Why Your Team Sucks 2024: Houston Texans

Some people are fans of the Houston Texans. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Houston Texans. This 2024 Defector NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.

Your team: Houston Texans. Can I get a DOINK going on in here?

Oh yeah. That scratches the itch.

Your 2023 record: 10-7. Most stunning one-year turnaround in recent memory. You know the whole deal with the Texans leading up to now: racist founder, stupid nickname, no AFC title game appearances, a grope-eriffic QB, a near-erotic fixation on the idea of Head Coach Josh McCown, and a front office run by Joel Osteen’s stunt double until just a couple of years ago. This has never been a franchise that’s deserved success, and they often went out of their way to avoid it.

Until this past season. Thanks to a confluence of bizarre events—certainly not thanks to savvy leadership—the 2023 Texans hit the trifecta. Their new head coach, new QB, and new pass-rushing specialist all turned out to be among the best in their respective lines of work. Again, please don’t credit the Texans for this. I don’t want them going and getting any big ideas.

Now, 10-7 might seem like only a mild success in greater context. After all, the Texans did a LOT of Texans shit despite all of their newfound resources. They got beaten badly by the Ravens in Week 1, and then beaten badly again by Anthony Richardson a week later. If Richardson had survived the entire season, maybe I’d be previewing his team right now instead of this one. But again, luck. The Texans were also walked off by the Falcons in a game that, according to the AP writeup, supposedly proved Desmond Ridder’s haters wrong:

Ridder passed and ran for touchdowns, providing a response to those who had called for him to be benched.

“Now he’s got evidence, a great fourth-quarter comeback,” [Arthur] Smith said of Ridder.

Neither Ridder nor Arthur Smith are employed by the Falcons anymore. But the Texans were still there to provide both of those men with 15 minutes of validation that they’ll each cherish for the rest of their careers. The Texans also gave the disgraceful Panthers their first win of the season, lost on the above DOINK to Jacksonville, got beaten 30-6 by Zach Wilson, and gave up 265 yards receiving to Amari Cooper in a loss to the Browns. You’re nodding along to all of this right now. You’re getting the familiar, Thursday Night feeling that this franchise provides on an annual basis.

[Stephen A. voice] BUT! But the Texans also fielded the offensive and defensive rookies of the year, and rode that duo to their best record since Deshaun Watson was terrorizing local small-business owners. They won the AFC South, then beat the piss out of Cleveland in the wild card round. Fuck the future; these guys seemed poised to win a Super Bowl right now. They even hung with the top-seeded Ravens for the first half in the divisional round.

And then God said, Whoa hey wait a second now, you’re the Texans, and Houston was outscored 24-0 the rest of the way.

Your coach: DeMeco Ryans, who’s frustratingly competent. I’m so used to Texans head coaches either being replaceable stiffs or rage addicts that I’m frozen by the sight of Ryans not only being a good coach, but a likable one. Meanwhile, the aforementioned McCown is now on MY team’s coaching staff. And I think he’s doing a great job! THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE?!

Your quarterback: C.J. Stroud, who got dinged prior to the draft for allegedly shitting the bed on a fake aptitude test, and then became one of the best quarterbacks in the AFC by his third game of the season. Stroud was so good a year ago that the Eye Of Rubin landed on him. Uh oh…

Well, it was nice while it lasted. Can’t say I’m jazzed to watch Stroud appear at Fanatics Fest in 2025 to tell attendees that it’s never a sin to dream.

Behind Stroud are Davis Mills, a.k.a. mini-Glennon, and the immortal Case Keenum. In other words, Stroud better not get hurt.

What’s new that sucks: Once the Texans front office realized they’d struck gold with both Stroud and EDGE Will Anderson, they wasted no time going all in. There was a lot of churn with their roster this offseason, so let me recap it as quickly as I can before I go back to being a prick.

Free agency robbed Houston of useful parts like LB Blake Cashman, DE Jonathan Greenard, DT Sheldon Rankins, CB Steven Nelson, S Kareem Jackson, LB Denzel Perryman, and S Adrian Amos. But no one gave a shit about any of those losses, because the Texans still managed to bring in DT Folorunso Fatukasi, EDGE Denico Autry, CB Jeff Okudah, LB Azeez Al-Shaair, DT Tim Settle, P Tommy Townsend, RB Cam Akers, DT Mario Edwards, and S Lonnie Johnson. And I haven’t even gotten to the headliners of that class: EDGE Danielle Hunter, RB Joe Mixon (here to fill the creep void that Watson left behind), and WR Stefon Diggs.

About Diggs: The Texans sent a second-rounder to Buffalo in exchange for the All-Pro, and then curiously shrunk his contract down to a one-year deal that leaves Diggs a free agent at the end of this season. Now why did they do that?

Oh right, yes.

The Bills are in a championship window and have no receivers better than Diggs on their current roster. Yet they were willing to eat $31 million just to be rid of him. Why? Well, the Bills phased Diggs out of their passing attack in the second half of last season, reducing his snap count by over 20 percent. And guess what? It worked. Buffalo finished off the year with five straight wins to make the playoffs, which was enough of a sample size for Bills GM Brandon Beane to conclude that Diggs wasn’t worth all of the horseshit he brings into the locker room with him.

Because Diggs really IS a pain in the ass. He wanted out of Minnesota so that he could play with a contender. The Vikings gave him his wish, sent him to a team that employs the second-best passer in the league, and Diggs STILL pissed and moaned. So the Texans converted him into a rental with the idea that he wouldn’t be around long enough to get all surly and annoying. But trust me: he’ll be surly and annoying. His first “the enemy speaks kindly & holds a knife” tweet will pop up right around Columbus Day. Then one of his teammates will be like, That’s just Stef! He only cares about WINNING! And then he’ll be DNPed after taking a dump in Stroud’s locker. Put money on it.

Meanwhile, Mixon is quickly approaching the RB cliff, and Hunter is a constant threat to suffer a random neck injury that puts him down for the year. These Texans are Super Bowl contenders as presently constituted, and they have the 2024 offseason championship ring to bolster their case. But you and I know what happens to offseason champs. I live in D.C., ground zero for failed superteam assembly. The regression agency won’t be afraid to pay you gents a visit this season. And the Texans still won’t be able to run the ball, which is a bit of an issue now that Derrick Henry is a Raven. Their best corner, Derek Stingley Jr., is hurt more often than he isn’t. And the rest of their CB room is dogshit. Use your dark-horse label judiciously.

Tank Dell was shot.

What has always sucked: Decades of on-field failure and off-field scandal (still ongoing!) have rendered the Texans radioactive even in their home city. Don’t take it from me. Take it from the best player they’ve ever had:

These people have been hurt over and over again, and CenterPoint still hasn’t restored their power. It’s gonna take more than one above-average season to get these people to give a shit, and the Texans have never been ones for sustained excellence now, have they? If I find out that Stroud is a part-time arms dealer two months from now, I won’t even blink. Embarrassment remains your destiny.

Houston is like if someone looked at a normal city and asked, “What if we made everything a drive-thru?”

What might not suck: I can’t believe an NFL team unveiled new uniforms that are genuinely new, but the Texans bloody did it. Those getups are NICE. Not as nice as the old Oilers unis, but you take what you can get.

HEAR IT FROM TEXANS FANS!

Clay:

We … don’t suck?

This is awkward. Just write something mean about Sage Rosenfels and let’s call it a day.

Chase:

Our franchise leader in passing yards is still Matt Schaub.

CS:

Between hiring DeMeco Ryans and drafting Stroud, the Texans will be quite the comeback story until a Category 4 hurricane comes up the Ship Channel and turns Houston into Swamp Ass Fury Road.

David:

They will only win five games, and DeMeco Ryans will tackle one of his players by Week 15.

Chuck:

Houston sucks. If you like traffic, mosquitoes, concrete, two seasons (summer and really hot summer), ridiculous property taxes, uninsured 2004 Nissan Altimas with fake paper tags, swamp ass, shitty schools, obesity, unaffordable housing, 95-degree swimming pools in summer, racism, an unreliable power grid, average BBQ, MAGA flags, choosing between Chili’s and TGI Friday’s for food diversity, Galveston beaches, and breathing Benzene, Houston might be the place for you. 

Jared:

It took this franchise TWENTY FUCKING YEARS to figure out that hiring a good coach and drafting a good quarterback can actually make you good, and I'm supposed to suddenly believe that they are one of the smartest in the league? Bullshit.

Andy:

I grew up an Oilers fan, so I’ve always had a “You’re not my real dad!” complex with the Texans. If the Oilers embodied everything scuzzy and interesting and real about the Bayou City, the Texans represent the bland, conformist, performatively-religious-and-patriotic side of the place. Plus, the team has been mediocre.

But I guess not everyone feels that way. I was in an Uber in Austin last week, and the driver was rocking a Texans replica jersey. I asked him about it, and he said he was a kid from rural Utah who spent a couple of years in Houston before moving here a few months ago. He told me he fell in love with the Texans during his brief time in Houston and is now a season ticket holder.

Imagine grinding it out as an Uber driver so you can spend your downtime driving six hours, round trip, eight times every fall to watch the Houston-gotdanged-Texans finish third or fourth in the AFC South.

Saul:

1. Last season, one our best offensive players (Tank Dell) broke his leg right before the playoffs because the coaching staff thought having a 5'10, 165 pound WR blocking on the goal line was a good idea 

2. That very same player was shot just a few months later, and people already seemed to have forgotten about it. I understand that's what we do here in America regarding any shooting, but it's still a little jarring to remind people that it happened and have their reaction be "Oh, that's right!" 

3. We brought in Stefon Diggs to take away targets from Nico Collins.

4. Joe Mixon severely beat a woman in college and recently told another woman, "You should be popped in the face. I should shoot you." So of course we had to have him on the team. Texans fans will love him, no doubt. 

5. We're one of the buzziest teams in the league because of our HC (who admittedly deserves all the praise he gets) and an ascending superstar QB, which of course means we'll regress this season and shit the bed and go like 9-8

6. NRG Stadium continues to be just so incredibly mid. It’s like if Applebees was a stadium.

7. I know he's dead but fuck Bob McNair.

Daniel:

Our team finally seems to be run by actual grown-ups who have football knowledge (turning Deshaun Watson into Will Anderson and Tank Dell). They've purged Pastor E and his ilk and all it took was Hannah McNair to be put in charge of making decisions instead of Cal bumblefucking his way around into one three-win season after another.

However, we know who we are. We know that we're the afterthought of the league at best. The team that only gets brought up when a futile record is discussed (teams that have never made the Super Bowl) or when someone needs a comparison to something shitty (like David Carr's sack record). We're the team that gets no featured games. Even when we’re flexed into one, Troy Aikman still doesn't know squat about any of their players. When the fandom maps are pulled up, we're the tiny dot around Houston because nobody outside the immediate area gives a flying fuck about them.

The Texans have unarguably the best coach in the team's history, what appears to be an elite young QB on a rookie deal, and a WR core that could be one of the best in the league (assuming they don't get shot again). Make no mistake, the team will fuck this up. The absolute ceiling will be destroying the AFC South, getting the noon Saturday Wild Card game, and getting pantsed by the Chiefs or Ravens in the second round. Every person that follows this team knows it.

Submissions for the NFL previews are now closed. Next up: Buffalo Bills.