The Worksheet, a comprehensive fantasy football preview by Rich Hribar, breaks down everything you need to know about the Wild Card Round matchup between the Steelers and Texans.
Find a breakdown of every Wild Card Round NFL game in our Worksheet Hub.
| Houston | Rank | @ | Pittsburgh | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| -3.5 | Spread | 3.5 | ||
| 21.5 | Implied Total | 18.0 | ||
| 23.8 | 13 | Points/Gm | 23.4 | 15 |
| 17.4 | 2 | Points All./Gm | 22.8 | 17 |
| 64.0 | 6 | Plays/Gm | 58.1 | 28 |
| 57.9 | 4 | Opp. Plays/Gm | 65.4 | 31 |
| 5.1 | 24 | Off. Yards/Play | 5.3 | 17 |
| 4.8 | 5 | Def. Yards/Play | 5.5 | 19 |
| 43.66% | 17 | Rush% | 41.19% | 25 |
| 56.34% | 16 | Pass% | 58.81% | 8 |
| 40.61% | 8 | Opp. Rush % | 40.56% | 7 |
| 59.39% | 25 | Opp. Pass % | 59.44% | 26 |
- Texans ATS: 9-8
- Steelers ATS: 9-8
- Steelers ATS Home: 5-3
- Texans ATS Away: 4-4
- Texans ATS as Favorite: 4-5
- Steelers ATS as Underdog: 5-4
Game Overview
The Wild Card Round closes on Monday night with one of the hottest teams in the league, the Texans, heading to Pittsburgh.
The Texans won 12 games this season, the third consecutive season that C.J. Stroud and DeMeco Ryans have won double-digit games.
Houston rebounded from a 0-3 and 3-5 hole by winning nine games in a row to close the season, the league’s longest active winning streak.
The Steelers got here in a typical Pittsburgh fashion, losing a Week 17 game against an inferior Cleveland team only to come back and win a crazy divisional showdown with Baltimore that featured 27 combined points in the fourth quarter and a missed field goal as time expired to put the Steelers in the postseason for the 13th time in Mike Tomlin’s 19 seasons.
This game has the lowest game total of the Wild Card Round for good reasons.
Neither one of these offenses has been electric this season.
The Steelers averaged 10.6 plays of 10 or more yards per game, which is 27th in the league.
The Texans average 11.2 per game, which is 24th.
The Steelers are 20th in offensive success rate (41.1%) while Houston is 28th (38.8%), the lowest of any team in the postseason.
Pittsburgh faces third downs on 49.3% of its sets of downs (27th) while Houston is at 49.5% (28th).
38.4% of the Pittsburgh possessions have failed to gain a first down, 29th in the league and the lowest rate of any playoff team.
Houston games have averaged 41.2 combined points (26th) and 604.2 combined yards (29th).
Both teams have capitalized on turnovers.
Houston has a +17 turnover margin (2nd) while Pittsburgh is at +12 (4th).
The Steelers have scored 101 points off turnovers (3rd) while Houston has scored 90 (4th).
The Texans have allowed a league-low of 29 points off turnovers themselves.
Defensively, these teams have a little more separation.
The Texans are second in points allowed per drive (1.52) while the Steelers are 14th (2.10).
Both teams created a lot of turnovers, but Pittsburgh has needed them more.
Without a takeaway, the Steelers have allowed opponents to score 47.4% of drives (22nd) while Houston is at 32.3%, the lowest rate in the league.
We will see a streak end on Monday night.
Either the Steelers will get their first postseason win since 2016, or they will have their first loss in Pittsburgh on Monday night in 35 years.
The Steelers have lost six consecutive playoff games, tied for the longest active streak in the league.
They have not won a playoff game since 2016.
You have surely seen this one floating around, but the Steelers have won 23 consecutive Monday night home games, dating back to 1991.
Pittsburgh’s current streak does carry an asterisk.
They did lose a Monday game in Pittsburgh in 2020 to Washington (which also ended an 11-0 record at that time) that moved to Monday due to COVID and was played at 5 p.m. ET, but even a 23-1 record on Monday at home is something noteworthy, even if it lessens the cache of the streak.
The other component here is that Pittsburgh was also favored in 21 of those 23 Monday night games during that streak.
Quarterback
C.J. Stroud: Stroud was a mixed bag this season outside of the wins.
He completed a career-high 64.5% of his passes while improving his touchdown rate (4.5%) and interception rate (1.9%).
He also threw for 217.2 yards per game, which was the fewest in his career.
Stroud’s 42.3% success rate ranked 24th in the league.
One of the disappointing parts of this new offense under Nick Caley was the lack of top-down creativity.
The Texans used pre-snap motion on 49.9% of Stroud’s dropbacks (21st) and play action on 24.8% (19th).
The downer is that when Stroud did get to use play action, he averaged 8.5 yards per pass attempt (10th) and 13.1 yards per completion (7th).
When the Texans used motion, Stroud averaged 7.8 Y/A (7th) with 11.7 yards per completion (9th).
Without either, Stroud averaged 6.0 Y/A (30th) and 9.6 yards per completion (31st).
All of Stroud’s spike weeks for fantasy purposes came in clear spots.
He had three 20-point games, coming against an injury-ravaged Baltimore team in Week 5, San Francisco, and Arizona.
He cleared 15 points in two other games, coming against the Titans and the Colts in the regular-season finale.
The Steelers are a middle-of-the-pack pass defense.
Over their final nine games, Pittsburgh allowed a 62.3% completion rate (15th), 7.1 yards per pass attempt (15th), and a 5.5% touchdown rate (28th).
The Steelers have done a good job of adjusting their coverages per game as the season has progressed, while Houston has not faced a static approach from teams, so we do not have a ton of signal here.
One thing that has been critical for Pittsburgh is the ability to generate pressure.
When Pittsburgh has gotten pressure over the back half of the season, they have allowed 5.8 yards per pass attempt (14th) and a 3.2% touchdown rate (12th).
Without pressure, they have allowed 7.7 Y/A (21st) and a 6.7% touchdown rate (28th).
That shares overlap with Stroud.
When pressured, Stroud has averaged 6.0 Y/A (20th) and a 3.6% touchdown rate (23rd), compared to 7.8 Y/A (12th) and a 4.9% touchdown rate (15th) when kept clean.
You will hear about Stroud’s splits playing outdoors this week.
Even though he played outdoors in Ohio in college, Stroud has not had much success outdoors in the NFL through three seasons.
His teams are 8-11 outdoors, including the playoffs (3-3 this season), with him only averaging 6.6 yards per pass attempt and a 59.8% completion rate.
Houston has lost both of its outdoor playoff games the past two seasons with Stroud, but it is worth noting that in last year’s playoff loss in Kansas City, he completed 67.9% of his passes for 8.8 yards per pass attempt.
In my opinion, these top-down stats are noisy, but until he and Houston win one of these road playoff games, they will continue to follow him.
Aaron Rodgers: Rodgers closed the year throwing for 247.2 yards per game over the past five games after 189.6 yards per game before that.
His three highest yardage totals of the season came over that span.
Like Stroud, we have been able to gauge chasing a spike week from Rodgers.
The only games in which he threw more than 2 touchdown passes were Week 1 against the Jets and Week 7 against the Bengals.
His only two other QB1 scoring weeks both came against Baltimore.
Houston is fifth in passing points allowed to quarterbacks (10.6 per game), allowing a 59.2% completion rate (3rd), 6.4 yards per pass attempt (5th), and a 3.6% touchdown rate (6th).
Rodgers played five games this season against other top-10 pass defenses in terms of passing points allowed, averaging 9.3 fantasy points per game in those contests.
He threw 4 total touchdowns in those games, topping 200 passing yards once (235 in Week 6 against Cleveland).
If there is something of note here that could lead to success for this passing game, we know Rodgers is going to get rid of the football.
Rodgers has the quickest time to throw in the league after the snap (2.52 seconds).
56.4% of his passes have come within 2.5 seconds of the snap, the highest rate in the league.
That can aid him against a Houston pass rush that is fourth in the league in pressure rate (40.7%).
When quarterbacks have gotten the ball out within 2.5 seconds of the snap against Houston, they have still been good, but more vulnerable.
On those dropbacks, they have allowed a 69.2% completion rate (9th) and 6.2 yards per pass attempt (13th).
When opponents have held the ball longer against this pass rush, they have allowed a 47.7% completion rate (3rd) and 6.9 yards per attempt (4th).
If Houston can get Rodgers on the ground here, that is a straightforward recipe for success.
The Steelers have averaged 0.61 points per drive on possessions with a sack, ranking 29th in the league and the worst rate among all playoff teams.
Without a sack, they climb to 2.43 points per drive (16th).
Running Back
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Learn MoreMore Wild Card Round Fantasy Breakdowns From The Worksheet:
| Matchup | Time |
|---|---|
| Rams @ Panthers | Saturday -- 4:30 p.m. ET |
| Packers @ Bears | Saturday -- 8:00 p.m. ET |
| Bills @ Jaguars | Sunday -- 1 p.m. ET |
| 49ers @ Eagles | Sunday -- 4:30 p.m. ET |
| Chargers @ Patriots | Sunday Night Football |
| Texans @ Steelers | Monday Night Football |