Even a defense as formidable as the Houston Texans’ couldn’t bail them out after what unfolded on offense against New England in the divisional round. Five turnovers will sink just about anyone, and that’s exactly what happened. The season ended there for Houston, but it wasn’t quite the last word. The league made sure of that.

As it does every Saturday, the NFL released its weekly accountability report. With fewer games on the slate, the list was shorter than usual. That didn’t mean everyone slipped through. Texans rookie running back Woody Marks found his name on it. An offensive play resulted in the running back getting fined thousands of dollars.

Marks, the No. 116 overall pick in the 2025 draft, was fined $6,061 for unnecessary roughness due to impermissible use of the helmet. It’s safe to say that Marks got the shorter end of the fine, unlike Jets’ star Jamien Sherwood, who got fined $17,389 earlier this year, or Philadelphia Eagles star Saquon Barkley, who was fined $46,371.

The play came in the first half. In the second quarter, Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud threw an interception to Patriots rookie safety Craig Woodson. As Woodson returned the ball, Marks closed in to make the tackle.

The issue was how he did it. Marks lowered his head and initiated contact with his helmet. There was no flag thrown during the game. Officials let it go in real time. After review, though, the league office decided otherwise.

The rule itself isn’t complicated. Under Rule 12, Section 2, Article 10 of the NFL rulebook, it’s a foul if a player lowers his head and makes forcible contact with his helmet, or uses any part of the helmet or facemask to strike an opponent’s head or neck. That’s the standard the league applied here.

Sure, the rules allow for incidental contact. But that line has always been subjective. In this case, the NFL didn’t see it as incidental. They saw it as a violation worth penalizing.

For Marks, it’s the first fine of his career. That alone wouldn’t be notable, except for the timing. It came in a playoff loss that ended Houston’s season. It’s pretty unfortunate.

He’s a rookie, and those lessons tend to come fast in this league. Still, it capped off a season that never quite got going the way he or the Texans had hoped.

Woody Marks would have hoped for a better year

Early on, the rookie looked like the most dangerous piece of the Texans’ running game. But that edge slowed down a bit. The flashes were still there, but the week-to-week consistency wasn’t. By the end of the year, fair questions lingered about whether he could truly be the lead back in a rotation.

“I was a really big fan of Woody in college when he was at USC,” Stroud said about Woody. “Really elusive, really crafty. I thought he did a good job since those days in that Lincoln Riley offense. I thought today we used him in that light. Spread him out, gave him some familiarity running the ball, and some plays he’s run before.”

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His season-long stats, however, don’t paint a flattering picture. Marks finished with a 68.8 overall PFF grade, including a 61.4 rushing grade and a 69.6 receiving grade. That split pretty much summed up his year. There was a noticeable gap between what he gave them as a runner and what he provided as a receiver.

As a pass catcher, the production was quite modest. Marks hauled in 24 passes for 208 yards and three touchdowns. He had one drop and ran 242 routes, which placed him 26th among 55 qualifying running backs.

Marks logged 226 run snaps and carried the ball 196 times for 703 yards, adding two rushing touchdowns. He produced 15 explosive runs. It reads better, but even that output ranked him just 46th out of 55 qualifying backs.

He racked up 571 snaps over the course of the season, so it’s fair to say expectations were higher. Woody Marks likely expected more from himself. So did the fans and so did the front office. If Woody Marks is going to cement his role in the Texans’ backfield, next season has to look different. He needs to leap in year 2.