Ten games into the 2025 NFL season, the Houston Texans’ record sits at 5-5. They started the season 0-3, and then went 5-2 in their next seven games. In order to get to the postseason, the Texans will almost certainly need to go 5-2 over the final seven games, so a repeat of their last seven games is essential.
The schedule is not very forgiving, with four of the seven games against teams that would be in the postseason, if the season ended today, and one of the other three remaining games is against the Kansas City Chiefs, who many think could still win the Super Bowl, despite their 5-5 record.
The Texans, as we mentioned earlier, are also 5-5, so why not them to go to the Super Bowl? Well, several reasons, actually. It’s not impossible, but it’s highly unlikely. If they are going to get firmly back into the playoff mix, here are four areas of necessary improvement over the final seven games:
4. DeMeco Ryans game management
As the Texans have played better overall football over the last month or so, it’s obscured the fact that DeMeco Ryans has struggled in his third season as head coach of the team. There have been several questionable game management decisions, most recently in the win over Tennessee last weekend, where Ryans had two poor decisions in replay challenges, choosing to challenge an obvious incompletion (saying it was a touchdown), and then choosing to withhold a challenge on a possible touchdown by Jayden Higgins. This team is not good enough to overcome their coach being an impediment to winning.
3. Run the football
Offensively, the best thing I can say about the Texans is that they’re slightly improved in several key areas over last season. For example, they now run the football at a somewhat remedial level, as opposed to 2024, where Joe Mixon pretty much had to throw on a cape on every hand off. Currently, the Texans are 22nd in yards per carry at 4.2. If they can inch up closer to the middle of the pack, and more importantly, run the football in the second half of games, they can win against some of the heavyweights.
2. Sack the quarterback
For all the talent on the Texans’ defense, and for all the sheer firepower off the edge with Will Anderson and Danielle Hunter, the Texans don’t really get opposing quarterbacks on the ground nearly as much as you’d think. Currently, they’re 14th in the NFL with 2.5 sacks per game. With quarterbacks like Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, Daniel Jones, and Justin Herbert on the remaining schedule, turning up the sack numbers and overall pressure would be advisable.
1. Consistent special teams
Even when the Texans were a downtrodden franchise, back in 2021 and 2022, you could still count on the special teams being really good, if not elite. Frank Ross has done an outstanding job coaching the so called “third phase.” This season, however, special teams have been somewhat inconsistent. They’ve had some really good games, and then they’ve had games like Jacksonville in Week 10, where they nearly lost the game for the Texans. Again, the Texans are challenged enough offensively to where they’ll need to win with defense and special teams. Defense has held up its end of the bargain. Now, it’s time for special teams to do it consistently.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.