THE PALLILOG

From division champs to elite contenders, Texans face a defining moment

Texans Joe Mixon, CJ Stroud, Nick Caserio
The Texans have a lot of work to do this offseason. Composite Getty Image.

So how successful was the recently concluded Houston Texans’ season? Their record was the same 10-7 mark posted a year ago, they won a home playoff game as a year ago, and then were eliminated in the Divisional round as a year ago. Coming off three seasons in which the Texans won a total of 11 games, the 2023 campaign went down as an unquestionably tremendous success. Holding steady in 2024? Let’s go with middling success. While more than a few subscribe to the notion that if you’re not going forward you’re going backward, that’s too cut and dried to categorize the 2024 Texans.

Winning a horrible AFC South simply is not an achievement to brag on. That said, the Texans were leaps and bounds better than the horrible. It’s not very long ago that they were the horrible. The South is the only AFC division the Texans would have come close to winning, but while watered down with regard to impressiveness, it’s not as if winning it is meaningless. Eight times now in their 23 seasons of existence the Texans have won the division. Taking nothing else into consideration, that is quite good. With divisions comprised of four teams, if everything was equal over a lengthy period of time (quality of management, coaching, luck, and whatever else) pure math says each team should win its division once every four years. The Texans eight titles in 23 seasons is better than once every three years. Since the current divisional format was adopted when the Texans began playing in 2002, the Colts have won the South nine times, the Titans four times, the Jaguars just twice. The Texans have won their division crowns in pairs: 2011/2012, 2015/2016, 2018/2019, 2023/2024. They will be clear favorites to make it back-to-back-to-back division championships for the first time.

And now to the flip side of the coin. The Texans are an utter failure at achieving anything beyond winning a Wild Card round game on their home field. Eight playoff appearances, a 6-2 record all at home vs. a Wild Card, 0-6 in the Division round, hence zero spots in the AFC Championship game. The Texans have not come close to winning in any of those six defeats. Their best go of it was their first ever postseason, the 2011 season. The Texans were at Baltimore, and twice in the last three minutes of the fourth quarter took possession trailing 20-13. The first of those possessions featured consecutive T.J. Yates (!) completions to Andre Johnson that got them near midfield. Yates’s next throw was also intended for Johnson. It was a deep ball intercepted by Ed Reed (that would not be the last time Ed Reed was involved in a poor outcome for the Texans but that’s a wholly different topic). The Texans then forced a Ravens’ three and out and took over after the punt at their own 48-yard-line with 45 seconds left. Yates threw four straight incompletions and that was that. Thirteen years later the Texans have come no closer to the NFL’s semifinals. Using the same simple math that dictates a team should win its division every four years, with sixteen teams competing for two spots in the Conference Championship game, over the long haul a franchise should average an appearance once every eight years. The Texans are still sitting on zero. The Cleveland Browns (2.0 edition) are the only other AFC franchise to never get within one victory of the Super Bowl.

Other than the seven point loss to the Ravens, Saturday’s defeat in Kansas City is the only other non-double digit Texans’ playoff loss, and that was a nine point game only because the Chiefs took a safety in the final seconds. Their other six playoff losses have come by an average of 19.83 points. That drives home the fact that the Texans have yet to ever be true Super Bowl contenders.

Waiting for Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, and Lamar Jackson to decline isn’t much of a plan. Will C.J. Stroud evolve into a quarterback worthy of belonging in at least the same paragraph as those three, if not the same sentence? Will Nick Caserio atone for his arrogant and erroneous declaration that it was a “lazy narrative” to point to the Texans’ offensive line play as, well, offensive? Those are two of the bigger questions to which the answers will shape the Texans’ ceiling for 2025 and beyond. The nucleus of a potentially elite defense is there with Will Anderson, Danielle Hunter (for one more season at least), Derek Stingley, Kamari Lassiter, and Calen Bullock. It’s not supremely difficult to get pretty good in the NFL. Greatness is a much higher hurdle to clear. The Texans are pretty good. Pretty good may be good enough to win another cute little division championship banner. Can they deliver great?

Still three weeks to go until the doors open at spring training, but the Astros are always in season for our discussion. New Stone Cold ‘Stros podcasts drop each Monday, with intense negotiations in progress to add a Thursday episode. Click here to watch!

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Josh Hader battled back from a 3-0 count to secure the strikeout. Photo by Tim Warner/Getty Images.

With a chance to make a late splash in his New York Mets debut, Juan Soto came up empty.

After signing the biggest contract in baseball history last offseason, the slugger came to bat with two runners aboard and the Mets down by two in the ninth inning Thursday. But instead of delivering the huge hit New York was looking for, he whiffed on a full-count slider from hard-throwing closer Josh Hader that was way outside the strike zone to send the Mets to a second straight opening day loss in Houston's 3-1 victory.

“He just got me in that situation,” Soto said.

Hader loaded the bases with nobody out, then fanned third-string catcher Hayden Senger in his first major league at-bat. Francisco Lindor’s sacrifice fly made it 3-1, and there were runners on first and third when Hader struck out Soto for his 200th career save.

“We all want to do something in a big spot,” Soto said. “We’re all trying to get the knock and try to bring the runs in and try to help the team either way.”

Soto singled and walked twice against the Astros after signing a record $765 million, 15-year contract as a free agent in December.

Mets manager Carlos Mendoza was asked if he thought Soto felt extra pressure in the ninth inning because it was his first game with a new team.

“Yeah, of course, as a competitor he always wants to come through,” Mendoza said. “I thought he had some good at-bats today and even on that one he got it 3-0 and then 3-1 and that pitch that he got there (he) just missed it. Pretty good pitch. But he’ll come through.”

Soto, who played for the American League champion New York Yankees last season, joins the Mets as they chase their first World Series title since 1986.

The four-time All-Star was disappointed his first game with the Mets didn't go their way.

“I was expecting to win the game,” he said. “Definitely it’s not how we wanted. ... They’re a really good team over there and they come in and grind. For me it was a good experience. These guys are amazing and we’ve been having a good time since spring training and we’ve just got to bring that all the way.”

The 26-year-old Soto hit .288 with 41 homers and 109 RBIs last year and won a Silver Slugger Award for a fifth straight season.

Soto is a career .285 hitter with 201 home runs and 592 RBIs in seven major league seasons. He's also played for the Nationals and Padres.


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