It always takes some time before the sting of a season-ending loss goes away, but there are plenty of things that can serve as remedies during these difficult times where sports fans are in mourning. Whether it be recognizing the future is bright or coming to the realization that your team overachieved, these are the sorts of things we tend to latch onto and remind ourselves of during the darkest days of the offseason.
Houston Texans fans can (and should) look at the 2025 season through these lenses. Thanks to a handful of slam dunk draft picks over the last few years, this Texans roster is stockpiled with high-end talent and accordingly, the future is indeed bright. As far as the point on overachieving goes, we must remember, the Texans were winless in their first three games of the season. Had you asked 100 Texans fans at that point if they would've signed up for 12 regular season wins, 1 postseason win and a 10 game winning streak this year, 99 of them probably would've jumped at that chance. That kind of turnaround is improbable, but the Texans made it a reality.
But what Texans fans should spend their offseason thinking about above anything else is how there is one player on this roster who embodies all that is right about the National Football League. That player, third-year edge rusher Will Anderson Jr., is not only coming off of the best season of his career and potentially even the best game he's ever played, but following the season's most devastating loss, everything Anderson had to say when addressing the media sounded like it was coming from the sort of leader that all 32 teams across the NFL are always looking for.
When Anderson was asked about his performance -- a 3 sack, 2 forced fumble gem that single-handedly kept the Texans in the game for hours of real time -- the 24-year-old from Hampton, Georgia deflected the credit, giving recognition to his teammates along the defensive line.
“I would say as a whole D-line; it wasn’t about me. “It was everybody rushing together, having a good time, man, and just sticking to the game plan that we had,” Anderson said. “So you talk about a group that’s called themselves the engine all season long, I think we showed up. You know what I’m saying? I told those guys, I said it’s not nobody in this world, nobody that can say that the D-line didn’t show up and that we weren’t the engine. And so, man, just hats off to those guys.”
Anderson also revealed that he made sure to have a talk with CJ Stroud -- who turned the ball over four times and looked totally lost for most of the game -- in the moments after the game, providing support for the teammate of his who was selected just one pick before him in the 2023 NFL Draft.
“We just sat down at the locker together, man. And I’m being 100 percent honest: It’s so much bigger than football. It’s so much bigger than what everybody has to say,” Anderson said of Stroud. “All quarterbacks make mistakes. I told C.J., I said, ‘Man, you’re still so early in in your career and the success that you’ve had in your career so far, man, don’t lose sight of that. Don’t lose sight of who you are. Don’t lose sight of all the great things you’ve accomplish, man.’ He’s still early in his career. He still has a lot of ball, and keep continuing to learn. And he has great people to learn from. So I’m excited about his future and excited about him being a part of this team because he is our QB1.”
Anderson even made sure to address the fact that even though this wasn't the result the Texans were hoping for and had worked for, this was still a team that he's proud to be part of.
“Obviously, wasn’t the outcome that we wanted, man,”Anderson said. "But you talk about a team that’s built on toughness, a team that’s built on grit, and man, we just got to keep finding a way, man. Keep finding a way to get over this hump, and it’s going to come. But it’s all in God’s will, so whenever that happens, man, we just got to keep going back to the drawing board, getting better, staying together and just being one.”
A tight-knit team like this one could very well come back much stronger next year than they were this year. Going through hard-fought battles, even in failure, bring teams closer together, and the Texans had plenty hard-fought battles throughout the 2025 season. And with leaders Will Anderson Jr., who have such a profound impact both on and off the field, the Texans are a solid candidate to bounce back from this sour conclusion to the season in a pretty major way in 2026.