If Jacksonville is already looking past Houston on the way to the AFC’s top spot, that could be a costly mistake.
Sports Illustrated Jaguars beat reporter John Shipley recently laid out five reasons he believes Jacksonville could “leapfrog” the defending AFC champions in New England. That case may be strong enough on its own.
But the bigger issue for the Jaguars is that the path to the top of the conference does not run straight through the Patriots. It runs through the Texans, too.
Houston has already given Jacksonville plenty of trouble. Since 2023, the Texans hold a 4-2 edge in the head-to-head series, and they also lasted one round longer than the Jaguars in this past season’s AFC playoffs. ESPN’s projections only sharpen that gap: Houston was ranked with the ninth-best projected starting roster in the NFL, while Jacksonville came in seven spots lower at 16th.
That makes the Texans the more immediate obstacle for a Jaguars team trying to build toward a conference crown in 2026.
Jacksonville did have a season worth celebrating. The Jaguars went 13-4, matching a level of success the franchise had not reached since 1999, when Tom Coughlin was the head coach and Mark Brunell was the starting quarterback.
They also beat Houston 17-10 in Week 3, a win that sent the Texans to 0-3 and pushed Jacksonville to 2-1 at the time. But the Texans answered in Week 10, when backup quarterback Davis Mills and company erased a 19-point fourth-quarter deficit and pulled out a 36-29 win.
After that, both teams caught fire. Houston won nine straight, while Jacksonville won eight in a row.
The Texans then hammered the Pittsburgh Steelers 30-6 at Acrisure Stadium in the Wild Card round, while the Jaguars dropped a 27-24 home game to the Buffalo Bills. Trevor Lawrence’s turnover-filled day ended with a game-ending interception by Bills safety Cole Bishop on a pass intended for wide receiver Jakobi Meyers.
The offseason only widened the gap in perception. Houston has added players across the roster, while Jacksonville has drawn heavy scrutiny around the league for what has been seen as a poor handling of personnel decisions.
That has helped fuel the idea that the Texans are legitimate Super Bowl contenders, provided they clean up the questions that remain around C.J. Stroud’s trajectory, the offensive line and the rushing attack.
For now, Houston looks like the more dangerous threat to Jacksonville than New England does. The Jaguars deserve credit as one of the four best teams in the conference at the moment, but any talk of dominance has to start with the Texans, who own a 32-16 all-time record against them and enter the upcoming season with 2025’s best overall defense, a unit that only got better.
The AFC South race is shaping up to be a slugfest.
In Other News...
Texans Fans Just Got A Familiar Reason To Worry About C.J. Stroud
C.J. Strouds rough finish last season is still hanging over the Texans as the next chapter opens, and the concern is not just about whether he can bounce back, but how much patience the team will have if the early returns are uneven. Houston spent the offseason trying to make life easier for its quarterback, upgrading the offensive line, the rushing attack and the receiving group, so the support system is there if Stroud is ready to take advantage of it.
Davis Mills is part of why this conversation keeps resurfacing. He went 3-0 as a starter while Stroud was sidelined, giving Houston a reminder that the backup spot is not just a placeholder if the offense stalls again. For now, the Texans are still banking on Stroud to settle in and look more like the player they expected, but the speculation around the quarterback room is not going away anytime soon. [Read more 🡒]
Texans Offense Is Suddenly Drawing The Kind Of Buzz Fans Wanted
The Texans spent the offseason trying to give C.J. Stroud a cleaner runway, and the early buzz around the unit reflects that effort. With Nick Caley now having a full year of experience working with Stroud, Houston is banking on better continuity after the communication and timing issues that showed up last season, while the front office also added help around its quarterback in the form of David Montgomery, several new offensive linemen and rookie wideouts Jayden Higgins and Jaylin Noel.
National analyst Ted Nguyen has even put Houston among his top five breakout offenses for the coming season, which is the kind of attention Texans fans have been waiting to hear. The bigger question is whether those changes can translate into the kind of rebound Stroud looked capable of when the system is clicking, especially with more responsibility at the line of scrimmage and a deeper supporting cast to lean on. [Read more 🡒]