at the end of the regular season, Houston will win the division and advance to the playoffs.
Seems like the Texans are in the driver’s seat…and they are. All they have to do is take care of their business, and they’re in the playoffs. And their business is winning at least two of the final four games in the regular season. If they do that and the Colts run the table, they’d end with the same record and Houston owns the tiebreaker.
The only problem? When looking at the remaining four teams the Texans and Colts will face, Indy has a distinct advantage.
First the Colts. Here are the four remaining teams on their schedule.
- Dec. 15 at Denver (7-5)
- Dec. 22 vs. Tennessee (3-9)
- Dec. 29 at New York Giants (2-10)
- Jan. 5 vs. Jacksonville (2-10)
If you add up the win-loss records of those four teams, you’d get 14 wins and 34 losses. Not exactly daunting.
Now, take a look at the teams on the Texans’ schedule to finish out the regular season.
- Dec. 16 vs. Miami (5-7)
- Dec. 21 at Kansas City (11-1)
- Dec. 25 vs. Baltimore (8-5)
- Jan. 5. at Tennessee (3-9)
Add those records up and the teams Houston will face have a combined record of 27-22. And if you look at the dates, they play the Chiefs and Ravens four days apart. Miami is no slouch, and the Texans have already lost to Tennessee once this season. So it's anything but a cakewalk.
So here’s what has to happen.
- If the Colts win all four of their remaining games, Houston will have to go 2-2 to win the division.
- If the Colts win three of four of their remaining games, Houston would have to go 1-3 to win the division.
- If the Colts lose two or more of their remaining four games, Houston will win the division.
Now, if the Texans don't win the AFC South, they could still get in as a wild card, but that road is much tougher. To not win the division, Houston would have to drop either three or four of their final games, which would make their regular season record either 9-8 or 8-9 and they'd need a whole lot of help get in that way.
Right now, the New York Times playoff calculator has the Texans playoff chances at 96% -- a 95% chance to win the division and 1% chance to enter as a wild card.