The Houston Texans are no strangers to climbing out of early holes.
In the wild-card playoffs against the Buffalo Bills, Houston overcame a 16-0 third quarter deficit, and they rallied from 14 in Week 6 to beat their upcoming divisional opponent, the Kansas City Chiefs.
Quarterback Deshaun Watson, who led three fourth quarter comebacks and five game-winning drives in the regular season, doesn’t put as much stock in the comebacks as he does the mindset to execute them.
“Honestly, it’s a blur,” Watson said on the Texans’ comeback win against the Chiefs on Oct. 13. “To be honest, they went up, I guess, real early in the first quarter, but at the same time, we don’t even focus on that.”
The Texans are confident in their own abilities, regardless of what the scoreboard reads, and for the 6-2 quarterback, that confidence played a huge role in the team’s ability to claw their way back into the game against the Chiefs.
“We knew that we had the team, we had the momentum,” Watson said. “We had the guys on that sideline that can come back in and win that game, and that’s what we did.”
For Watson, the mindset for the postseason is simple: live in the moment. It is important for the past, regardless of whether it is good or bad, to stay behind, and to not look ahead because the future is not guaranteed.
“The most important play is always the next play,” Watson said. “The most important meeting or most important thing throughout the week is the next task at hand.”
For the Texans, the next task is to defeat the Chiefs, and Watson plans to battle every second of the contest regardless of the situation until the clock reads triple zeros.
“Yes, we don’t want to be down,” said Watson. “We don’t want to get down, especially against a great team like that, but at the end of the day, we just keep pushing, we keep fighting. We’re going to play the 60 minutes.”
