\n<\/p>\n
CJ Stroud threw for two long touchdowns on Houston\u2019s first two drives of the game, and the Texans went on to beat the Los Angeles Chargers 20-16 on Saturday and clinch a third consecutive playoff berth for the first time in franchise history.<\/p>\n
The Texans (11-5) won their eighth in a row, their longest such streak since winning nine straight in 2018.<\/p>\n
The Chargers (11-5) had their four-game winning streak snapped and handed the AFC West title to idle Denver. They beat the first-place Broncos in Week 3, but blew a chance to set up a winner-take-all showdown in Denver in Week 18.<\/p>\n
The Chargers got knocked out of the playoffs in a wildcard loss to Houston last season.<\/p>\n
Stroud\u2019s two explosive TDs stunned the Chargers and gave Houston a 14-0 lead. On his first pass of the game, he hit Jayden Higgins for a 75-yard score against busted coverage. Stroud wasn\u2019t pressured when he threw a 43-yard TD to Jaylin Noel, who wasn\u2019t covered.<\/p>\n
The Chargers had allowed just one TD pass of 40 or more yards in their last 15 games.<\/p>\n
Stroud completed his first six throws of the game. He finished 16 of 28 for 244 yards and two interceptions.<\/p>\n
Houston\u2019s defense forced third-down sacks of Justin Herbert on the Chargers\u2019 first two possessions. They were three-and-out on three of their first four possessions, quieting the SoFi Stadium crowd.<\/p>\n
Playing his third game with a broken left (non-throwing) hand, Herbert was 21 for 32 for 236 yards, with one touchdown and one interception. He was sacked five times.<\/p>\n
Derwin James Jr intercepted Stroud in the second quarter, but the Chargers only managed a 27-yard field goal by Cameron Dicker on the turnover to trail 14-3. Another interception of Stroud failed to produce any points despite both miscues coming in Houston territory.<\/p>\n
Herbert was intercepted by Azeez Al-Shaair at the Houston 1-yard line. The ball, intended for Oronde Gadsden, popped off his hands and Al-Shaair came down with it for his second interception of the season. Gadsden held his face in his hands on the bench.<\/p>\n
Dicker missed a field goal from under 40 yards for the first time in his career just before halftime, leaving the Chargers trailing 14-3. He later was wide left to miss his first point after attempt of the season on the Chargers\u2019 final drive after Omarion Hamption\u2019s five-yard TD run made it 20-16.<\/p>\n
Ka\u2019imi Fairbairn had field goals of 41 and 44 yards for Houston<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CJ Stroud threw for two long touchdowns on Houston\u2019s first two drives of the game, and the Texans went on to beat the Los Angeles Chargers 20-16 on Saturday and clinch a third consecutive playoff berth for the first time in franchise history. The Texans (11-5) won their eighth in a row, their longest such<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39320,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[14255,4519,12458,442,3204,4084,750,85,9944,12573],"class_list":{"0":"post-39319","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-berth","9":"tag-chargers","10":"tag-clinch","11":"tag-early","12":"tag-lift","13":"tag-nfl","14":"tag-playoff","15":"tag-strikes","16":"tag-strouds","17":"tag-texans"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}