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During the week, the Houston Texans players said all the right things about not listening to outside noise, even when that outside noise was ESPN analyst Rex Ryan calling them “a bye” for the Los Angeles Chargers in the playoffs.
Shortly after that bye — or Texans — punched the Chargers in the mouth to the tune of a 32-12 win in the wild-card game Saturday, the unmistakable smell of victorious cigar smoke permeated the home team’s locker room at NRG Stadium.
“I’m just happy I was able to celebrate with the guys,” Mixon judiciously told reporters crowded around his locker to get his retort to Ryan.
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Before those reporters were allowed inside though, the running back, who rushed for 106 yards and a touchdown, posted a live video on his Instagram of he and his teammates puffing on those cigars and taunting Ryan.
“We smoking on that Rex Ryan bye week pack,” Mixon said in the video.
Ryan, who hasn’t coached in the league since he was fired by the Buffalo Bills in 2016, gave the Texans plenty of motivation when he said on ESPN’s “Get Up” on Monday, “I never realized the Chargers got a bye — that they qualified for a bye. But they did because they’re playing Houston.” On Saturday, Ryan took nothing back, saying, “I’m doubling down!”
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While the Texans said all week they blocked out such talk, center Jarrett Patterson admitted after the win, “There was a conversation about that, but we’ll keep it internal.”
Not everyone was as cautious with their words about Ryan.
“I mean he don’t even know what he’s talking about,” Texans receiver Xavier Hutchinson said. “Of course, you try to block that out, but in the back of our heads, we knew what he said and we took that personal.”
Will Anderson Jr., who had 1½ sacks, took reporters to church for his response to Ryan.
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“If God be for you, who could be against you? My mom told me that one, and that’s just how I felt,” Anderson said. “It doesn’t matter what everybody says. The outside noise, we know what kind of team we’ve got.
“I don’t have a message to Rex. It’s his job. That’s what he does. He gets on TV and he talks. I’m not going to say anything disrespectful about him, we’ve just got to worry about us. We’ve just got to keep chopping wood. We’ve got to keep executing, keep being mentally sound and keep coming to work every day and keep getting better.”
While nearly every player admitted to Ryan’s comments adding at least a little fuel to the fire, Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair considered the messenger.
“Same old him,” Al-Shaair said of Ryan. “He’s coached in this league. He knows. That’s just him being TV guy. I don’t take it personal because at the end of the day, he’s coached in the league, he knows how this league is. It’s a week-to-week league. This is the best of the best. So, he can say what he wants, it is what it is. I don’t even take it that personal, I think he was maybe just trying to hype himself up for TV or something.”
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Still, when someone goes on TV and calls an NFL playoff team “a bye” for another team, it’s going to at least raise some eyebrows in the offended locker room.
“Yeah, that’s crazy that he said that,” receiver Nico Collins said, “but look where we are now.”
