Yahoo Sports NFL analyst Nate Tice and NFL writer Charles McDonald look ahead to Sunday’s AFC Wild Card showdown. Listen to the full Football 301 conversation – and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.

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Video transcript

The Texans are on offense, and I think that’s just because I keep parachuting in when I dive into their stats, phew.

It’s hard at the moment.

It’s really hard.

Um, but when you watch that side of the ball, Tex offense, Chargers defense, Charles, what do you focus on first?

I want to see if CJ can overcome Strout in general because we can’t catch a pass pro, we can’t learn a stunt, we can’t just block straight up pass pro, we can’t run the ball.

Now it’s all on CJ Stroud’s shoulders and you lose.

All of your wide receivers at some point during the season have the top three players that you were hoping would, uh, you know, kind of jumpstart this offense and have what was supposed to be one of the most explosive offenses in the league , um, the only one who made it this season was Nico Collins, and he missed the first part of the season.

I just don’t think they have more than enough firepower to take on one of the most coordinated defenses in the league.

And I think Strout felt the weight of not really having anyone to rely on this season.

I mean, overall, if I told you back in August, the text on offense would have the 31st success rate on offense this year.

Like you have to, whoa, something’s up. Oh, Stra got hurt, right?

Right, right.

Oh no, Strauss could play 17 games and he will be the second-worst offense in the league based on success rate.

You’d have to assume something went terribly wrong, and it did.

As if they simply had nothing.

Help the supporting cast and coaching staff achieve what they set out to do this year.

In all of these games, I’m trying to find an angle, like, get my old quality control brain going again and say, OK, OK, what’s the easiest path for this team?

Can they go this route?

And that’s why I always say natural answer, or have I seen this before?

Have you ever hit this high, I’ve ever had this angle before?

And with the Texans it’s like: All right, what are you doing well?

Um, a couple of explosive passes, I guess, you know, to Nico Collins, OK, and then it’s OK, 32nd in early down rushing success rate, dead last, and with Joe Mixon out there too.

And the thing is, this is so frustrating, and I know a lot of people have pointed this out, but Bobby Slok and the Texans are in the middle of it on the way down and have the rush rate planned.

So it’s not like they’re saying, “Okay, we’re bad at running, so we’re never going to run the ball.”

No, we just stick with the formula, even if it becomes 1 yard or 0 yards, we just stick with the formula which is just like you have to adjust.

For me, it’s the Chargers or CJ Strout’s hero ball, and if the Chargers running game doesn’t get going, it’s Justin Herbert’s hero ball.

That’s what this game feels like, it’s going to come down to 6 to 8 big throws from each of these guys.

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