2013 Houston Texans Preview

2013 Houston Texans

I’ll start and end this preview in one sentence: the Houston Texans cannot win a Super Bowl with Matt Schaub at quarterback. That is my opinion, and a championship is the only goal for Houston this year. They established themselves as a powerhouse last year by going 12-4, but you have to take that with an asterisk because they finished the season 1-3 and dropped all the way to the 3 seed in the AFC. After an ugly first round playoff win against Cincinnati, they got dominated by the Patriots, and the Texans were an afterthought. They have all the pieces needed to win a Super Bowl besides QB: an outstanding workhorse running back; a stellar offensive line; a beastly receiver; and a loaded defense. Arian Foster and Andre Johnson have carried this offense for a few years now, but the carries are starting to rack up for Foster, and age is setting in for Andre. They are hoping rookie DeAndre Hopkins will be able to take the torch and become the number one receiver in a few years, whilst having a significant impact immediately. Like I said, this defense is really loaded, with stars at all three levels. JJ Watt broke out last year with a historic season, Brian Cushing will look to return strong from his injury and lead the linebackers, and free agent signee Ed Reed will try to finish his career with another ring by playing his usual ball-hawk center field at safety. The only problem is Matt Schaub, who is basically an older version of Andy Dalton; he has limited arm strength and has spent his career mainly chucking it up to one stud receiver. Schaub is capable of winning games in this league, but we’ve seen him lose to the Bradys and the Mannings of the world far too often. If he can put it all together and have a career year, the Texans will be the best team in the AFC. I just don’t see it happening.

Schedule

Houston finished 12-4 after an 11-1 start in 2012, and even though I spent that first paragraph explaining why I don’t think they will win the Super Bowl, I still think that the Texans are plenty good enough to win this division again (although they are one Andre Johnson injury away from being atrocious in the passing game). They do have a pretty testing schedule that includes the rest of the first place teams from the AFC, but it is balanced out a bit because of the fact that the bottom two teams in the South are terrible. Here is how I think their 2013 season will play out:

Week 1: W at SD

Week 2: W vs TEN

Week 3: L at BAL

Week 4: W vs SEA

Week 5: L at SF

Week 6: W vs STL

Week 7: L at KC

Week 8: Bye

Week 9: W vs IND

Week 10: L at ARI

Week 11: W vs OAK

Week 12: W vs JAC

Week 13: L vs NE

Week 14: W vs JAC

Week 15: L at IND

Week 16: W vs DEN

Week 17: W at TEN

First of all, what the hell, schedule makers? How do you give anybody, no matter how tough the team, Seattle, San Francisco, and St. Louis all in a row, after traveling to Baltimore, no less? In the back end of the schedule, they get Indy twice, New England, and Denver, although at least three of those games are at home. I think Houston will finish 10-6, which should earn them the AFC South crown. But because I think they will lose to both Baltimore and New England, who I also think will finish 10-6, the Texans will presumably finish as the 4 seed in the conference (depending on how I think Denver will do). We’ll see if our next team, the Indianapolis Colts, has a chance of upsetting the Texans in my next preview.

Bold Prediction: JJ Watt and Ed Reed will combine for 20 sackceptions this season (sacks + interceptions, a stat I made up just now).