The calendar has flipped over to July, which means NFL training camps are right around the corner. Fear not, Texans fans, football will be back soon enough. The Texans have one of their most intriguing schedules in quite some time, as it’s littered with playoff teams, elite quarterbacks, and a ton of cold weather.
So, in this down time for actual football activities, how about we dig in on the Texans’ opponents and look at the biggest questions facing all 14 teams the Texans will face in 2026. Obviously, it’s 14 teams they will face over a 17-game season, with each divisional foe appearing twice on the schedule.
Let’s now look at the opponents for Weeks 1 through 5, shall we? Here we go:
BUFFALO BILLS (Week 1) — Is Joe Brady really head coach material?
When NFL head coaches get fired, it’s usually because the team is an utter failure in the regular season, or they’ve coached a playoff team into the postseason several years and have hit a glass ceiling. That’s what happened in Buffalo with Sean McDermott, who’d made the playoffs seven straight years, but never broke through to a Super Bowl. His tenure included a 1-4 record against the Texans.
Now comes Joe Brady, who was promoted from offensive coordinator to head coach after McDermott’s firing. We know Brady can coach offense, as the Bills were fourth in the league in scoring. The biggest question that needs to be answered for the Bills is “Can Brady be the CEO of an operation, like McDermott was?” McDermott did a tremendous job at setting culture in the building, and at 36 years old, and in his first head coaching job, Brady does come with some risk.
BENGALS (Week 2) — Is Dexter Lawrence enough to make the defense respectable?
The Bengals are sort of the anti-Texans. While the Texans have a Super Bowl caliber defense and an offense that just needs to keep from screwing things up, the Bengals have a Super Bowl caliber offense, and a disastrous defense. The biggest move they made to try to address their porous defense (31st in points allowed) was trading a first round pick to the Giants for defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence. This will definitely help the team’s run defense, which was among the worst in the league, but Rome was most certainly not built in a day, and Lawrence represents just one new, shiny building in metaphorical downtown Rome. The rest of the city is still a mess.
COLTS (Week 3, Week 11) — Was Daniel Jones a ten week wonder?
Through the first eight games of last season, you could argue that Daniel Jones was on his way to winning the MVP award. The Colts were 7-1, and Jones had thrown for over 2,000 yards. The Colts scored on their first ten possessions of the season. It didn’t last, though. By the time the Texans faced Jones in Week 13, he was dealing with injuries. The season ended, for the Colts, outside the playoffs, below .500, and with Jones on injured reserve (Achilles tear). Still, the Colts decided to give him a two-year, $88 million contract this offseason. This has all the makings of a disaster for the Colts. Just ask the Giants, who gave Jones $40 million per year on a new deal after his only other decent season in 2022. The Colts are finishing last in the AFC South this season.
COWBOYS (Week 4) — Do the two first round picks reestablish the Cowboys defense?
Say what you will about the Cowboys with their owner Jerry Jones running personnel, but they draft pretty well. Hell, one of the reasons they wind up in so many contract standoffs with their existing players is because they draft so many players worthy of a good second contract. The Cowboys may have done it again in the 2026 draft, selecting Ohio State safety Caleb Downs with the 11th overall pick and UCF edge rusher Malachi Lawrence with the 23rd overall pick. The expectation for Downs is he becomes the heartbeat of the defense, and the expectation for Lawrence is that he becomes some semblance of the force off the edge that Micah Parsons was before he was traded to Green Bay last September. Fortunately, the Texans catch the Cowboys early.
TITANS (Week 5, Week 18) — How high does Robert Saleh elevate the floor and ceiling?
The Titans have been the dregs of the AFC South for the last couple seasons, and last season was one of their bigger embarrassments, as they wound up firing second year head coaching disaster Brian Callahan, while Mike Vrabel, the guy they fired to hire Callahan, led the Patriots to the Super Bowl. Their latest head coaching hire was much better than their last. Robert Saleh has head coaching experience, after three-plus seasons with the Jets. While his record (20-36) wasn’t great, his defenses were good, and he somehow squeezed a 7-10 record out of a team quarterbacked by Zach Wilson. Cam Ward has a much bigger upside than Wilson ever did. Sales has a chance to shake up the landscape in the AFC South.
