The Houston Texans entered the 2026 season with authentic Tremendous Bowl aspirations. However after Sunday’s 19-17 loss to the Indianapolis Colts, there may be completely nothing about them that appears like a Tremendous Bowl contender, no less than offensively, and so they now discover themselves in an 0-3 gap.
For the reason that begin of the 2000 season, solely two groups have overcome an 0-3 begin to truly make the playoffs.
The Texans have done it both times, overcoming it in 2018 and once more simply final yr through the 2025 season.
Now they need to do it once more.
Can Houston Texans overcome one other 0-3 begin?
If nothing else, there has to no less than be some consolation for the Texans to know they’re able to doing it. They not solely began final yr 0-3, however they had been 3-5 after eight video games and seemed to be a crew going nowhere.
Then, thanks largely to the dominance of their protection, they had been in a position to rip off 9 consecutive wins to shut out the common season earlier than happening the highway and beating the Pittsburgh Steelers within the wild-card spherical of the AFC playoffs.
Their profitable streak ended one week later within the divisional spherical in opposition to the New England Patriots.
The excellent news for the Texans is the protection remains to be there, and it is principally been doing its job this season, and particularly over the previous two weeks.
Limiting Joe Burrow to twenty factors needs to be sufficient to win.
They restricted the Colts to only 19 factors on Sunday. That needs to be sufficient to win.
The issue is the offense has merely not likely discovered its rhythm within the early a part of the season, scoring simply 23 factors over the previous two video games.
Quarterback C.J. Stroud hasn’t been dangerous, however he hasn’t actually been a difference-maker but. He’s betting on himself this season after not getting a contract extension within the offseason, and up to now, the outcomes have been very blended.
His means to take the following step was all the time going to be a giant X-factor on this season for the Texans, and that is going to be much more vital now.
The issue the Texans may need to take care of this season is the actual fact all three of those losses have come in opposition to AFC groups, together with Sunday’s recreation throughout the division.
In 2025, two of their first three losses had been in opposition to NFC groups, which negated potential tiebreaker conditions. They’ve already misplaced potential tiebreakers in opposition to two potential playoff groups (Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals) and are already down a recreation within the division.
If there may be one other potential silver lining on this, or cause for optimism, it is that the schedule does soften up a bit within the coming weeks, and the AFC South is a really winnable division. They nonetheless have each video games in opposition to the Jacksonville Jaguars remaining, they nonetheless play the Colts once more and so they nonetheless have a protection that may swing video games.
It isn’t an amazing spot to be in, however it isn’t but recreation over for the season. They know they’ll dig themselves out of conditions like this. They in all probability simply didn’t need to need to do it once more.
