With the release of all 32 NFL teams’ schedules, teams like the Houston Texans now know what lies ahead of them for the upcoming 2024 season.
When the Texans return to the field for regular season play, they begin back where they captured the AFC South title last year, in Indianapolis to face the Colts. Unlike last year, this team now has some high expectations following them from the 2023 season. Having both the Rookie Offensive and Defensive Players of the Year in CJ Stroud and Will Anderson Jr., and now veteran wide receiver Stefon Diggs, propels that.
After just one season, Stroud, Anderson, and others that the team have acquired are becoming household names, which would make sense as to why the team was given four prime-time games this year. That’s not even including the Christmas Day game against the Baltimore Ravens.
Recently, this hasn’t been a team that’s been given much national spotlight. Before last year, they had won just 11 games in three years. In that span, they had just four games in prime time (per ESPN), winning only one of those, which was last year in a flex game finale versus the Colts.
With the expectations higher and the roster better, the hurdles to achieve success are now different for this team in the upcoming season. And that starts with the schedule itself.
Texans have three straight prime-time games
If you’re the Texans, being good has its consequences. Just two years removed from a four-win season, Houston will have the seventh hardest schedule in the league in 2024, according to Sharp Football Analysis. But they could start out strong in the first month of play.
In the first four weeks, the Texans don’t play a single team that made the playoffs last year. Not only that, they play three out of their first five games at home in NRG Stadium. But the team has two portions of the schedule of six games where they’ll need to avoid a major pitfall that could derail their entire season.
The first starts in Week 9 on Halloween against the New York Jets on Thursday Night Football. That’s just one scary movie—there are two sequels after. The Texans will have two more prime-time games the next two weeks. One on Sunday Night Football against the NFC North Champion Detroit Lions and then another on Monday Night Football against the NFC East champion Dallas Cowboys.
The biggest obstacle for the Texans will be having the spotlight on them in three consecutive games. Plus, it will be against two teams that made the playoffs last year and a team that is a strong AFC contender this season. However, the benefit is that they’ll have 11 days between the Jets game and the Lions game and eight days later to face the Cowboys.
They’ll need that extra time and the three weeks after to recover for the last month of the season where their time will be stretched thin.
The Texans Weeks 15-17 will be toughest stretch
The Texans will even up the last month of play between home and on the road. But three of those first four teams they face all made the playoffs last year, with one being the reigning Super Bowl champions (Chiefs) and the other who competed against them in the AFC title game (Ravens). Not to mention all three will be AFC opponents fighting for seeding.
But unlike in Week 9, when Houston begins Week 15 against the Miami Dolphins, they’ll be playing three games in 10 days. They’ll play the Dolphins on Sunday, December 15, the Chiefs on Saturday, December 21, and then the Ravens on Christmas Day. Talk about a brutal way to end the season.
The Texans could be pulling their best Clark Griswold from Christmas Vacation by that point, asking, “Where’s the Tylenol?”
