The win on Monday night brought more confusion than it did clarity.
The Houston Texans beat the Dallas Cowboys on Monday Night Football. The skid is over. Houston is back on track. They are playoff-bound. Well, not exactly on all of those reactions.
Houston looked better than it had been at any point since Nico Collins went down with his hamstring injury in Week 5, but there is still a sour taste with how the game went.
The final score was a 34-10 beatdown of Dallas, but the final score is not conducive to how the game went. Until late in the third quarter, this was a very competitive matchup against one of the most depleted teams in the league. Additionally, It is not a secret that the coaching staff for the in-state rivals is about to receive a facelift due to how ineffective it has been.
The fact that this could have been a one-score game heading into the fourth stanza if it were not for the incompetency of Dallas should be a concern for Houston, especially with harder competition coming up.
The Texans could be the next team to fall victim to the AFC South curse
Over the last two seasons, the team that gets off to a hot start in this division fell flat on its face. The 2022 Tennessee Titans started 7-3 and looked well on its way to a division crown. However, they started playing sloppy football and ended the season 7-10, losing a win and in Week 18 game to the Jacksonville Jaguars, who went on to win the division after rising from the ashes with a 9-8 record.
The 2023 Jaguars started off 8-3. Jacksonville went on a skid and finished 9-8, losing a win and in game to the Titans, allowing Houston to claim the division title after rising from the ashes and finishing 10-7.
The similarities between these two seasons are uncanny. A team starts hot, a division rival gets hot from out of nowhere, the team that starts well cools way off and Tennessee is involved in the last game of the season.
This season, Houston started hot and is playing sloppy ball; the Indianapolis Colts seem to be on the rise after Anthony Richardson got benched and came back last week to look the best he ever has, and the Texans play Tennessee in Week 18. Meanwhile, Indianapolis plays the Lions this week, followed by a bunch of lower-echelon teams (aside from the Denver Broncos).
The Texans' schedule is significantly more difficult with the surging Dolphins, Chiefs and Ravens still to come. That is also with the guise that since the 2019 season, Houston and Tennessee are 5-5 in their matchups, meaning it is fair to assume that there could be a split with both Titans games still to come, including that Week 18 matchup that has been the final nail for the teams involved in the AFC South curse thus far.
If there is a silver lining for Houston, it is that the season series with Indianapolis is over and the 7-4 Texans swept them, making the 5-6 Colts, for all intents and purposes three games back. However, with the schedules lined up how they are, that is a very doable task, especially with how Houston has been playing recently.
