Indianapolis Colts vs. Houston Texans: Live Score and Analysis for Houston

When is a Week 6 game a must-win? Not often, but the Houston Texans have to defeat the Indianapolis Colts today.

It's hard to make the argument that a playoff spot is ever at stake during the first half of the season, but if the Texans fall to 3-3 with a loss today, we can write off whatever their chances were at making the postseason.

They don't have a "murderers' row" schedule after this week, but it's still hard to find six games they can win to reach nine wins for the season, which is what it should take for them to make the playoffs.

At this point, I already have them pegged for losses at Pittsburgh, against Philadelphia, against Cincinnati and at Indianapolis. If those predictions come true and the Texans lose tonight, that would put them at seven losses at least for the season.

Could the Texans sweep their other six games against the Titans, Jaguars, Browns and Ravens? Sure, that's definitely possible, but with the production they're getting from Ryan Fitzpatrick, are you really that confident they can go 6-0 in games that they "should win"?

I'm not, so they must win tonight to stay ahead of the Colts and give themselves a chance at winning the tiebreaker.

To win tonight (not to state the obvious), they have to get great—not just good—performances from Arian Foster and J.J. Watt.

Yes, I know the sky is also blue and water is wet right?

Given the Colts' advantage at quarterback, the only way the Texans can win is to take pressure off their own quarterback and put pressure on theirs. That means Foster has to have another game like he did against the Cowboys and Watt has to hit Andrew Luck as often as he did EJ Manuel two weeks ago against Buffalo.

There are 20 other starters on the field for the Texans who will need to help those two players, but the bulk of the pressure will fall on the shoulders of Foster and Watt.

If the Texans running game can play keep away and the pressure of Watt forces Luck into a few mistakes, the Texans will win. If they don't, the Colts will win.

Sometimes the game of football is very simple.