With all of the excitement going on in the Houston Texans locker room after they dismantled the Cleveland Browns by a score of 45-14 in the AFC wild card game, one player stood at his locker with the same demeanor he had the entire season focusing on the bigger task at hand, and that is trying to help lead the young Texans further during their playoff run.
It was hard to tell that nine-year veteran cornerback Steven Nelson had just broken the record for the longest interception returned for a touchdown in franchise history with an 82-yard scamper in the third quarter off of Browns quarterback Joe Flacco. He also tied for the 11th-longest interception in the postseason in NFL history. It was his fifth interception of the season, tying Derek Stingley Jr. for the team lead.
The only emotion Nelson showed was when he talked about his overall play against a Browns team that had embarrassed the Texans on their home field in Week 16. He did not perform the way he wanted to, as he had played through injury in the previous matchup and knew that the Browns would target him as they had tried to do before.
Yet, this time was different, and the third-quarter interception, caused by defensive end Derek Barnett putting pressure on Cleveland quarterback Joe Flacco, proved it as Nelson knew the route that wide receiver Elijah Moore was running and occupied the spot. He was eager to get back on the field and try to force Flacco into throwing him another interception, but that honor went to linebacker Christian Harris, who had a 36-yard pick-six on the next defensive drive.
“I started to get into the zone,” said Nelson, who finished the game with five tackles (four solo), one interception, three passes defensed, and a touchdown. “I was just playing our brand of football.”
Nelson, 30, helped the Texans’ defense shut down the Browns’ offense, not allowing them to score after they had back-to-back scoring drives in the first half, which produced the same amount of points (14) as the defense did in the fourth quarter, becoming only the seventh team in NFL history to record multiple interception touchdowns in a playoff game.
“We talk about our moment,” said Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans. “We talk about opportunity. Now the biggest thing is what do you do with it? It was all about just going out and just finishing, continuing to execute, continuing to finish, and that’s what we did.”
