With the bye week giving the Houston Texans a breather, the conversation around a 2-5 start has turned quickly toward what needs to change before week nine brings the Los Angeles Chargers to town. The Texans have already had both Nick Caserio and DeMeco Ryans float some version of, "either we fix the problems, or we get players on the field who can," and that puts the focus squarely on how the offense can be reshaped coming out of the break.
One obvious place to start is with C.J. Stroud, who has been productive even while operating behind a shaky offensive line, without a run game, with a reworked receiver group and under a limited Nick Caley offense.
Through seven games, Stroud has thrown for 1,867 yards, the second-most in the league, with 11 passing touchdowns, just one interception, a 100.7 passer rating and a 64.8% completion rate. He has done that on the eighth-most pass attempts in the NFL, too, which is why the next step feels less like a luxury and more like a necessity: let him throw more.
Not necessarily the most in football, but enough to push him into a more pass-first workload and, if possible, into the top five in attempts.
The run game also needs a clearer identity, and that means leaning even harder into the outside stuff. Houston currently runs between the tackles at a 43.1% clip, which ranks 24th, while its outside run rate sits at 55.7%, seventh in the league.
That outside tendency should only grow. The Texans are not getting much movement from the interior of the offensive line, so forcing an inside power approach does more harm than good.
A scheme that works with that reality makes a lot more sense than one that tries to fight it.
The other big offensive lever is the receiver rotation, which looked more complete in week seven against the New York Giants. Houston finally had a group that included Nico Collins, Jaylin Noel, Marvin Harrison Jr., Kayshon Boutte, Xavier Hutchinson and Tank Dell.
That sort of mix gives Stroud a better chance to attack defenses in multiple ways. Harrison, Noel and Dell bring the kind of explosive upside that changes how a defense has to play.
They can stretch the field, win one-on-one matchups, identify the sticks and give Stroud options when blitzes come flying.
That showed up against the Giants, when Harrison caught his first Texans touchdown in the second quarter to tie the game 14-14. The scoring drive was set up by Dell, who hauled in a tipped pass and turned it into a thunderous 40-plus-yard gain.
With that trio on the field, Collins should not have to shoulder quite as much defensive attention on every snap. And if that group stays intact, Houston has a better shot at looking like the offense it has been built to be.
In Other News...
Texans Run Game Issues May Force Another Backfield Move
Houstons running game has remained a concern through the 2026 season, and the Texans are still searching for a cleaner answer in the backfield as they prepare to face the Chargers. Their ground attack sits 29th in rushing yards per game, a ranking that has kept the pressure on the staff to keep looking for help, even if the fixes so far have been limited to workouts and evaluations rather than a move that changes the room right away.
Josh Pitsenbergers return visit was part of that process. The undrafted rookie, who had previously been released because of injury, was back in the building to take another look with the Texans, but he left without a contract, leaving the team to keep weighing its options. With the next game approaching, the Texans backfield picture still feels unsettled, and the search for a more reliable rotation appears far from finished. [Read more 🡒]
Texans Bye Week Has Turned One Coaching Debate Into A Flashpoint
The Texans bye week has opened the door to a familiar kind of midseason conversation: not just what has gone wrong, but who on the coaching staff might be asked to answer for it. The offense, defense and special teams have all shown signs of slipping, and in a season where expectations have collided with uneven results, that kind of broad decline usually leads to a hard look at the assistants responsible for each phase.
Cole Popovich, Matt Burke, Frank Bush and Nick Caley are all part of that discussion as Houston tries to sort out where the accountability should land. The offensive lines regression has drawn attention, the defense has not held its standard, and special teams has not escaped scrutiny either, leaving the Texans with a staff debate that feels less theoretical by the day even if the final call still sits somewhere ahead. [Read more 🡒]
Texans Face A Growing C.J. Stroud Debate On Offense
Houstons offensive issues have started to swallow what looked like a promising start for C.J. Stroud, whose early-season play gave the Texans real hope that the unit had finally found its rhythm. Instead, the offense has settled into a frustrating pattern, with the running game struggling to take pressure off the quarterback and the line not giving the scheme much room to breathe. Head coach DeMeco Ryans has stayed publicly supportive of offensive coordinator Nick Caley, but the wider concern around the building is whether the current approach is asking too little of the defense-facing part of the roster and too much of Stroud.
Nick Caleys play-calling has become the center of the conversation because the Texans do not look like a team getting maximum value from their talent, and that puts the staff evaluation front and center. For a team trying to keep pace in a crowded AFC, this is no longer just about a slow stretch on offense. It is about whether Houston can keep waiting for the structure around Stroud to catch up, or whether the Texans eventually have to look harder at the coaching side of the equation to get the production they expected. [Read more 🡒]