DETROIT — The Texans have put themselves in a position to be the NFL’s first team to seal a spot in the playoffs and to move a step closer toward earning home-field advantage in the AFC.
Houston (9-1) has won four straight and is 4-0 on the road this season, giving the Texans a great shot to be in consecutive postseasons for the first time.
“It shows the progress we’ve made,” said tight end Owen Daniels, who has been with the franchise for seven of its 11 years of existence. “A few years ago, it took us until the end of the season to get that ninth win. We’re at that ninth win already.
“We’re trying to stack ’em up, but it’s good that those are possibilities this early in the season.”
Houston needs to beat the Lions (4-6) today and have a handful of teams lose, or tie, to earn a postseason bid by the end of the weekend.
The Lions, meanwhile, will have to pull off a string of upsets against a slew of good teams to reach the franchise’s goal of making it to consecutive postseasons for the first time since the mid-1990s.
Just when it looked like Detroit was living up to the hype generated with last year’s breakout season by winning three of four games to climb back .500 earlier this month, the Lions lost two in a row. And that has made last season seem more like an aberration than the start of successful run for a floundering franchise that hit rock bottom in 2008 as the NFL’s first 0-16 team.
“We’re not thinking about playoffs or anything else,” Lions coach Jim Schwartz said. “We’re thinking about the Houston Texans and that’s plenty for us to think about right now.”
Lions fans have not been happy when it comes to Thanksgiving Day results.
Detroit has lost a franchise-record eight straight on the holiday — by an average of three-plus touchdowns — and has only one victory in the past 11 games in its annual showcase after winning nine of 12 games from 1989-2000.