To be able to bounce back from an 0-3 start to the season, it should go without saying that the Houston Texans have shown to be one of the NFL's most resilient teams. Now 8-5, the Texans have won five in a row and hold their postseason fate in their own hands. This raises an interesting question... how exactly did the Texans manage to reverse course so abruptly in order to save the 2025 season from going down as an abject disaster?
In situations like this, a midseason turnaround such as the one that the Texans have undergone is often preceded by a drastic move of some sort, whether it be a coaching change, a roster shake-up, a deviation from the standard routine, or a schematic tweak that ends up making a huge difference. But there's something to be said of a team that is self-aware enough to know that changing nothing can be even more advantageous than changing everything. And that's exactly what the Texans have done.
Or rather, it's exactly what the Texans haven't done.
"[We're] watching the film the same type of way every week and going through it that way," Texans safety Jalen Pitre said of the team's approach this week, per DJ Bien-Aime of ESPN.com. "I think that keeps you grounded and focused going in, week in and week out."
Even after finding themselves in a three-game hole before the month of September even ended, the Houston Texans didn't blink, saying 'No thanks!' to changing anything too drastically, instead opting to remain on the course, not focusing too much on the past or the future, but instead putting everything into the present.
This bet, which could've been viewed as risky or even negligent in other situations around the league, turned out to be one that was a big winner for head coach DeMeco Ryans and the entire organization.
"We got six days to work that leads up to whenever that game is, and we put our all -- coaches, players, staff -- we put all of our effort into the upcoming opponent," Ryans explained. "Sometimes my kids may ask, 'Dad, who do we play next?' I'm like, 'Oh, I don't know. I really don't know who we play next.' You guys tell me who we play next because I can't do anything about the next opponent until we handle the one that's facing us right now."
I'm gonna call B.S. on the idea that DeMeco Ryans doesn't actually know the Texans schedule by heart, but I understand the sentiment. If the Texans keep the blinders on each week and focus only on the opponent in front of them, there's a chance that they could beat anybody in the NFL on any given Sunday. And this recent three-week run -- with wins over Buffalo, Indianapolis and Kansas -- have been proof of that.
But the fact that Houston will treat a team like Arizona with the same amount of respect as those AFC heavyweights is what has made this five-game winning streak possible.
"Any given Sunday you can win or lose," CJ Stroud added. "These are the best football players in the world, top to bottom. Every team has dogs. Every team has great coaches. I think if you're coming with a mindset of establishing who you want to be, because it's never really about the other team, it's all about what you guys have going on. If we can do that, week in and week out, we'll be all right."