It has been a big year for the Houston Texans, a team that for the past number of seasons, since Deshaun Watson was suspended after leading the Texans to the playoffs in 2019, have been among the worst teams in the National Football League.
The Texans won only four games in 2020 and 2021, and fell to only three wins last year in a campaign that included their annual firing of their head coach.
But, through those losing years, the Texans didn’t miss too often in the draft and stockpiled a bevy of quality athletes to play their home games at NRG Stadium. One of those picks, the second player selected in this year’s draft, has gained recognition by some accounts of having the best rookie season for a quarterback in NFL history.
I’m old enough to remember Dan Marino, so we’ll leave that debate for another time, but as far as C.J. Stroud having a fantastic season there is no doubt. Not only has Stroud excelled at the all important quarterback position, the Texans spinning wheel in search of a coach landed on a winner when they plucked DeMeco Ryans off Kyle Shanahan’s staff in San Francisco.
The combination of solid coaching and the stable of talent in Houston has transformed the long suffering Houston team into a winner. Ten games into their 2023 season theTexans have already won more games, five, than they did in any of their previous three campaigns. And the trajectory of this young and enthusiastic squad has some talking about the possibility of the Texans cracking the American Football Conference playoff field this season.
If that happens, don’t you know some will promote this group as Super Bowl contenders.
Okay, the Texans are having a great turnaround season, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. It is a team new to winning, and often a squad in this role can have huge wins, like the Texans did last Sunday when they upset the Cincinnati Bengals on the road, and then fall flat in a game they think is an easy win.
Like tomorrow, when they host the Arizona Cardinals.
Last week, Arizona returned to their lineup another bright young quarterback, one-time first overall draft selection Kyler Murray. In some ways, Murray’s first game action in nearly a year, since being injured last December, could have looked like an initial preseason game for the fifth year signal caller out of Oklahoma.
And, in some ways, it did.
But, Murray shook off the cobwebs of inactivity enough to lead the Cardinals on a game winning fourth quarter drive in the waning moments of their victory over the Atlanta Falcons. Now, Murray takes this Cardinals team, who came into the season slated by many as the worst group in the league while under the direction of first-year head coach Jonathan Gannon and missing their top rated quarterback, into Houston to meet the high flying Texans.
Yep, it’s been a great first half of the season for the Texans, and their future is bright. But, that bright future is destined to take a detour on Sunday when they show up for their home game against the Cardinals confident, and end the day humbled.
Qoxhi Picks: Arizona Cardinals (+6) over Houston Texans