Waiting for next season since 2002 continues.
It isn’t a given the Houston Texans will win the AFC South, with three tough opponents ahead and the division rival BESFs looking to play spoiler for the last week of the season. The Texans currently sit at 8-5 with the 6-7 Indianapolis Colts as the only team that can legitimately stop the 2024 playoff appearance from happening.
Houston has all the tiebreakers against the Colts, having swept them and done a number on the Jacksonville Jaguars as well. However, the Texans could legitimately lose out for the last month of the season, ending at 8-9, while the Colts face the 8-5 Denver Broncos, the aforementioned 3-10 Tennessee Titans, the 2-11 New York Giants and the 3-10 Jaguars.
The Colts could conceivably win out, while the Texans drop their final four.
If that happens, Houston will miss the playoffs, which might be the best possible result at this stage.
Should the Texans (continue to) fall, odds are offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik and offensive line coach Chris Strausser will have the opportunity to seek work elsewhere. Which looks more and more like a welcome outcome.
If the Texans hold off the weak-schedule enabled Baby Horses and secure the AFC South title in 2024, expect them to lose in the wild card round. Unfortunately, these sorts of false-hope outcomes tend to keep people in their jobs, ensuring 2025 won’t end any better, if not dramatically worse.
The Texans are currently wasting the golden years of a young franchise quarterback, losing games to teams like the hapless 3-10 New York Jets and enabling some of the worst offensive line play and offensive play calling among the AFC playoff contenders.
Sure the team is 8-5 and coming off a bye week, but DeMeco Ryans has done nothing in the last month to show this team will overcome adversity, fix their issues and make a deep playoff run.
With the 6-7 Miami Dolphins, 8-5 Baltimore Ravens and 12-1 Kansas City Chiefs between Houston and the final week of the season, hitting 10 wins looks daunting. Especially if they continue to put the same product on the field.
But despite all that, the H-Town boys are still the best football team in all of Texas.
