Houston is 0-4 with the best pass rush in football and has lost two games by two and four points, and our model has the Texans at eight wins
Updated
Houston lost 34-30 at home to Dallas, its fourth straight loss to open the season, and the four losses have come by five, 14, two and four. The Texans have the best pass rush in football by our numbers, a quarterback with no interceptions, and a 0-4 record, and our model has been slower to abandon them than the standings would justify. When we ran the rest of the season Houston came out at 8-9 with a 25 percent playoff chance, down from 8.9 wins and 34.5 percent after Week 3 and three full wins below the eleven we projected in July. The model still thinks this is a roster that wins half its games. It has watched it win none of them.
The offense has been competent and the numbers say so. C.J. Stroud is 93 of 151 for 1,141 yards with five touchdowns and no interceptions, a 96 rating through four games, and has been sacked twelve times. Our model projects him for 4,604 yards and 23 touchdowns, up from 4,426 a week ago. Nico Collins has 14 catches for 193 yards and three touchdowns in two games since returning from the hamstring and projects for 89 catches, 1,312 yards and nine scores. Dalton Schultz has 21 catches and projects for 70. Jayden Higgins is out for the year with a torn ACL, and Tank Dell's practice window has opened. The running game has not shown up. David Montgomery has 127 yards on 47 carries and projects for 541, and the Texans have run for under 100 yards a game. The unit projects for 357 points, 17th in the league.
The defense is the best unit on the field most Sundays and it has not been enough. Houston projects to allow 329 points, ninth in the league, and the fifth-fewest yards. The pass rush is the best in the league by a distance. Will Anderson Jr. has seven sacks in four games and projects for nearly 23, which would be a record. Danielle Hunter has three and projects for 13. The team projects for over 60 sacks, the only unit in football projected past 50. Azeez Al-Shaair projects for 117 tackles. The weakness is takeaways. The Texans project for under ten interceptions, 24th, and have given up 34 to Dallas and 36 to Buffalo in two home games in which the pass rush did not get home often enough to matter.
The division is already the problem. Jacksonville is 3-1 and projects for twelve wins with a 15.5 percent title chance, which is the third-best in the league. Indianapolis is 2-2 and projects for eight. Tennessee is 0-4 and projects for two and a half. Houston has already lost to the Colts and plays the Jaguars twice. When we ran the rest of the season the Texans won the AFC South in a small minority of simulated years and reached the playoffs through the wild card route far more often, which means the eight-win projection is a wild card projection on a team that needs nine or ten.
The next month is the softest stretch of the schedule and the last chance to make the projection matter. A trip to Tennessee at 82 percent, a trip to Jacksonville at 46, the Giants at home at 66, a bye in Week 8, and a trip to the Chargers at 62. When we ran that stretch Houston went 3-1 more often than anything else, and the Jacksonville game is close to a coin flip in the model's eyes. A 3-5 record entering November would keep eight wins alive. A 2-6 record would end the season in October.
The player lines are an offense that keeps grading well and a defense that keeps grading better. Stroud's projection climbed from 4,426 yards to 4,604 and from 22 touchdowns to 23, with his rating projection up from 92 to 96 and his interception line down from nine to seven. Collins' projection rose from 88 catches to 89 and from seven touchdowns to nine. Hutchinson's and Boutte's held near 56 and 47 catches. Montgomery's rushing projection fell from 608 to 541 and his touchdown line from six to five. On defense, Anderson's sack projection slipped from 23.2 to 22.7, Hunter's from 13.7 to 13.2, and Rankins' climbed from 4.6 to 5.8. Al-Shaair's tackle projection dropped from 124 to 117. Blankenship's interception line fell from 2.7 to 2.3. The number to watch is the record against the projection. Houston projects for eight wins from 13 remaining games, which is a 62 percent pace from a team that has won none of its first four. The model is asking the Texans to play like the team it graded. Four weeks is a long time to wait for that.
The matchup record is the second-largest underperformance in the league, behind only the Chargers. We gave Houston 84 percent against Buffalo and the Texans lost by five. We gave them 46 against Cincinnati and they lost by 14. We gave them 56 in Indianapolis and they lost by two. We gave them 50 against Dallas and they lost by four. Zero wins from nearly two and a half expected is the gap, and three of the four were games the model had the Texans winning. The market opened Houston at ten wins. Our model sat a win over it in July and sits two under it now. The lean has reversed and the reason is simple: the roster is good, the results are not, and four weeks is long enough for the model to start believing the results.
