Houston Texans: FanSided season preview sounds promising for Texans

A look at Matt Verderame’s take on how the Houston Texans season could unfold in 2016 as part of the FanSided NFL season outlook

Our friends at the FanSided main page have been busy this offseason. One of the biggest pieces they have been focusing their attention on has been the release of their 2016 NFL Season Preview, which can be seen in full here.

All 32-teams are picked apart by various members of the crew as the group tries to make sense of what lies ahead. The always entertaining Matt Verderame had the task of giving an outlook on the 2016 version of the Houston Texans.

Verderame highlights their offseason moves, such as signing Lamar Miller to play running back and of course the Brock Osweiler move. He called this the biggest swing of free agency. He also wisely pointed out that the risk was nearly a neccesity for the Texans who were about to be stuck in football purgatory.

"After years of watching Ryan Fitzpatrick, Ryan Mallett, and Brian Hoyer, the gamble was borderline necessary. Houston had to make a move or risk becoming a team in football purgatory; too good to pick in the top five but far too inferior to win anything of consequence."

Houston’s description here is dead-on. For the past two seasons the Texans have gone 9-7 with Ryan Fitzpatrick, Ryan Mallett, T.J. Yates, Brandon Weeden, Case Keenum and Tom Savage at quarterback. They had to make a move, and they had to do it now.

With super star defensive end J.J. Watt at 27-years old, he is in his prime. However, football prime doesn’t last long. This makes the window for this team to win very small. Narrowing that window are the injury problems Watt had in 2015, which apparently even had him questioning if a return to the game was possible.

The Bottom Line

Verderame understood the move the team made, and overall his outlook on the Houston Texans season sounded very promising. Here was his “Bottom Line” for the guys;

"The Texans made the playoffs last season only to get rudely slammed out of their own building in the Wild Card round. Houston now has the expectations of making the postseason and going past the first game, perhaps even challenging for the Super Bowl.After a pair of 9-7 seasons under O’Brien, it’s time to take the next step before Watt begins aging. The Texans aren’t loaded with talent like New England or Arizona, but Houston has an opportunity to make some noise in the AFC."

Houston is still a long shot to make it to the Super Bowl, but stranger things have happened. They look poised to be an offensive power house if Osweiler does pan out.

With deep threats like Will Fuller and Braxton Miller to take pressure off DeAndre Hopkins, they look ready to explode. They also now have a featured running back capable of taking over games at times.

must read: DeAndre Hopkins featured on SI cover

The best news though, Watt and company are still one of the best defensive groups in the game. Let’s get this season started!