Now that we're in the middle of the bye week, fans of the Houston Texans have begun to join in the speculation on what kinds of changes need to be made on the team after a dismal 2-5 start to the 2026 campaign.
The Texans have had both general manager Nick Caserio and head coach DeMeco Ryans both express some version of, "either we fix the problems, or we get players on the field who can," in recent days, which has been met with mixed reactions across the sports media-scape. However, for as much as people like myself believe that accountability should start at the top of the organization for their monstrosity of a year so far, the reality is that it's going to be the players (and/or the scheme) who draw the short end of that stick until greater renovations potentially take place.
With that in mind, here are three changes that could (and mostly should) be implemented by the Texans by the time their week nine match up with the Los Angeles Chargers rolls around. This time, we'll start by focusing on the offense.
3 changes for the Houston Texans ahead of their post-bye week match up with the Los Angeles Chargers
1. Ride the hot hand, use C.J. Stroud more
So far through seven games, quarterback C.J. Stroud has poured in 1,867 passing yards (second-most), 11 passing touchdowns, only one interception and a 100.7 passer rating on a 64.8% completion rate. Mind you, all 1,867 passing yards have come with a porous offensive line, no running game, a recently reshaped group of wide receivers, a limited offensive coordinator in Nick Caley and the eighth-most passing attempts in the NFL (247).
While I wouldn't want Stroud to finish with the most pass attempts in the league, I certainly think that bumping up his usage in a more "pass-first" game plan would behoove Caley and the Texans as they try to maximize the backend of the schedule. Maybe have Stroud finish in the top-five of pass attempts and see what happens (which would project to be about 550-600 attempts at a minimum)?
2. More outside run scheme
At the moment, Houston runs between the tackles at the 24th-highest rate (ninth-lowest) in the NFL at 43.1%. Conversely, they run outside of the tackles at the seventh-highest rate in the league at 55.7%. I think those numbers need to favor outside runs even more, along with teams like the Baltimore Ravens (64.6%), Atlanta Falcons (64.6%) and Indianapolis Colts (64.5%) who make up the top-three of the most outside-run heavy schemes in the league in order.
Houston gets virtually no push from their interior offensive linemen, so it would make more sense to just lean into that reality instead of trying to force an inside-based power-run scheme that doesn't (and will not) exist.
3. More Mavin Harrison Jr, Jaylin Noel and Tank Dell
In week seven against the New York Giants, the Texans had their most complete group of wide receivers of the entire season thus far. Early on in this campaign, Houston's wide receiver room looked like some combination of:
- Nico Collins
- Kayshon Boutte
- Jaylin Noel
- Xavier Hutchinson
- Jared Wayne
- Lewis Bond
Then, after a blockbuster trade and some increased health, the room finally looked like (against the Giants):
- Nico Collins
- Jaylin Noel
- Marvin Harrison Jr.
- Kayshon Boutte
- Xavier Hutchinson
- Tank Dell
On paper, Houston should have the advantage over most secondaries in the NFL with the kind of theoretical firepower that this room now possesses through seven weeks. Specifically, players like Harrison Jr., Noel and now Dell offer so much higher of an explosive ceiling for Stroud and co. on Sunday afternoons.
Not only can they take the top off of defenses, but they offer a litany of advantages in terms of winning one-on-one matchups in general, having the savvy to know where first down markers are in order to keep their offense on the field in clutch conversion moments and also offering Stroud a litany of "hot" options in the event of defenses sending a plethora of blitzes through the line of scrimmage.
In this past game against the Giants alone, Harrison caught his first touchdown ball of his Texans tenure in the second quarter (tied the game 14-14), which was set up by the returning Dell, who snagged a tipped-pass and took it for a thunderous 40-plus-yard reception in the ball game that allowed Harrison Jr. to ultimately cash in on that scoring drive.
They're collective presence now offers Collins a chance to not face so much defensive pressure on a rep-by-rep basis as the team's best-overall pass catcher, and it should allow for the offense to be the best version of itself for the remaining duration of the season.
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