The Houston Texans have too many problems to be a Super Bowl contender

Aspirations of the first deep playoff run in Texans’ franchise history are waning with each loss.

The Houston Texans were one of the great surprises of the 2023 NFL season, charging their way to an unlikely AFC South title and eventual trip to the Divisional Round. Quarterback C.J. Stroud won Offensive Rookie of the Year, while edge rusher Will Anderson Jr took Defensive Rookie of the Year. It was more than logical to pick DeMeco Ryans’ team as potentially AFC Championship, if not Super Bowl-caliber in 2024.

After Week 12’s horrendous 32-27 home loss to the Tennessee Titans, it’s clear that those aspirations were a little too lofty.

Houston currently has the worst record (7-5) and point differential (+17) of any of the AFC division leaders. They’ve lost three out of their last four, including consecutive home games in which the defense picked off Jared Goff five times and sacked Will Levis eight times (plus a pick-six), as well as a primetime embarrassment against the New York Jets.

Let’s peel back the onion and see why the Texans look like pretenders and not contenders.

C.J. Stroud is under siege, and he’s regressed

Part of why Stroud was magnificent as a rookie was his pass protection. Houston’s offensive line was not elite, but Stroud was 17th in pressure rate as a rookie at 35.5% (per NFL Pro). That rate has climbed to 41%, good for 3rd alongside fellow AFC South quarterbacks Will Levis and Anthony Richardson. Stroud’s average time to pressure is sixth-fastest in the NFL, so it’s not a case of him repeatedly holding onto the ball too long. The Texans offensive line is graded below-average both in pass and run blocking, with right guard Shaq Mason pinned for seven sacks allowed (the most of any guard in the NFL). Predictably, they’re a mediocre passing offense and a bad rushing offense by EPA/play.

While Stroud is far from a liability, he’s definitely in a slump. He’s been worse across the board in terms of interception rate, yards per game, completion rate, EPA/play, QBR (now 25th), sack rate, and his adjusted net yards/attempt has dipped from 7.47 (third-best in 2023) to just 5.63 (23rd).

The offensive line woes do not fully explain away Stroud’s struggles. This critical interception against the Detroit Lions was all on Stroud’s underthrow of an open receiver, while his second of two picks in the Titans loss was a bad read and a worse throw.

There was always more room for Stroud to regress than to improve upon one of the great rookie quarterback seasons in NFL history, but the falloff has been steep enough to hold Stroud back from joining the elite tier any time soon.

Offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik goes from future head coach to the hot seat?

Last offseason, the Texans offensive coordinator was a head coach candidate before ultimately signing a new contract with Houston. This season, Slowik has come under fire for his offense’s downturn. The usage (or, at times, overuse) of the run game has been criticized, most notably in their collapse against the Detroit Lions, when Joe Mixon put up only 46 yards on 25 carries.

Houston is also one of the least-efficient offenses on 1st and 2nd downs, which is one of the reasons they face an average of over 8 yards to go on 3rd downs (second-worst behind the Seattle Seahawks). Another major decline from last season is the explosive passing game. Stroud was elite at generating big plays in 2023, but that is not the case in 2024.

An offense that can’t run the ball consistently, can’t convert on 3rd downs, can’t produce explosive plays, and routinely commits drive-killing penalties is one that cannot contend. Slowik probably isn’t in danger of being fired at season’s end, but he’s certainly not the hot commodity he was a year ago.

The Texans are extremely undisciplined and sloppy

Turnovers have generally not been an issue for the Texans; they rank in the middle of the pack with 14. However, Houston is second in accepted penalties with 92, including 34 pre-snap penalties. Left tackle Laremy Tunsil, the best player on the Texans offensive line, leads the NFL in total penalties (17) and is the only player with at least 10 false starts.

Perhaps no sequence of events exemplifies the Texans’ ongoing failure to execute than the last five minutes of the Titans game:

• A would-be go-ahead touchdown from Stroud to Nico Collins is wiped out when to an illegal shift penalty in which two Texans went in motion at once.
• Texans center Jarret Patterson commits a holding penalty that turned 2nd and 10 at the Tennessee 11 to 1st and 20 at the 21.
• Out of the two-minute warning, kicker Ka’imi Fairbairn misses the tying field goal from 28 yards out, making him the only kicker in the NFL with multiple misses from inside 30 yards this season.
• Safety M.J. Stewart commits an illegal blindside block on the ensuing Titans punt, backing the Texans up from the 15 to the 8 with 1:29 left.
• C.J. Stroud takes consecutive sacks, including a Dan Orlovsky-esque run out of the end zone that ends all hope of a comeback.

“The negative stuff continues to hurt us,” DeMeco Ryans said earlier this week. “There’s no hidden agenda or anything, it’s just get it cleaned up and get it fixed.”

The Texans’ defense is giving up too many explosive plays

Houston has seemingly adopted the defensive version of “boom or bust.” In terms of DVOA and EPA/play, this is one of the better units in the NFL versus the run and pass. And yet, they’re one of the worst at allowing explosive plays. They’ve conceded a league-worst 14 passing touchdowns of 20+ yards, four more than the second-worst Jaguars. Add in their 30th ranked red-zone defense and you have a talented defense that’s just 15th in points allowed despite impressive advanced metrics.

Key injuries to key players on the Houston Texans

In fairness to the Texans, they’ve been affected by injuries to their best players. Top wide receiver Nico Collins only just returned from injured reserve after a hamstring problem cost him five games, while big offseason acquisition Stefon Diggs’ season ended in October after an ACL tear.

Having just gotten Will Anderson Jr back after missing two games with an ankle injury, the Texans lost standout defensive back Jalen Pitre indefinitely to a partially torn pectoral muscle. Despite a quick turnaround from the doldrums of the 2020-2022 seasons, Houston’s roster still lacks the depth to withstand major absences.

But Houston will still win the AFC South... or will they?

Houston’s saving grace is the fact that, as usual, the AFC South isn’t a good division. New York Times’ playoff machine has the Texans at 94% odds to reach the postseason, and for good reason. The Titans and Jaguars are realistically out of it, so that leaves you with the 5-7 Indianapolis Colts, who’ve been swept by the Texans and thus do not have a head-to-head tiebreaker. That means the Colts will have to be three games better than the Texans over the rest of the season.

It seems very unlikely (mostly because of the Colts), and yet... not impossible?

Texans’ final five opponents: at Jaguars, vs. Dolphins, at Chiefs, vs. Ravens, at Titans
Colts’ final five opponents: at Patriots, at Broncos, vs. Titans, at Giants, vs. Jaguars

As mediocre as the Colts have been whether it’s Anthony Richardson or Joe Flacco at quarterback, Indianapolis could win four of these games, with only the Denver Broncos matchup looking especially difficult. Houston would be underdogs to the Chiefs and Ravens, while suddenly the Dolphins are resurgent. The Titans and Jaguars games are hardly locks given the prior loss to Tennessee and a comeback win in the first Jaguars showdown.

There’s recent precedent for improbable collapses in the AFC South. Two years ago the Titans squandered a four-game division lead to the Jaguars, who won out from 4-8 while Tennessee lost out at 7-3. Last year, the Texans seized on the Jaguars’ implosion from 8-3 and the No. 1 seed in the AFC to 9-8 and out of the playoffs completely. It is not far-fetched to believe that the Texans could experience the same fate as the Jags and Titans before them.

Houston doesn’t have a problem; it has a lot of problems, and likely too many to quickly solve in order to be a contender this year.