Despite entering the season with arguably the most impressive collection of talent in the NFL on one side of the ball, the Houston Texans entered the 2025 season with a chip on their shoulder, and through 18 games, they've kept that chip right there, even as many analysts, coaches and opposing players have proven to be willing to acknowledge that this is the league's best defense.
But not everyone is so impressed with what the Houston Texans defense has managed to do throughout the 2025 season. Even after New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel and quarterback Drake Maye both admitted that this Texans D poses the Pats with their most difficult test of the season, one Patriots player doesn't seem to be at all concerned with the fastest, nastiest and most relentless defense in the National Football League.
Perhaps Kayshon Boutte is confident because he scored his first career touchdown against the Texans defense last season, but the third-year wide out is giving the wrong team bulletin board material ahead of Sunday's matchup in Foxborough.
“I wouldn’t say one of the toughest,” Boutte told reporters when he was asked if prepping for Houston's defense this week was a challenge. “At the end of the day, we know we’re going to get man coverage. We’ve gotta beat it. It’s that simple. They’re not too complicated on defense. Not too many different looks. We get a good tell at what they’re doing."
Boutte is at least half right. While Houston was only middle of the pack this year in terms of man coverage frequency, the Texans’ defense is the least diverse in scheme usage in the NFL, according to Cody Alexander of Match Quarters.
There's another issue here too... perhaps no team is better equipped to play man at a high clip than the Texans are. With four defensive backs worthy of All-Pro consideration -- and one, Derek Stingley Jr., who earned that honor for the second consecutive season -- Houston's defensive backs are plenty capable of turning the secondary into a no fly zone.
But saying 'We've gotta beat it. It's that simple' is a task that's far easier said than done, especially when you have to wonder how effective the Patriots offensive line, which gave up 5 sacks to the Los Angeles Chargers last Sunday night, will hold up against a Texans pass-rush that blitzes at the 5th-lowest rate in the NFL, but finished 7th in the league in sacks in 2025.
If Will Anderson Jr. and Danielle Hunter closing in on Drake Maye isn't enough to disrupt the timing of the Patriots offense, the physicality of Houston's defensive backs won't make it easy for New England to keep things on time. But again, Kayshon Boutte seems unfazed by the problems that Houston could potentially present.
“I think they’re just physical cornerbacks. But at the end of the day, I’m physical too. So that’s a matchup I like every day of the week," Boutte said of Houston's secondary. “Obviously, [Houston has] a good unit. No. 1 ranked defense, whatever you want to say. But I mean, we’re a good offense too. We’re not going to discredit ourselves."
No one said that Kayshon Boutte or any of his teammates should discount what the Pats accomplished this year. But Boutte may want to tread lightly when talking about the Texans defense.