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 change.

The problem is: The Texans' underlying statistical data is ... not bad.

The Texans have lost five games and only one of them was by more than seven points – it was by eight, to the No. 1 team in both ANY/A and DVOA, on the road – and have dealt with some fairly cataclysmic problems such as "the starting quarterback and only good tackle getting concussed in a game that they'd only need 18 points to win" and "a complete inability to score in the red zone."

None of this is to say that you can't poke holes in what they've done – the offensive line is bad, and the fact that the offensive line can't be counted on to get them one yard on goal-to-go is an indictment of how the team was built. They drafted two rookie wideouts and have managed to keep them from getting on the field at all costs. Their plan for Joe Mixon getting hurt did not exist. Their big wins came against a depleted Ravens team without Lamar Jackson, a franchise that feels like an expansion team, and a 49ers club starting Mac Jones. They are, broadly speaking, not fun to watch play offense.

But if you look holistically at where they are, it isn't much different from where I would have expected them to be. The record in one-score games holds us back from seeing them that way. Go 2-2 instead of 0-4 (leaving out the eight-point Seattle loss) and we'd be talking about them in the playoff race. Instead, they're looking up at the Jaguars and (probably) starting a must-win game against them with Davis Mills under center. Just as wins can be banked, losses can too, and there's nothing to be done about them now.

I haven't quite given up on the Texans turning it around this season because I look at these numbers and I know the defense has been capable of holding it down while Stroud has (mostly) looked like a good quarterback for the last month when not playing a Death Star defense. It is deeply unfortunate that Stroud will not play against the Jaguars, as the rest of the schedule is going to be an ask. From Week 12-18, they play the Colts twice, the Bills, the Chiefs, and the Chargers. It's going to be hard to stack a winning streak against an average opponent quality that high.

How you see where they are is a point of view thing. NFL fanbases and media allow themselves to get captured in narratives all the time. The Bills traded Stefon Diggs away ahead of 2024 and made the AFC Championship game in what was supposed to be a year where they took a step back to salvage the books. The Bills also have one of the three quarterbacks in the league that are truly a step ahead of everyone else. The Texans tried to take that step back this year by letting Diggs walk and trading Laremy Tunsil, only they forgot that the offense still needs other good players or schemes.

We're waiting for the next narrative step of the Texans – and in some ways we have been waiting for it for 15 years – where they become a legitimate contender rather than an AFC South fiefdom that gets a Saturday afternoon Wild Card game. I can't blame any fan who looks at what is happening here with grief. I think it is an utter waste of a year of Stroud and the best defense in the league to be anchored to an offensive scheme and supporting cast that simply can't do enough to make this team a real contender.

But that die was cast months ago, and the roll is about the median of where it could have been. Nick Caley has improved from his first three weeks in the league even if the results on the whole have been somewhat discouraging. The offensive line is not a complete and utter sieve in pass protection like they were last year. Stroud got hurt on a scramble. The young receivers still have a half-season to show some promise. The red zone offense is terrible and, based on what I've seen and the playcalls they've run, I would never trust this offense to get a yard when they needed it. At the same time, red zone offense is notoriously not sticky and prone to regression statistically speaking. (Of course, that's also because failing as bad as the Texans have failed in the red zone gets you to the drawing board in the offseason.)

The problem is that walking into this year against this schedule with as little offensive talent as the Texans did, with two first-time coaches overseeing playcalling and the line, is something that there isn't really a cure for. There's no trade deadline addition that is fixing this. And it's still a little unclear how much actually needs to be fixed beyond the offensive line.

The only thing they can do for now is play the rookies, hope Stroud recovers in time for Week 11, and let the chips fall as they may.