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Establishing the Establishment of the Run
If there's one thing you can say about Houston's 2026 draft class – and their offseason as a whole if you look at how they approached free agency on offense – it's that they believe they need to control the ball better through establishing their own run game.
What to get for the side of the ball that has it all?
The battle on the offensive side of the ball to make things right is real. David Montgomery was brought in to fix the run game. There are new veteran offensive linemen at left guard and right tackle, and I'd be stunned if they didn't take an
Willing it into existence
I would not say the Houston Texans had an offseason that solves all their problems, but that's only because their problems, to me, were beyond the grasp of money. Nick Caley and C.J. Stroud are the two most important people for the franchise's success and
A new look Texans offensive line, just like every other year
In 2024, the starting Texans offensive line was Laremy Tunsil, Kenyon Green, Juice Scruggs, Shaq Mason, and Tytus Howard. None of those players are Texans today. In fact, the only offensive linemen on that roster still on the team today are Jarrett Patterson and Blake Fisher,
David Montgomery, Tytus Howard, and everything after
The Texans had a Joe Mixon-sized hole last season that they never fixed, and trading for David Montgomery fills it in. As good as last year's team was, Woody Marks simply wasn't ready (or able) to be a full-time back. The rookie back checked
A Winter Of Stroud's Content: The Betrayal
The scene: A January Sunday in the outskirts of Houston, Texas. The writer is exhausted. He worked Saturday night in addition to having full childcare responsibilities while his wife was sick. The TV is on. He has sworn not to live-write about this game on social media because doing
Retaining Nick Caley: No other targets or no other ambition?
I know, I know, you all want the next Stroud post. Sorry, this is a little more pressing to me. (And it kind of ties in to Stroud anyway.) The Texans went from minus-12.4% offensive DVOA (26th) in 2024 to minus-2.4% DVOA (19th) in 2025. In
A winter of Stroud’s Content: The Fumblening
Playing an MNF playoff game as a Sun Belt team that rarely gets any national attention and has an obvious weak point is a little like someone stopping by unannounced for dinner. I can’t hide everything in time. We don’t normally eat in the dining room and also
Smart Bullies and Dumb Bullies
The most important tidbit I got out of Tyler Dunne's fantastic two-part series on the Texans defense was this, from defensive coordinator Matt Burke: The defense will change when someone actually challenges it. They haven't really been tested in that way so far. So the
Did the Texans miss Laremy Tunsil?
The 2025 offseason began with a surprise – the Texans trading Laremy Tunsil and a fourth-round pick for a second-round pick, a third-round pick, a fourth-round pick, and a seventh-round pick over the next two years. Laremy Tunsil has been, if not an All-Pro in
A Winter Of Stroud's Content, Pt. III: The Ask
The NFL is always unfair to its young quarterbacks in some major way. Last year, CJ Stroud was asked to deal with the world’s dumbest offensive line stunt pickups. The sort of stuff that would be inexcusable in any major college program, let alone in the NFL. The offensive
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The Texans are a legitimate Super Bowl contender versus No They Aren’t
Two Sunday nights ago, the Texans closed out the 2025 Kansas City Chiefs for all intents and purposes. The Chargers would finish the job, as Patrick Mahomes tore his ACL in Los Angeles’ narrow win at Arrowhead a week later, removing the biggest bogeyman in the AFC from the playoff
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Winter of Stroud's Content pt. II -- The Third Quarter
Here is a take I’ve been brewing in the lab for a while, but I’m going to warn you that you’re not going to like it. Okay? You were warned. One of the promises of analytical thinking is the idea that we can create heuristics that help
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When brute force fails: A Texans Red Zone study
There are 32 NFL teams. The Houston Texans are just about middle of the pack in total red zone trips – 18th in the league, with 39 trips. They are the only team in the league with that many trips and fewer than 20 touchdowns, at 17. The only team in
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The Winter of Stroud's Content
When I was a dipshit college student, there was no Twitter, Facebook was really new, and the law of the land for aspiring writers was: Write something, send it to some bigger sites, and hope they like it enough to post it in their links posts.
Is this a year where ceiling doesn't matter?
I've been thinking a lot lately about a specific subset of fans, one of whom is a BlueSky reply guy, where the train of thought is "the ceiling of the Houston Texans is not high enough."
The Gift
There was a play in Houston's Week 10 win over the Jaguars where I thought something that I think every week when I'm watching football: I guess they're just not going to be punished for it today. It came following this Trevor Lawrence throw:
The annoying competence of the Houston Texans
One thing that tends to crop up when a football team is underperforming is the idea that people must be fired. It happened with Bobby Slowik in 2024, of course. The Texans are 3-5, and I've heard from quite a few fans who just want to see
Not a shitty first draft so much as a shitty ethos
The thing about the 2025 Houston Texans is: They were never going to be a team that was hard to first-guess. If they failed, it was going to be very clear where they failed (offense) and what moves they made that were going to fail them (offensive coordinator, offensive
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Brian Callahan is gone, but the talent deficit remains
There are many NFL writers – I'll go with Albert Breer to name one, though he is hardly the only one – who led the story of Brian Callahan's firing with the idea of a dysfunctional organization. I actually don't think I agree, or at least
Nicked
We live in one of the most tedious moments of human history to have the curse of actually paying attention to things.
Is it still a panic button if you were always worried?
Nick Caley's offense is not off to a good start. The Texans were, frankly, lucky to crack 19 points on Monday night. They needed a huge Jaylin Noel punt return and a blocked punt to get the short fields to get there. I'm not panicked about
Fantasy Decision Desk: Boutte Or Not Boutte
Both to hold myself accountable and also create sort of a living record of where my fantasy teams were, I wanted to make a series where I explored the decisions I made and how stupid or smart they wound up being.