Coming into the 2024 regular season, most of the sports betting outlets set the Houston Texans 2024 season win total bet at 9.5 wins. What that means — if you thought the Texans would win nine or fewer games, you took the under. If you thought the Texans would win ten or more games, you took the over.
Me? I took the over. I predicted the Texans would go 11-6 this season, which is still a possibility, although at 8-5 with four games to go, that would mean the Texans score at least one win over either the Chiefs or the Ravens, a proposition in which I am not confident at all, at the moment.
I still feel okay about my “over 9.5 win” ticket, though. 10-7 is a distinct possibility, with the Texans favored in their game next weekend against the Dolphins, and the season finale in Tennessee, against a Titans team that just beat the Texans at home a couple weeks ago. Revenge game!
When I originally took the Texans going over 9.5 wins, I did so knowing that they were facing a much more difficult schedule than the slate they faced in 2023, against whom they went 10-7. There were (and are) far better quarterbacks on the 2024 schedule, as well, with Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen and others on the dance card.
The one thing that I probably didn’t take into account nearly as much as I should have was the flow of the schedule itself. The schedule oftentimes is about the “Who,” as in “who you’re playing,” but the Texans’ 2024 schedule has been a crazy mix of the “where” and “when” of the schedule, as well. Prime time games, placement of the bye week, holiday games — these are all things that I probably underrated in coming up with my 11-6 prediction.
So, that said. I am telling you that right now, I plan to blindly take the Texans OVER on the 2025 season win total, based solely on these 2024 schedule aspects no longer being part of the mix in 2025:
Training camp starting earlier than everyone else
Training camp typically begins in the final week of July, but because the Texans and Bears were playing in the preseason Hall of Fame on August 1, both of those teams began practicing a week to ten days earlier than all of the other teams. Combine this with a late bye week, and the Texans have been playing and practicing football for the longest stretch that any team in the “bye week” era ever has. That won’t happen next season.
Catching an historically good division in NFC crossover
Each season, every NFL team plays against all four teams from one of the four divisions in the opposite conference. This season, the Texans (and the rest of the AFC South) play all four teams in the NFC North, which is being touted as the toughest division in the last 20 years. The Lions, Vikings, and Packers, by most measurements are three of, conservatively, the top ten teams in football. Not coincidentally, those three teams count for three of the Texans’ five losses. The Texans cross over with the NFC West next season, a division whose leader, Seattle, is worse than all three of those NFC North teams.
Three straight prime time games in the middle of the season
The Texans played three straight prime time games in Weeks 9, 10, and 11 this season, one on Thursday night (at New York), one on Sunday night (Detroit at home), and one on Monday night (at Dallas). They went 1-2 in those games. In retrospect, that scheduling oddity felt like ti may have impacted an organization that’s played practically all of its games at noon on Sunday for the previous three years.
A bye week in early December
This is just absurd. Playing 13 straight weeks without a break seems to fly in the face of any semblance of player safety focus. I can’t imagine the Texans get pinned with another December bye week in 2025, but there is no guarantee.
Three games in 11 days during the holiday season, including a game on Christmas Day
The Texans have already played a three game stretch over a 12-day period earlier this season, during Weeks 7,8, and 9. Coming out of the bye week, they will play on December 15 at home versus Miami, on December 21 at Kansas City, and on Christmas Day at home versus the Ravens. I would venture to bet that the Texans don’t get placed on Christmas Day two years in a row.
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This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
