Texans and Colts embrace Saturday's high-stakes game with a playoff spot on the line

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Houston coach DeMeco Ryans always anticipated his team’s late-season trip to Indianapolis would look far different from their September matchup.

He never envisioned the storyline could change this much.

Sixteen weeks after the two new coaches — Ryans and Shane Steichen — were peppered with questions about their quarterbacks of the future, they’re playing a high-stakes, prime-time game with more immediate consequences: Win or go home.

“We’re a completely different team now,” Ryans said. “You put the tape on and it’s like, ‘Wow.’ I’m encouraged by how much better we’ve gotten. You kind of know who we are now. I think early in the year every team in the league is trying to figure out who you are, figure out your identity. How are you going to play?

“I think now, we know who we are.”

The Colts do, too.

With 9-7 records, Houston and Indy surprisingly find themselves in a three-way tie atop the AFC South with one of those teams a win away from ending their playoff droughts. Houston last made the postseason in 2019, Indy in 2020.

And if Jacksonville loses Sunday to Tennessee, Saturday night’s winner also would take the division title and play another home game on wild-card weekend.

It’s not just that Houston and Indy are playing a meaningful regular-season less than eight months after selecting new quarterbacks with top-five draft picks, it’s how they got here.

Houston made it thanks to a historic first season from C.J. Stroud and a better-than-expected defense. He has thrown 21 touchdown passes, just five interceptions and is 156 yards from topping the 4,000-yard mark despite missing two games with a concussion.

Indy has relied on veteran quarterback Gardner Minshew since rookie Anthony Richardson went down with a season-ending shoulder injury in Week 5. Minshew responded by winning six of his eight starts to pull the Colts out of the division cellar.

“You kind of build, you gel, the chemistry – like I said, it always starts in the middle of the season,” Steichen said. “Obviously, you want that stuff to keep rising up. I think that’s what our guys have done to put ourselves in the position we are in right now.”

The result: Two teams that were not projected to do much this season will square off in one of the most watched games on the NFL’s final regular-season weekend.

“I told my teammates earlier, it’s the same game we’ve been playing since we were young, so nothing changes,” Stroud said. “We’ve got to just prepare hard and do everything we need to do to try to win this game and I think that will take us home.”