For the second consecutive year, the Houston Texans finished a regular season atop the AFC South standings but then fell in the divisional round of a postseason tournament.
Coming off Houston’s 23-14 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs this past Saturday, Texans pass-rusher Will Anderson Jr. took a bit of a shot at the Tennessee Titans and New York Jets while discussing how his club can get to where it wants to be roughly 12 months from now.
“It’s great, but we’ve got to win these regular-season games so we can get home-field advantage,” Anderson said on Monday, as shared by Nick Shook of the NFL’s website. “We can’t lose to these teams like the Titans and Jets. …We can’t suffer losses. We’ve got to get home-field advantage. And that’s really going to help us. But if we don’t, we gotta find a way on the road to win.”
Back on Halloween night, a Texans side that was without both No. 1 wide receiver Nico Collins and Stefon Diggs due to injury setbacks was, in the words of quarterback C.J. Stroud, “embarrassed” by a Jets team that earned a 21-13 victory but ultimately finished the campaign at 5-12. On Nov. 24, Stroud tossed a pair of interceptions in a surprising 32-27 defeat versus a Titans side that went 3-14.
Winning those two games wouldn’t have resulted in the Texans (10-7) finishing Week 18 above the 15-2 Chiefs in the AFC standings. Nevertheless, Anderson made a solid point about how Houston can be more than just a plucky playoff team that eventually loses to an advertised Super Bowl contender in January 2026.
“We’re right there,” Anderson added about the Texans. “I don’t care what nobody says. This is a fantastic team. We’ve got our quarterback. We’ve got everything we need. We’ve got to keep stacking and keep persevering. We have a squad. We have a great team. We just gotta keep finding ways.”
The Texans may have to replace Diggs, among others, as part of the type of roster restructure every club faces during an offseason. Despite some inevitable changes that will impact the Texans, they once again should be a popular pick among analysts as it pertains to “sleeper-team” predictions made ahead of September.
As of Tuesday morning, DraftKings Sportsbook had Houston as a +3000 betting underdog to win Super Bowl LX in February 2026.
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