What Went Wrong in New England — and What Comes After for the Texans

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No Soft Landing

C.J. Stroud played horrendous football, and the loss is on him. Four interceptions in the first half, a pick-six, and multiple turnover-worthy plays in a playoff game is indefensible, regardless of circumstance. This was statistically one of the worst postseason performances by a quarterback in recent memory, and it happened on the road, in January, with everything on the line.

That reality has to be acknowledged up front.

But acknowledging that doesn’t mean stopping the analysis there — because doing so ignores the larger picture of how this game unraveled, why it did, and what it revealed about both Stroud and the Texans moving forward.

Credit Where It’s Due: New England Made the Plays

New England deserves credit for more than just capitalizing on mistakes. Their defense executed at a high level, particularly along the interior, consistently collapsing the pocket and disrupting both the run game and Stroud’s timing. Two of the interceptions invovled impressive sideline catches even with the bad throw/decision. The pick-six, the pressure that forced the Woody Marks fumble, and multiple late-down disruptions were the result of execution, not luck that the Patriots do deserve some credit in creating.

Offensively, the Patriots also made key plays when they needed them. Drake Maye delivered accurate throws on critical downs, and his receivers responded with tough, contested catches — including impressive touchdowns from Pop Douglas, Stefon Diggs, and Kayshon Boutte. Those weren’t routine completions; they were high-degree-of-difficulty plays that swung leverage and momentum.

This game wasn’t decided solely by what Houston failed to do. New England earned it.

The Conditions Were Real — Even If Houston Pretended They Weren’t

One of the most striking parts of the week leading up to the game was how consistently the Texans downplayed the weather. Players and coaches alike minimized the snow, the cold, and the potential impact on approach. Some even admitted late in the week they didn’t know snow was a real possibility.

New England didn’t share that mindset.

Drake Maye was candid after the game about the difficulty of throwing in those conditions — grip, moisture, the ball hitting the ground, and how warmups don’t replicate in-game handling. He didn’t offer excuses, but he acknowledged reality.

Houston largely ignored it.

There’s no way to know how much prep went into gloves, ball handling, or grip adaptation, but from the outside, it looked like a team that assumed it could play its normal game and adjust on the fly. That assumption proved costly.

When Weather Meets Structure: A Coaching Contrast

This isn’t about absolving C.J. Stroud for a poor performance. He played badly, the turnovers mattered, and the Patriots deserve credit for executing their plan. But the New England game also revealed something deeper about the Texans’ offense — specifically how little margin for error it has when conditions, coverage, and personnel all tilt against it.

What stood out wasn’t just what Stroud missed, but where and why those misses happened — and how differently the Patriots chose to protect their quarterback in the same environment.

New England clearly adjusted its approach to the weather. Drake Maye’s passing diet was built around screens, slants, and defined middle-of-the-field throws that break vertically. Slants are thrown on a line. Screens remove ball placement from the equation entirely. These concepts travel through wind and precipitation far better than touch-based throws to the flats or sideline, which require precise pace, timing, and grip.

Houston did not make that same adjustment.

Instead, the Texans largely stuck to their normal offensive identity — an offense built on intermediate in-breakers and rhythm throws over the middle — despite missing Nico Collins and Dalton Schultz, two of the team’s best separators and spacing players. With those pieces absent, separation naturally shrank. At the same time, New England leaned into quarters and match-quarters coverage, with safeties playing downhill and linebackers sitting inside leverage. The result was predictable: in-breakers were squeezed, windows closed faster, and Stroud was pushed into throwing more flats, outs, and horizontal routes.

Those are the hardest throws to live on in bad weather.

Flat routes and swing throws require touch more than velocity. They demand a clean release, perfect pace, and ball placement that allows the receiver to turn upfield immediately — all things that become more fragile when grip, footing, and timing are compromised. That’s exactly where Stroud struggled. His short-area accuracy cratered, turnovers followed, and the offense never found a counterpunch.

CJ Stroud passing by direction vs NE via PFF

The most telling contrast came in the screen game. New England used it as insulation — a way to steal completions, slow the rush, and keep Maye out of obvious long-yardage stress. Houston barely used it at all. Instead of replacing in-breakers with screens and slants, the Texans effectively asked Stroud to solve the same defensive problem with more difficult throws under worse conditions.

Drake Maye passing by direction vs HOU via PFF

That’s not a quarterback issue. That’s an offensive structure issue.

This game wasn’t just a bad night — it was a stress test. And when the middle of the field was taken away, the weather turned ugly, and the offense lost its best separators, Houston didn’t have enough answers. That’s the lesson that matters most as the Texans enter the offseason.

In a game where Houston trailed for most of the night, was without Nico Collins and Dalton Schultz, and threw the ball 47 times, third-round receiver Jaylin Noel played just six snaps — eight percent of the offense. That isn’t an indictment of Noel as a player. It’s an indictment of an offense that lacked both trust in its depth and a plan to expand the passing menu when its top options were unavailable. Drafting a receiver and then being unable or unwilling to deploy him in a game like this speaks less to the player and more to how thin the margin truly was.

The takeaway isn’t that Stroud can’t handle adversity. It’s that the offense around him needs more flexibility. More ways to help the quarterback when the environment turns hostile. More answers against quarters. More built-in insulation when the margin tightens.

Elite quarterbacks still need help. On this night, one coordinator provided it. The other didn’t — and the difference showed.

The Other Missed Adjustment: Abandoning the Run Before It Ever Had a Chance

If the passing plan lacked insulation, the run plan never really existed.

The Texans’ approach to the ground game in this matchup was puzzling — not just because it failed early, but because of when it was abandoned, how it was structured, and what it failed to account for given the conditions and opponent.

Houston opened the game with three runs and nine passes on its first 12 plays. By halftime, the Texans had called 25 passes to just 12 runs. The raw numbers look damning — 14 rushing attempts for 17 yards in the first half — but context matters. The run game was never allowed to breathe. It was asked to succeed while the offense leaned pass-heavy into rain, tight coverage, and interior defensive dominance.

That matters, because the conditions actually pointed toward the opposite approach.

It rained throughout the first half and transitioned to snow in the second as temperatures dropped. Logically, this was a game that called for leaning on defense early, managing the game, and waiting for more stable passing conditions later. Instead, Houston effectively did the reverse — pressing the passing game early, then briefly rediscovering the run only once the weather worsened and the margin had shrunk.

The second half is instructive. The Texans ran the ball 10 times for 40 yards, a respectable four yards per carry. But six of those carries came on the opening drive of the third quarter, a drive that ultimately stalled and ended in a field goal on fourth-and-two. Two more runs followed on the next possession before a fumble effectively erased any remaining commitment to the ground game. From there, game script took over, and the run disappeared entirely.

The problem wasn’t just volume — it was design.

Nearly all of Houston’s runs attacked the interior. Zone and duo concepts were repeatedly called directly into one of New England’s strengths: an interior defensive line led by Christian Barmore and Milton Williams, who consistently collapsed the Texans’ interior offensive line. There were almost no attempts to stress the edges. On tape, outside runs were virtually nonexistent. There was one successful toss, a handful of wide zone looks at most, and no jet sweeps, end-arounds, or reverses. No traps. No whams. No misdirection to punish penetration.

The run direction data reflects it. Six zone runs versus eleven gap runs. Almost everything inside. Almost nothing designed to make the defensive tackles hesitate or move laterally. When penetration showed up early, there was no schematic pivot.

Even the most successful “runs” came from elsewhere. Cade Stover’s under-center sneak produced six yards. Stroud added 11 yards on two quarterback keepers. Woody Marks finished with 14 carries for 17 yards — a tough assignment for a smaller back repeatedly sent downhill into collapsing interior gaps. Meanwhile, Nick Chubb, who profiles much closer to the type of back this game demanded, carried just four times for 14 yards. It’s fair to question whether the personnel usage matched the moment.

This is where the broader offseason concern surfaces.

Nick Caley has described himself as a “gameplan offense” coordinator — a coach shaped by New England’s opponent- and condition-specific philosophy. He was on staff for the 2021 Patriots team that famously attempted just three passes in extreme wind against Buffalo and won. Obviously, the personnel here is different, and the weather wasn’t as severe. But the principle remains: adapt to the environment, not just the opponent.

Instead, Houston pressed a passing game already stressed by coverage, weather, and missing separators, while pairing it with a rigid, interior-heavy run plan that played directly into the Patriots’ strengths. If the Texans were going to lean pass-heavy, the throws needed to change. If the weather dictated balance, the run concepts needed to change. Neither adjustment came in time.

There will be pushback centered on the lack of early rushing success — and it’s fair to acknowledge it. But it’s also fair to point out that the run game was largely set up to fail. It was asked to work without rhythm, without edge stress, and without schematic counters against dominant interior defenders. That’s not a sustainable formula in January football.

This wasn’t just a failed game plan. It was a reminder of how thin the margin becomes when structure, conditions, and flow all break the wrong way — and how urgently Houston needs a more flexible offensive identity moving forward.

Missed Opportunities That Added Up

This game also featured several pivotal moments that compounded the damage:

• A touchdown wiped out by an illegal shift following a false start attempt to disguise it

• Two Patriots fumbles that weren’t recovered, likely costing at least six points

• A pick-six before halftime and another interception deep in Patriots territory, both likely minimum three-point swings

• Settling for field goals in situations where aggression was an option

  
  

These don’t erase Stroud’s mistakes — but they show how thin the margin became once the offense unraveled.

The Mills Debate: A False Certainty

The debate over whether Davis Mills should have replaced C.J. Stroud is understandable — but certainty on either side is misplaced, because both versions of that argument carry the same long-term downside.

Stroud was noticeably better in the second half, even if the bar was low, and the Texans still lost. There’s no clear evidence that inserting Mills at halftime flips the outcome. More importantly, pulling your franchise quarterback mid-playoff game isn’t just a schematic decision — it’s an organizational signal. Once that move is made, you’re communicating something far bigger than one bad half.

Some will argue the switch should have come midway through the second quarter, before the final two turnovers. But that argument only exists with the benefit of hindsight. Expecting a head coach to foresee that exact game script in real time isn’t realistic, and making that move carries the same long-term implications as a halftime benching.

Anyone playing quarterback in that environment would have faced constant interior pressure, no functional run game, depleted pass-catching options, and brutal conditions. Swapping quarterbacks doesn’t erase those problems — it only changes who absorbs them.

The truth is uncomfortable but honest: we’ll never know if Mills would have won this game, and claiming certainty either way is guesswork. What is certain is that both versions of the debate come with identical long-term consequences, which is why the decision to stay with Stroud, however painful the night became, was the only defensible one.

The Fallout for Stroud — and What Comes Next

The hardest part for Stroud now is perception.

The last two games leave a worse-than-reality impression of him, and that’s something he’ll carry all offseason. Even if he bounces back with an excellent regular season, the next cold, wet, road playoff game will reopen every question instantly.

This isn’t a “dome QB” issue. It’s a young quarterback issue. These environments can’t be replicated. They have to be lived through.

The real question now isn’t what this game says about Stroud — it’s how he responds. Does it shake his confidence, or does it harden him? Does he continue trying to finesse throws that need to be driven, or does he adjust?

Something about this feels like a maturation moment — even if it came painfully late.

At the same time, this performance inevitably reintroduces questions about Stroud’s future as he approaches extension eligibility and the fifth-year option window. Those conversations were always coming, but this game sharpens them in ways that can’t be ignored.

I’ll address the contract implications, timing, and organizational decision-making around Stroud in detail in a separate article in the coming days.

The Questions That Emerge

The fallout from this game extends beyond one night and into a set of unavoidable questions for the Texans moving forward.

The first, and most obvious, centers on C.J. Stroud and his contract. As discussed earlier, Stroud is approaching extension eligibility and the fifth-year option window, and this performance inevitably sharpens that conversation. I’ll address the contractual implications, timing, and organizational approach in a separate article in the coming days.

The second question involves offensive coordinator Nick Caley and the broader offensive staff. While writing this article, Caley’s future briefly appeared to be in question following comments from DeMeco Ryans in his postseason press conference, only for those concerns to be seemingly squashed the following day by Nick Caserio. Still, Aaron Wilson has reported — and it’s widely suspected — that changes to the position-coach level remain possible.

Several areas have drawn scrutiny. The quarterback coach has been questioned in relation to Stroud’s fundamentals. The wide receivers coach has faced criticism for a group that struggled at times to adapt to the option routes and freedom built into Caley’s system, including settling in zone coverage and consistent downfield blocking. The running backs coach has also been examined, particularly given how infrequently backs attacked the perimeter and some early-season issues in pass protection.

When Caley arrived, he retained the entire position-coach staff, largely to preserve continuity and likely in part because of a relatively small personal coaching network. Whether any of those coaches should or will be replaced remains unclear, but it’s fair to say those evaluations are ongoing.

As for Caley himself, I’ve defended him throughout the season despite the struggles. There was steady improvement over the course of the year, and his offense is a complex, week-to-week gameplan system that places significant control on the quarterback and freedom on receivers — elements that take time to master. That said, this game highlighted his inexperience in key areas, particularly play sequencing, situational play-calling, and overall game management. The Texans were especially poor in short-yardage and red-zone situations.

Some of that responsibility falls on personnel. Caserio did not give Caley an ideal interior offensive line to work with, and injuries played a major role throughout the year — particularly at tight end early on, along the offensive line, and again in New England with Nico Collins, Dalton Schultz, and Trent Brown unavailable.

Before the Patriots game, I would have said I was roughly 80/20 in favor of retaining Caley. After this game — given the miscues and structural issues that resurfaced — that balance shifts closer to 60/40. Still, there is significant value in continuity. Moving on now would mean Stroud entering his third offensive system in four years, effectively discarding a year’s worth of developmental investment.

Another season with Stroud and Caley together could allow for continued growth, particularly with the wide receiver room, the offensive line, and potential personnel upgrades up front. The possible return of a game-changing back like Joe Mixon — or a suitable replacement if the team moves on — along with the return of Tank Dell, a player Stroud has strong chemistry with, could also help stabilize the offense.

Accountability — and the Limits of This Roster

C.J. Stroud played terribly, and his performance directly contributed to the loss. That can be true while also acknowledging a broader reality: this team had underlying flaws that likely limited how far it was going to go regardless. The interior offensive line was the biggest of those weaknesses, and it showed up repeatedly throughout the season.

Nearly every opponent that gave Houston real trouble featured a strong interior defensive line — units capable of collapsing the pocket, disrupting the run game, and forcing the offense out of rhythm.

That context doesn’t absolve Stroud. It explains why the margin was always thinner than it appeared, and why this matchup, in these conditions, exposed issues that had been lingering beneath the surface all year.

The Margin — and What Comes Next

This loss wasn’t just about one quarterback, one coordinator, or one night in New England. It was a reminder of how thin the margin becomes in January when conditions turn hostile and flexibility disappears. Houston entered the postseason believing it could play its game anywhere, against anyone. New England forced it to confront the reality that it still needs answers — answers in structure, in adaptability, and in how it supports its quarterback when the environment strips comfort away.

It was also yet another reminder of how important home-field advantage is for this Texans team. As much as we want to minimize weather and treat it as a non-factor, it clearly is one — as is the challenge of winning on the road in these environments. After starting 0–3 while adapting to a new offense, simply making the playoffs became a feat in itself, and the margin for error was always going to be razor thin.

The Texans don’t need to overreact. But they do need to evolve. The hope now is that the offense starts on the right page from the beginning next season, allowing Houston to position itself for a seed that brings playoff football back home — and ideally, a divisional-round game played on its own terms. Because playoff football doesn’t care how good you are in ideal conditions — it only asks whether you’re prepared when everything breaks.