Not only are the Texans 2.5-point underdogs at home in their wild-card matchup against the Los Angeles Chargers, national pundits are panning them as an idea in these playoffs.
Former NFL coach Rex Ryan joked on ESPN that the Chargers essentially get a first-round bye week by drawing the Texans in the wild-card.
This could easily be seen as bulletin board material and who knows exactly how the Texans internalize this type of disrespect. Head coach DeMeco Ryans when asked about it was dismissive of outside opinions impacting their internal motivations.
"For us, it doesn't matter if anybody give us a shot. It doesn't matter to me," Ryans said. "At the end of the day, when the ball is kicked off it is about who is the best football team out on Saturday. That is where our focus is on playing really good football.
"Everybody has an opinion about us one way or another but outside opinion doesn't really drive what we do here internally. Our guys put the work in, they know what we are about. We know what we are about, so it really doesn't matter to me on all the outside noise."
"For me, it is like what does that do?" Ryans added. "Does it make you play harder because somebody said that? We play hard anyways. We are going to bring our style of football, our brand of football on Saturday regardless of what talking heads or opinion is about us. It doesn't really drive or change our approach one bit."
