With winning comes accolades, and with accolades comes fun, and if you were watching the NFL Honors show, the league's annual awards gathering, the week of the Super Bowl, then you know that the Texans' 2023 season was a whole lot of fun. C.J. Stroud and Will Anderson walked away with the NFL's Offensive and Defensive Rookie of the Year awards, respectively, and DeMeco Ryans came within a vote of winning Coach of the Year.

In 2024, expectations for the Texans are suddenly sky high, particularly after the trade for wide receiver Stefon Diggs. It's expected that the Texans will win quite a bit in 2023, perhaps even more than they won in 2023. Therefore, it would stand to reason that the Texans could be in line for more awards hardware come NFL Honors time.

In my estimation, here are the best chances that the team has for one of its employees winning an individual NFL honor:

C.J. STROUD, MVP
As we mentioned in this space last week, nobody's individual fortunes were more impacted by the trade for Diggs than Stroud's were. After the deal, the Texans went from 22/1 to 10/1 to win the Super Bowl, and Stroud's odds to win Most Valuable Player went from 12/1 to 9/1. Stroud should put up some monster numbers this season, and unlike 2023, he has a gauntlet of high level quarterbacks opposing him on this 2024 schedule. In fact, six of the other nine quarterbacks in the top ten for the MVP award are on the Texans' schedule. Opportunity awaits!

DeMECO RYANS, Coach of the Year
As we mentioned above, Ryans came within one vote of talking home the Coach of the Year award last season. He actually tied Cleveland's Kevin Stefanski in total points, but Stefanski won the award based on having one more first place vote than Ryans. The Coach of the Year Award is typically won by (a) first year head coaches whose teams massively overachieve, or (b) established head coaches whose teams are one of the best two or three teams in football. For Ryans to win it in 2024, he'll have to go the latter route. The minimum number of wins for Ryans to win this award is probably 13 wins.

WILL ANDERSON, Defensive Player of the Year
As we noted, Anderson was the league's Defensive Rookie of the Year in 2023. Since 2000, five Defensive Rookies of the Year have gone on to eventually become the league's Defensive Player of the Year — Brian Urlacher (2000), Terrell Suggs (2003), Luke Kuechly (2012), Aaron Donald (2014), and Nick Bosa (2019). Only one of those (Kuechly) won Defensive Player of the Year the following season. The rest all took at least three more seasons to make that leap. I wouldn't count out Anderson, but it's obviously a long shot. I am comfortable predicting at  least 12 sacks, though, for Anderson this coming season.

NICK CASERIO, Executive of the Year
This award last season went to Brad Holmes of the Detroit Lions. One thing Caserio has going for him heading into 2024 is fantastic buzz surrounding the Texans' 2024 offseason. Caserio is suddenly viewed as an ultra aggressive, and successful, riverboat gambler type of GM, when in fact, the moves he's made have been more in the "splashy-but-responsible" category. If the Texans win 12 or 13 games, and Diggs, Danielle Hunter, and Joe Mixon are big reasons why, Caserio could take what rightfully should have been his in 2023.

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