When the Houston Texans dropped their third consecutive game to begin the 2025 NFL season, their odds of making the Playoffs, according to ESPN's Football Power Index, were just 14%. This seemed generous considering since the NFL went to a 14-team playoff format in 2020, none of the 19 teams that started 0-3 went onto make the postseason.
But even when things seemed bleak back in late September, the Texans never wavered. Since that pivot point of the season, Houston has won 5 of 7 games and is only a game out of the final Wild Card spot in the AFC. According to ESPN's FPI, Houston's chances of making the playoffs are now up to 26%.
Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans isn't worrying about the numbers, though. It's not concerning to him that in the Super Bowl era, only 9% of teams that have started 5-5 or worse went onto make the Playoffs. It's also not any consolation that if the Texans defend their home turf and defeat the Buffalo Bills on Thursday night, their odds will increase to 37%.
"All that stuff, it doesn't matter," Ryans said bluntly on Wednesday afternoon, according to ESPN's DJ Bien-Aime. "Honestly, when the ball is snapped, nobody's thinking about, 'We're going to play harder because of the standings.' If you're playing here in Houston, I expect you to play hard no matter when we're playing, whether it's preseason or it's the playoffs. It should look exactly the same when you turn our tape on. It doesn't matter who we're playing, where we're playing, when we're playing, it should always look the same."
For the most part, this has stood true throughout the season. Houston has remained steady, even in defeat, giving their opponents one hell of a fight whether it ends up going down as a W or an L for the Texans. And it hasn't mattered whether guys like CJ Stroud, Nico Collins, Jalen Pitre or any other number of starters who have been in and out of the lineup have been able to play or not. The order of operations has been consistent, and you get the impression that this is exactly what DeMeco Ryans wants.
However, if you do subscribe to the odds more so than Ryans does and you're looking for a little bit of optimism that the Texans can overcome their early season hole and end up making the Playoffs, these numbers could potentially do the trick... postseason odds aside, the Texans, per Pro Football Reference, have an expected Win-Loss record of 6.7-3.3, which is superior to that of the 7-win, Chargers, the 7-win 49ers, the 6-win Steelers AND the 6-win Buccaneers.
This is a good football team that, on their best day, can compete with -- and defeat -- anyone in the NFL, and these last seven games of the year give the Texans the chance to prove that.