As the Kansas City Chiefs' odyssey for a third consecutive Super Bowl trophy marched onward, the Houston Texans were left stewing.
An underdog ahead of their wild-card home win over the Los Angeles Chargers last week, the Texans assumed an us-against-everybody mantra.
However, after a 23-14 loss to the reigning Super Bowl champions, the Texans had a more controversial tone, taking umbrage with the eight accepted penalties they drew, in particular a pair of 15-yarders for hitting Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
"We knew it was going to be us against the refs going into this game," Texans defensive end Will Anderson said after the loss. "I talked to you guys earlier this week. I was just saying, I'm like man, we gotta go out there and we gotta do us better. In some instances we didn't do that, in some instances we did. We just gotta keep going man. Next offseason, getting guys together, everybody just coming together and just keep building that team chemistry and getting past this hump."
The hump is the Divisional Round, an obstacle the Texans franchise has yet to get past.
On Saturday, two penalties loomed large in the loss for Houston.
Anderson was cited for roughing the passer on a third-and-8 Mahomes incompletion midway through the third quarter. The first down that accompanied the penalty led to an eventual go-ahead field goal.
"I had forcible contact to the facemask area and so I went with roughing the passer on that play," referee Clay Martin .
In the third quarter, Mahomes scrambled for a gain before sliding. Two Texans players, who collided with each other, also contacted Mahomes. That drew an unnecessary roughness flag and was part of a drive that culminated with a touchdown catch by Travis Kelce.
"So, [Mahomes] slid, obviously and when he slides, he is considered defenseless," Martin said. "The onus is on the defender. I had forcible contact there to the hairline, the helmet."
Regardless of any explanation, the Texans didn't hesitate to voice their views on how they felt the game was called.
"Everybody knows how it is playing up here," Houston running back Joe Mixon said. "You can never leave it into the refs' hands. It is what it is. When it comes down to it, you can never leave it into the refs' hands."
In total, the Texans had eight penalties accepted against them for 82 yards in comparison to four accepted against the Chiefs for 29 yards. The negative-four accepted penalty margin tied the largest for Kansas City all season. It was also a negative-four margin (6-2) in Week 16 against the Texans.
While the Texans were authoring a narrative of the flags being exclusive to their efforts against the Chiefs, they averaged 7.0 accepted penalties per game in the regular season and had eight accepted penalties in their win over the Chargers the week prior.
"We knew going into this game, man, it was us versus everybody," Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans said. "When I say everybody, I mean everybody. The naysayers, the doubt. Everybody, we had to go against again today. Going into this game knowing what we were up against, we can't make the mistakes we made. We had a lot of self-inflicted mistakes that happened, whether it was special teams not converting our kicks; defensively, not being where we're supposed to be in coverage; offensively, not protecting our quarterback and keeping him clean. So, you marry that on top of everything else that we have to deal with, it's going be a really tough, uphill battle."
To Ryans' points, Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud was sacked eight times. The Stroud-led offense had just one touchdown.
Meanwhile, kicker Ka'imi Fairbairn missed two kicks (one extra point and a field goal) and had a field goal attempt blocked.
Houston also began the game allowing a 63-yard kickoff return, caused a fumble on the play, didn't recover and then had Kris Boyd penalized 15 yards for throwing his helmet. He then proceeded to shove Texans special teams coordinator Frank Ross.
"I was lit, I was turnt, I thought we had a good play and I apologize to everybody," Boyd said. "I apologize to Frank. And I did again, and he told me, 'Don't worry about that.'"
The penalties drew the ire of social media and the Texans locker room, but flags have been troublesome all season for Houston, which had more than just the laundry on the field going against it Saturday.
"I'm walking out of here discouraged," Ryans said. "Like, this one hurts, right? Because I know we're better football team than we showed today, no matter who we're playing against. To go back and still have to talk about mistakes that we made and this moment, like, yeah, it's discouraging to be here, because we gotta be over that at this point in the playoffs, right? Postseason football, you gotta be at your best, you gotta be operating on all cylinders, and for us, we didn't do that today. So, that's what I'm discouraged about."
