The league did the Houston Texans no favors when they slotted the AFC's two best teams into Weeks 1 and 2 of their 2020 schedule. After visiting the Chiefs in the NFL season opener, the Texans host Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens.
The difficult start to the season is nothing new for Bill O'Brien and his team. Houston was sent on road to begin each of the past two seasons, resulting in a last-second loss to the Saints on Monday Night last year and coming up just short of the Patriots in Foxborough the year before.
But, just when you expect Houston to get Jacksonville or Cincinnati as punching bag relief in Week 3 of this season, they instead travel to Pittsburgh, followed by getting the Vikings at home a week later. Consider the fact that the Texans face both 2019 Championship Game runners-up in October (Packers and Titans) and it's easy to envision just two or three wins by the time their bye week rolls around in Week 8.
Neither of the AFC South's 2020 division partners - the AFC North and NFC North - are top-to-bottom dominant divisions in football. The reality is that the Texans, themselves, play in the league's most difficult division and, after winning the South last season, inherit fellow 2019 AFC division winners, the Chiefs and Patriots as 2020 opponents.
The challenge is the order in which the NFL schedule makers decided to sequence Houston's difficult games: front-loading nearly all of the playoff contenders. As a result, however, the second half of Houston's season includes the middle-of-the-road Bears, Bengals, Lions and Browns, which lends well to a playoff push if the Texans can stay in the hunt early on.
As the old saying goes: "It's not about who you play but when you play them." The Texans have first-hand knowledge of this being true after beating the Chiefs early in 2019 just to have the carpet pulled out from under them in the postseason. Additionally, it's more than possible that some of their tougher, early-season opponents experience the similar regressions to that of the 2019 Bears, Rams and Cowboys.
If Deshaun Watson and team can find a way to steal some early-season wins, the Texans can quickly position themselves for a division title and high playoff seed.
Commentaires