Based on how the first eight weeks of the 2025 season have gone, you wouldn't get much pushback if you were to suggest that the Houston Texans are the best defense in the National Football League. Houston has allowed the fewest points in the NFL and sits near the top of the league in most meaningful statistical categories.
The question isn't whether this Texans defense is for real... it's whether there's another level this group can really get to this season, and what that would even look like?
"I think as a defense, we watch our tape like, we're just a couple of plays away from having a shut out, a couple of times of being more disciplined to having a shut out," star edge rusher Will Anderson Jr. said this week. "So, just keeping cleaning up the little things, and being refined on our discipline and our execution, and making sure that we're really an elite defense."
It turns out, these are the questions that the members of the Houston Texans defense are asking themselves on a daily basis, even though they come into Week 9 allowing fewer than 15 points per game and are undoubtedly elite already.
Are there areas that can be improved? Of course there are. Even the '85 Bears and '00 Ravens weren't flawless. Despite having two of the most feared edge rushers in the NFL -- Anderson and Danielle Hunter -- the Texans rank 20th in sacks. Before the season began, Derek Stingley Jr. claimed that Houston should lead the league in interceptions 'probably by at least about 10 to 15.' Presently, the Texans are tied for 4th in the NFL in that category.
But just because the Texans aren't leading the league in these traditional counting stats that are often, it doesn't mean they haven't been lights out. They've held five of their seven opponents to one of their two lowest scoring games of the season and have been lights out against both the pass and the run. And if that weren't enough, they're physical as hell and make every opponent feel them throughout the game.
"I think it's the standard that we have for our defense, and the standard we have for our team. We talk about 'swarm,' and we talk about who we are; it's always much more that we could do to go out and execute and do better."
If the Texans can 'do better' and start picking up the pace with sacks and interceptions, this defense may have a limitless ceiling. And someday down the line, we may end up talking about this defense -- one I coined 'The Stampede' earlier this week -- alongside some of the all-time greats.