At some point, when so much goes wrong, does a National Football League team just quit?
Now, this question is more addressed in the final weeks of a season when the fallacy that some teams may pack-it-in with an eye on improving their draft position. For the record, that is bogus. The players and coaches are battling to keep their positions and don’t give a rat's ass about the advantage of losing a game that may result in someone new taking their job.
Still, we have seen through the years that while most teams will show up every week with intensity in their game with the hope of cracking the playoff field, there are those teams that we have observed collectively go through the motions. Those teams, seemingly playing with a collective surrender that this just isn’t their year.
Might the Houston Texas be moving toward that white flag territory now?
They came into this campaign with high hopes after winning the AFC South Division the prior two seasons. Their head coach, DeMeco Ryans, was locked into his role with as much job security as an NFL mentor can have. They had a quarterback in C.J. Stroud that hadn’t matched his rookie season brilliance last year, but with promise to reemerge among the top NFL signal callers with the boost of getting his top receiver back, Nico Ryans, who was sidelined with an injury for much of 2024.
The Texans opened with a narrow loss in Los Angeles to the talented Rams and came home to take a lead over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after the two-minute warning in a Monday night game. Then, their near win slipped away as Baker Mayfield led his Buccaneers on a length of the field drive for the winning touchdown in the final seconds.