Just when it looked like the Houston Texans might be building something special, their season came to a grinding, painful halt - and CJ Stroud had a nightmare of a game to cap it off.
Stroud, who entered the postseason with plenty of buzz and legitimate praise as one of the league’s most promising young quarterbacks, saw things unravel in dramatic fashion. After a rough outing against the Steelers, many expected a bounce-back. Instead, things got worse - historically worse.
In Sunday’s loss to the New England Patriots, Stroud threw four interceptions in the first half alone, pushing his total to five picks in the postseason. Add in the five fumbles he had coming into the game, and he’s now the first quarterback since at least 1991 to record five interceptions and five fumbles in a single playoff run. That’s not just a bad day at the office - that’s a meltdown that lands in the NFL record books for all the wrong reasons.
To his credit, Stroud didn’t deflect blame after the game. He owned the performance, taking responsibility for the loss.
But that doesn't soften the blow for a Texans team that looked like it might be ahead of schedule in its rebuild. Instead, they’re heading into the offseason with a lot more questions than answers - especially at a position that had seemed so solid just weeks ago.
The struggles weren’t just limited to the field, either. After the 28-16 loss in Foxborough, the Texans’ trip home turned into a logistical mess.
Weather delays and travel complications left the team stuck in the air for hours. According to flight-tracking data, the team’s plane - originally scheduled to depart from Providence, Rhode Island - was delayed, then diverted mid-flight to Newark Liberty International Airport.
They didn’t take off again until 4:37 a.m. ET and finally landed in Houston at 7:15 a.m.
CT - a full 14 hours after the final whistle.
So yes, Houston has a problem. The Texans didn’t just lose a playoff game - they lost momentum, they lost confidence in their quarterback, and they lost a bit of the shine that had been building around this young core.
There’s still talent here, and there’s still time. But Sunday’s loss, both on the scoreboard and in the stat sheet, is going to sting for a while.
Now, with the season officially over and a long offseason ahead, the Texans will have to regroup - and Stroud will have to find a way to bounce back from one of the toughest stretches of his young career.