Houston Texans 2026: The Coverage Report — 16 straight division-title picks, all graded zero
Across all 32 clubs, our tracked sources have produced 20,304 team-linked takes, of which 7,938 are graded — an average of 634.5 takes and 248.1 graded per club. The Houston Texans sit at 574 takes and 183 graded. That's 20th in raw volume and 25th of 32 in graded takes, roughly 26 percent below the per-club average. The Bills, at the top, have 1,036 takes and 527 graded — nearly three times Houston's graded file.
Set that against the results. Houston has made the playoffs in three consecutive tracked seasons — 10-7 in 2023, 10-7 in 2024, and 12-5 in 2025 — under head coach DeMeco Ryans and general manager Nick Caserio. Twelve-win teams do not usually finish 25th in anything. Our sources talked about the Texans about as much as they talked about the Panthers (185 graded) and Broncos (182), and considerably less than the Jets, Lions and Giants (218 each).
The quality of what did get said is middling: 54.3 average accuracy on Houston takes, with an average skill delta of +5.52 — barely better than the naive baseline our methodology scores against.
The cutdown: 36 calls, 11 graded
Roster-spot calls are the series' news hook, and here the honest answer is that Houston's file is thin and mostly unsettled. There are 36 tracked roster-spot takes on the Texans; 11 are graded, 25 are still pending. Nine of the graded 11 come from two pundits. Rank nobody on that.
The one genuine graded surprise is Sterling Shepard. Carter Bahns had him on the wrong side of the cut twice in two days for CBS: an August 27 list of 20 veterans at risk — "*so his stay in Houston might be extremely short-lived*" — and an August 28 piece naming five big-name veterans it expected to be cut before the deadline. Shepard made the 53. Both takes graded 0 accuracy with a −200 skill delta, the worst possible mark, because the naive baseline (he was on somebody's 53 last season, so he makes one again) already said he'd stick.
The pundit on the other side was Jared Koch, who put Shepard in Houston's receiver group on both August 22 ("*I think of the two newest signings, Sterling Shepard has a better chance to make it to Week 1*") and August 25, where he listed "*four to five virtual roster locks... Lewis Bond, Justin Watson, Sterling Shepard, and Zay Jones*." Those graded 100 accuracy — and a skill delta of 0. Being right about a roster lock earns nothing here, which is exactly the point of the scoring.
The one call that did earn something was Koch on the tight end room. His September 5 note that Brevin Jordan was the odd man out among Houston's five tight ends — "*he's been dealing with a leg injury as of late, and wasn't one of the four on the initial 53-man roster to begin with*" — graded 100 accuracy and +200 skill, against a baseline of 0 because Jordan hadn't been on a 53 the prior season. It is one of five takes tied at the top of the site's best-calls list for the past seven days.
Two smaller graded items: Koch twice flagged third-year receiver Jared Wayne as making the roster (100 accuracy, 0 skill both times), Lance Zierlein got a Jaylin Noel roster call right (100 accuracy, 0 skill), and the file's oldest entry — Tom Strachan in February, on Joe Mixon: "*they could save eight million dollars by cutting Joe Mixon... I think Joe Mix and his toast*" — graded 0 with a −100 skill delta.
Koch's overall record is 7 graded takes, all roster-spot, 100 percent accuracy, MissedTakes Score 40 — flagged provisional, and correctly so. He also has 55 tracked Texans takes, more than any other individual, most of them not yet graded.
What else carries a grade
Houston's graded record by claim type:
| Claim type | Graded | Avg accuracy | Avg skill |
|---|---|---|---|
| Game Outcome Picks | 47 | 66.0 | +25.64 |
| Mock Draft Picks | 46 | 60.3 | +34.29 |
| Division Winners | 20 | 15.0 | 0.00 |
| Playoff Picks | 14 | 92.9 | −14.29 |
| Roster Spot Calls | 11 | 72.7 | −27.27 |
| Depth Chart Calls | 9 | 92.6 | −5.56 |
| Sleeper Calls | 5 | 20.0 | −101.20 |
| Pro Bowl / All-Pro Calls | 5 | 0.0 | −80.00 |
| Conference Champions | 5 | 0.0 | −37.80 |
The division-winner row is the story of this club's punditry. Of 20 graded AFC South calls involving Houston, 16 were made about the 2025 season, and all 16 graded 0. Nine different pundits contributed them — Colin Cowherd five times going back to March 2025 ("*AFC South is weak. Texans are gonna win the division*"), Cynthia Frelund's model in December, Rich Eisen, Kyle Brandt twice, LaVar Arrington twice, Jonas Knox twice, Manti Te'o, John Middlekauff ("*I am going to hammer the Texans*") and Simon Hunter. Every one of them scored a skill delta of exactly 0, because the naive pick — last season's division winner — was Houston too. Houston went 12-5 and reached the playoffs; it did not win the division. The field wasn't wrong about the team being good. It was unanimously wrong about the specific thing it kept predicting, and got no credit for the unanimity.
The Playoff Picks row is the mirror image: 92.9 percent accuracy, −14.29 skill. Right answer, no information added. The three correct division calls in the file are all from 2024 — Marcus Mosher twice and Eisen once — and they also scored 0 skill.
Where our sources actually beat the baseline on Houston is the draft and individual games: +34.29 skill on 46 graded mock-draft picks, +25.64 on 47 graded game-outcome picks. Where they got hurt is projection — 5 graded sleeper calls at 20 percent accuracy and −101.20 skill, and 5 accolade calls at 0 percent.
Who has a named record here
Nine pundits clear a five-graded-take floor on Houston. Every one of those samples is small, so treat this as a roster of who bothered, not a ranking:
- Colin Cowherd — 12 graded, 48.6 accuracy, −7.70 skill (26 takes, most of any national voice)
- Gregg Rosenthal — 10 graded, 63.7, +42.48
- Rich Eisen — 9 graded, 88.9, +22.89
- Kyle Crabbs — 9 graded, 42.1, +36.93
- Cynthia Frelund — 9 graded, 66.7, +7.33
- Jared Koch — 7 graded, 100.0, +28.57
- JP Acosta — 6 graded, 37.4, +10.83
- Jonas Knox — 6 graded, 16.7, −28.67
- Lance Zierlein — 5 graded, 37.6, −16.67
By outlet, The Herd with Colin Cowherd leads the Houston file with 93 takes and 37 graded, at 48.6 accuracy and −8.38 skill. Around the NFL is next (47 takes, 25 graded, 61.8, +22.96). The most Houston-specific source we track, John and Lance on ESPN Houston, has 25 takes and only 5 graded.
That's the shape of it: a three-time playoff team covered like a bottom-quartile club by our sources, with the largest settled block of opinion — sixteen calls that Houston would win the AFC South — pointing in one direction and scoring zero. Twenty-five roster-spot calls are still open. We'll grade them as the season fills in.