Demico Ryans: Our defense dominated, that’s our brand of football

The Texans’ first five possessions of Saturday’s game against the Chargers ended with two turnovers and three punts, but the team stayed in the game thanks to the work of their defense.

After field goals on their first two possessions, the Chargers failed to sustain any shots for the rest of the first half, giving the offense time to find its footing. They did that well enough to go into halftime with a 10-6 lead and then completely broke the game open in the second half. Eric Murray’s interception return for a touchdown in the third quarter gave the Chargers a two-score lead and the Texans finished with the 32-12 win with four interceptions and four sacks from Chargers’ quarterback Justin Herbert.

The 2002 Buccaneers were the last team to match four picks and four sacks with a pick six in a playoff appearance, and Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans said the performance is all the Texans want as a defense.

“Our defence They took control today“This is what we want to be,” Ryans said. They played our brand of football. Talk about turning off first. That’s what I’m most proud of is the way we stopped the run. When we stop the run, you make the team one-dimensional, and that’s when our D-line wreaks havoc.

The Texans will be on track to face the Chiefs or Ravens next weekend and will need the same kind of chaos at either site if they want to extend this run to the AFC Championship Game.