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Houston Texans Fantasy Outlook 2026
By Sean Draper · Published September 18, 2026 · Last updated November 3, 2026 · Updated Tuesdays and Fridays through the season
Houston lost three wide receivers in eight months and got more concentrated rather than worse. Christian Kirk signed with San Francisco, Jayden Higgins tore his ACL in an August joint practice with Baltimore and is gone for the year, and Tank Dell remains on injured reserve with his knee. What is left is Nico Collins, who took a 26% target share in the opener, and a room of men who were third and fourth options somewhere else. Meanwhile the backfield everybody drafted as David Montgomery‘s job split 40 snaps to 39 in the rookie’s favour in Week 1, and the box score hid it behind three touchdowns. Those two facts are the whole fantasy case for this team: buy the concentrated passing game, and do not pay the market price for the run game, because the market is reading the wrong column. Scoring on this page is 0.5 PPR, the site’s standard format.
Texans fantasy cheat sheet
| Player | Pos | Where he’s going | Our verdict | Injury risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nico Collins | WR | WR9–WR10, ADP 21.8 | Draft — top-10 receiver, and the only one here | Elevated (history of hamstring trouble — has missed games in all five NFL seasons — though currently healthy) |
| Woody Marks | RB | RB41–RB44, ADP 137.6 | Draft — he out-snapped the starter in Week 1 | Questionable — leg, per our Oct. 27 feed pull |
| Dalton Schultz | TE | TE18–TE21, ADP 161.1 | Draft late — cheapest claim on the vacated targets | Low (turns 30 this season) |
| David Montgomery | RB | RB21–RB22, ADP 47.5 | Fade at cost — touchdown-dependent on 49% of snaps | Elevated (out since Week 5 with a groin injury; week-to-week) |
| Xavier Hutchinson | WR | ADP 215.4 — effectively free | Claim — he is the actual WR2, not the trade acquisition | Low |
| C.J. Stroud | QB | QB22, ADP 147.7 | Superflex yes; fade in single-QB and stream | Low |
| Kayshon Boutte | WR | ADP 182.1 | Speculative — WR3 at roughly 46% of snaps | Low |
| Jaylin Noel | WR | ADP 201.4 | Stash only — first man up if Collins misses time | Questionable — toe, per our Oct. 27 feed pull |
| Marvin Harrison Jr. | WR | Acquired via trade, Oct. 11 | Speculative add — caught his first touchdown in Week 7 as he ramps into the rotation | Low |
| Tank Dell | WR | ADP 183.8 | Monitor — activated off IR and played a limited role in Week 7. Deep stash | Elevated (returning from a 22-month ACL/MCL rehab; workload still capped) |
| Jayden Higgins | WR | Was inside the top 200 | Cannot play — torn ACL, season over. Drop him | — |
| Marlin Klein | TE | Undrafted | Ignore in single-TE formats — nine snaps in Week 1 | Low |
| Houston D/ST | D/ST | Drafted as the DST1 in places | Fade at that price — see the forecast below | — |
The one-line version: draft Collins as a top-10 receiver and accept the hamstring, take Marks two rounds before anyone else does, get Schultz for free, and let somebody else pay pick 47 for David Montgomery’s touchdowns.
The backfield: the snap count and the box score disagree
David Montgomery arrived from Detroit in a March trade, Joe Mixon was released to clear $8 million, and the job was handed over in every preview written in July. Then Week 1 happened, and the two columns told opposite stories.
| David Montgomery | Woody Marks | |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 snaps | 39 (49%) | 40 (51%) |
| Week 1 routes run | 14 | 20 |
| Week 1 carries | 20 | 9 |
| Week 1 yards per carry | 3.0 | 4.7 |
| Week 1 touchdowns | 3 (2 rush, 1 rec) | 0 |
| 2025 target share | — | 6.9% |
| ADP | 47.5 | 137.6 |
| Our verdict | Fade at cost | Draft |
Twenty carries and three touchdowns is an RB1 line. Forty-nine percent of the snaps, fourteen routes and 3.0 yards a carry is a committee back who had a good day near the goal line. Both descriptions are of the same afternoon, and the second one is the one that repeats. Three-touchdown games do not; Montgomery has never had two in the same season.
Our verdict: Marks is the buy and Montgomery is the fade, and we will be graded on it. The structural argument is that Marks is the passing-down back on a team we expect to be throwing — and offensive coordinator Nick Caley, in his second year, has already shown he will ride whoever is producing. PFN’s comparison is the right one: this is the arrangement Montgomery was on the losing end of in Detroit, where he ceded the passing work to Jahmyr Gibbs and finished as a touchdown-dependent RB2. He is 29 and running behind a line with three new starters. Marks costs a twelfth-round pick and already runs more routes than him.
The honest counter: Montgomery took more than two-thirds of the running-back carries in Week 1, and goal-line work is not nothing in a 0.5 PPR league. If Houston plays from ahead as often as a 10-win team usually does, the split tilts back toward him. We think the schedule below says otherwise through the first half.
Target share: one receiver and a room of replacements
Nico Collins caught 71 of roughly 120 targets for 1,117 yards and 6 touchdowns last season, finished WR10 in PPR at 14.95 points a game, and ranked ninth among qualified receivers at 2.35 yards per route run. Kyle Soppe at Pro Football Network points out he is second in the league in yards per route run since 2023, behind only Puka Nacua. In Week 1 he took 10 targets and a 26% share and led the team in targets, catches and yards.
The number that should worry you is not his. It is the one Draft Sharks flags underneath it: Collins’s catchable-target rate fell from 87.1% in 2023 to 71.2% in 2025, and Draft Sharks attributes that to the quarterback rather than the receiver. Houston ranked 22nd in EPA per play last season. Collins is a top-10 receiver being fed by a bottom-third offence, which is why he is a WR9 and not a WR3.
Behind him the depth chart is not what the transaction wire suggests. Houston traded a safety and a 2028 seventh-round pick to New England for Kayshon Boutte on August 25, and the headline read like a WR2 acquisition. In Week 1 Boutte played just under 46% of the snaps and saw two targets. Xavier Hutchinson played 44 snaps (56%) with 69% route participation and six targets. Hutchinson is the WR2. Boutte is the WR3, Jaylin Noel is the WR4, and none of them is on a fantasy roster you should be proud of.
Where we differ from our own board. Three of them, and we would rather list them than let a reader find them.
- Our Week 2 rankings said Houston “lost two receivers to season-ending knee injuries.” Only one of them was season-ending. Jayden Higgins tore his ACL and is done. Tank Dell went on injured reserve and, as of October 7, is still there. The Week 2 rankings prose was wrong and this page was the correction.
- Our Week 2 board had Collins at WR7 with no injury flag. That was a consensus average across ten outlets, rebuilt weekly, and we do not hand-edit single slots mid-week. Season-long, though, we are putting an elevated risk grade on him that the weekly number does not carry, for the reason in the injury section below.
- Our Packers page, published September 12, called Houston “the top defense on our own D/ST board.” It is not, and it was not by the time that board was next rebuilt. Our Week 2 D/ST rankings had Houston eighth of twelve, with Philadelphia first. The Packers line was written before Buffalo put up 36 points in Houston. We are leaving it flagged here rather than quietly restating it.
C.J. Stroud: the pocket is the entire projection
There is one statistic that decides Stroud’s season and it is not a fantasy statistic. ESPN has him at a 66 QBR from a clean pocket and 27 when pressured — close to the widest split at the position. Everything else follows from whether the rebuilt offensive line holds.
That line is genuinely new: Aireontae Ersery at left tackle, rookie first-rounder Keylan Rutledge at left guard, Evan Brown at centre, Ed Ingram at right guard and Trent Brown at right tackle, with Braden Smith — signed from Indianapolis in March — opening the year on injured reserve with a foot injury and Wyatt Teller, the $16 million signing, losing the left guard job outright in camp. GM Nick Caserio said the team simply wanted “the best five.” All five played every snap in Week 1. The unit they replaced ranked last in the league in run-blocking efficiency and 30th in pass-blocking, per ESPN, so the bar is on the floor.
Stroud threw for 274 yards and two touchdowns on 26-of-38 in the opener, played all 79 offensive snaps, and still lost. His prior two seasons averaged 217.2 passing yards a game with 19 touchdowns against 8 interceptions in 14 starts. Fantasy Life projects 14.9 points a game and calls the ceiling not worth chasing outside superflex.
Our verdict: a fine QB2 at an ADP of 148, a bad QB1, and a clear yes in superflex. He is rostered in only about a quarter of leagues and that is roughly correct. Stream the position and spend the pick on the tight end below.
Dalton Schultz: the cheapest claim on the vacated targets
Schultz caught 82 passes last season, re-signed in March on a one-year, $12.6 million deal, and in Week 1 drew eight targets — second on the team behind only Collins — for four catches and 35 yards. He is going at TE18 to TE21 with an ADP of 161 and is rostered in about 31% of leagues.
The case is arithmetic rather than talent. Kirk’s targets left for San Francisco, Higgins’s left on a stretcher in August, Dell’s are still parked on injured reserve, and rookie second-rounder Marlin Klein played nine offensive snaps. Somebody has to catch the ball that is not thrown to Nico Collins, and in Week 1 the leading candidate was a 30-year-old tight end running out of the slot. Our Week 2 board had him at TE19 and noted the receiver injuries could push targets his way. We think that is understated at his price.
Our verdict: draft him as a back-end TE1 in the last two rounds. He will not break a game — he has not averaged double-digit yards a catch in years — but a reliable eight-target floor at a sixteenth-round price is how you avoid paying for a tight end in the fifth. The risk you are accepting: if Collins stays healthy and Dell returns from injured reserve, Schultz is a TE20 again.
Injury watch
As of Tuesday, November 3, 2026, David Montgomery remains out with the groin injury that has sidelined him since Week 5, with Woody Marks starting in his place — though Marks himself is still questionable with a leg issue. Jaylin Noel has been moved to injured reserve with his toe injury. Tank Dell, who opened the season on injured reserve rehabbing his ACL/MCL, has since cleared that designation and now carries none. Jayden Higgins remains out for the season with a torn ACL, and reserve tight end Marlin Klein is also out. Nico Collins, Marvin Harrison Jr., Stroud, Schultz, Hutchinson and Boutte carry no current designation.
| Player | Pos | Status | Injury | Practice |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| David Montgomery | RB | Out | Groin | — |
| Jayden Higgins | WR | IR | Knee – ACL | — |
| Jaylin Noel | WR | IR | Toe | — |
| British Brooks | RB | IR | Hamstring | — |
| Brevin Jordan | TE | Questionable | Finger | — |
| Graham Mertz | QB | IR | Knee – ACL | — |
| Noah Whittington | RB | Out | Quadriceps | — |
| Jawhar Jordan | RB | Out | Undisclosed | — |
Statuses updated . Status data: Sleeper.
Houston Texans defense vs. position: fantasy points allowed
| Position | Pts / game | Rank | Week over week | Season trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| vs. Quarterbacks | 18.5 | 13 | ▼ 2 +0.0 | Steady (L3 17.0) |
| vs. Running Backs | 22.4 | 13 | ▼ 1 +0.0 | Getting worse (L3 29.3) |
| vs. Wide Receivers | 39.5 | 3 | ● 0 +0.0 | Getting better (L3 32.8) |
| vs. Tight Ends | 10.1 | 29 | ● 0 +0.0 | Steady (L3 8.9) |
| vs. Kickers | 9.3 | 8 | ▲ 2 +0.0 | Getting better (L3 4.3) |
| Texans offense vs. opposing D/ST | 4.0 | 25 | ▲ 1 +0.0 | Getting better (L3 1.3) |
Opponents should attack the Texans with wide receivers (3rd), kickers (8th). The Texans have shut down tight ends (29th). Compare all 32 teams in the defense vs. position rankings.
Houston Texans snap counts, carries and targets
Every Texans running back, receiver, tight end and quarterback by week. Switch between snap share, carries and targets; teal marks the latest game.
| Pos | Player | Wk 1–7 | Wk 1 | Wk 2 | Wk 3 | Wk 4 | Wk 5 | Wk 6 | Wk 7 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| QB | C.J. Stroud | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 0 | |
| RB | Woody Marks | 51% | 48% | 37% | 44% | 85% | 78% | 89% | +32 | |
| RB | David Montgomery Out · Groin | 49% | 52% | 63% | 56% | 14% | – | – | – | |
| RB | Jawhar Jordan Out · Undisclosed | – | – | – | – | – | 22% | – | – | |
| WR | Nico Collins | 72% | – | – | 69% | 71% | 73% | 67% | -4 | |
| WR | Xavier Hutchinson | 56% | 81% | 54% | 31% | 41% | 54% | 56% | +3 | |
| WR | Kayshon Boutte | 46% | 72% | 69% | 62% | 59% | 41% | 31% | -27 | |
| WR | Jaylin Noel IR · Toe | 30% | 60% | 26% | 62% | 45% | 49% | 31% | -14 | |
| WR | Tank Dell | – | – | – | – | – | – | 23% | – | |
| WR | Marvin Harrison Jr. | – | – | – | – | – | 19% | 21% | +2 | |
| WR | Jared Wayne | 32% | 50% | 61% | 29% | 32% | – | – | – | |
| WR | Lewis Bond | – | 16% | 17% | – | – | – | – | – | |
| TE | Dalton Schultz | 66% | 68% | 54% | 64% | 52% | 40% | 57% | 0 | |
| TE | Cade Stover | 30% | 10% | 44% | 24% | 20% | 21% | 36% | +11 | |
| TE | Foster Moreau | 44% | 29% | 57% | 36% | 39% | 62% | 34% | -11 | |
| TE | Brevin Jordan Questionable · Finger | – | – | – | 9% | 15% | 8% | 2% | -9 |
Data: nflverse, updated Thu, Nov 5 at 2:12 pm EST. See who gained and lost work across the league in the NFL Workload Report, or track your own roster with My Players.
Report current as of Tuesday, November 3, 2026. The table above refreshes automatically from our status feed.
Team forecast: why we have Houston at 10–7
Fantasy production depends on game script, and game script depends on whether this team is winning. We scanned sixteen independent projections. The consensus lands just under ten wins, and the division is genuinely contested rather than conceded.
| Source | Type | Wins | Finish / Call |
|---|---|---|---|
| CBS Sports staff predictions | Analyst | 11–6 | 1st, AFC South |
| NFLDraftBuzz season projection | Model (post-Week 1) | 10–7 | 65% playoffs — but now has Jacksonville ahead at 12–5 |
| Bleacher Report | Analyst | 10–7 | Over 9.5 |
| PFF season simulator | Model | 9.85 | Slight value on the Over; has Jacksonville at 9.44 |
| Opta supercomputer | Model | 9.70 | 71.1% playoffs, only 38.7% division; 8th overall team rating |
| ESPN FPI (via Athlon Sports) | Model | 9.30 | Best case 12–5, worst case 7–10 |
| BetMGM | Market | 9.5 | Over −115 / Under −105; writer’s pick Under |
| DraftKings (via FOX Sports) | Market | 9.5 | Over −146 / Under +124 |
| FanDuel / VegasInsider | Market | 9.5 | AFC South +115, the best price on the board |
| Fanatics Sportsbook | Market | 9.5 | Super Bowl LXI +1900; AFC South +140 |
| Iain MacMillan, SI Betting | Market + lean | 9.5 | Over −125; AFC South +110 |
| TheLines | Market + lean | 9.5 | Lean Under — “Texans take a step back” |
| Spencer Toth, Doc’s Sports | Analyst | 9.5 | Top play: Texans miss the playoffs (+160) |
| OddsShopper | Market | 9.5 | Cites 7–5 in one-possession games as a regression flag |
| Julian Edlow, DraftKings Network | Analyst | — | Over 9.5; notes 93% of bets and 97% of handle on the Over |
| This site | Our call | 10–7 | 1st, AFC South — No. 4 seed |
Why we are over, narrowly. Three-tenths of a win above the average is not a bold call and we are not dressing it up as one. The bold part is the finish. We have Houston winning the division that Opta gives them only a 38.7% chance of winning, that PFF’s model actually hands to Jacksonville, and that NFLDraftBuzz flipped to Jacksonville after one week. We get there on the head-to-heads and the division record: Houston sweeps Indianapolis, splits with Tennessee, splits with Jacksonville, and finishes 4–2 in the division against Jacksonville’s 3–3. That is the whole margin. It is not a claim that Houston is the better team; it is a claim about six games.
Where we are under the market: the defence. This is the part of the Houston consensus we think is stale. Fantasy Life ranked the Texans the No. 1 defence/special teams unit in fantasy for 2026, on a 2025 that finished second in defensive DVOA, allowed 17.3 points a game and gave up 21 or more only three times. Nine of eleven starters returned. Then Buffalo put up 36 points and 409 yards, Josh Allen went 20-of-29 for 334, and the unit forced zero turnovers with Stingley, Lassiter, Pitre and Al-Shaair all playing every defensive snap. One game is one game. But the 2025 record it rests on also included a 7–5 mark in one-possession games and field-goal variance 23.9% better than opponents — two regression flags that BetMGM and OddsShopper raised independently before any of this. We project this defence settling around 12th in points allowed, which is a good unit and is not the DST1 anybody drafted.
The honest case against us is Doc’s Sports, whose top play on this team is Houston missing the playoffs at +160, and TheLines, which expects a step back outright. Both are betting the same regression we are betting on the defence, and extending it to the record. We are not, because the offensive line was the worst in football last season and has been rebuilt with three new starters, and because Stroud’s clean-pocket split means that rebuild is worth more to this team than it would be to almost any other.
Game-by-game, and what it means for your lineup
| Wk | Opponent | Site | Pick | Record |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Buffalo Bills | Home · Sept 13 | W | 1–0 |
| 2 | Cincinnati Bengals | Home | L | 1–1 |
| 3 | Indianapolis Colts | Away | W | 2–1 |
| 4 | Dallas Cowboys | Home | W | 3–1 |
| 5 | Tennessee Titans | Away | L | 3–2 |
| 6 | Jacksonville Jaguars | London · Wembley | L | 3–3 |
| 7 | New York Giants | Home | W | 4–3 |
| 8 | Bye | — | — | 4–3 |
| 9 | Los Angeles Chargers | Away | L | 4–4 |
| 10 | Cleveland Browns | Away | W | 5–4 |
| 11 | Indianapolis Colts | Home · TNF | W | 6–4 |
| 12 | Baltimore Ravens | Home | W | 7–4 |
| 13 | Pittsburgh Steelers | Away · SNF | L | 7–5 |
| 14 | Washington Commanders | Away | W | 8–5 |
| 15 | Jacksonville Jaguars | Home | W | 9–5 |
| 16 | Philadelphia Eagles | Away · Christmas Eve | L | 9–6 |
| 17 | Green Bay Packers | Away · MNF | L | 9–7 |
| 18 | Tennessee Titans | Home | W | 10–7 |
The fantasy read on that shape: we have Houston 4–3 into the bye and 6–4 after it. That is not a team that spends September protecting leads, which is the environment Woody Marks and Dalton Schultz need and David Montgomery does not.
- Weeks 1–7 — the pass-heavy stretch. Buffalo, Cincinnati, Dallas and the Chargers inside the first nine weeks is a schedule that produces negative game script, and negative game script is where the passing-down back and the safety-valve tight end live. That is the case for valuing Marks and Schultz over Montgomery’s Week 1 touchdowns.
- Week 8 bye — the best possible timing. Early enough to clear every fantasy playoff bracket, and it lands immediately after the London trip, which is the one genuinely disruptive week on the calendar. A Texan costs you less in bench planning than a Cowboy in Week 14 or a Raven in Week 13.
- Weeks 10–12 — the real soft patch. At Cleveland, then Indianapolis at home on Thursday, then Baltimore. We have Houston 3–0 there. If you are buying a Texan for a playoff push, buy before Week 10, not before Week 15.
- The counterintuitive one: every preview sells “Jacksonville at home in Week 15” as the championship-stretch gift, and it is fine. The problem is the two weeks after it. Week 16 is Christmas Eve in Philadelphia against the team with the top defence on our D/ST board, and Week 17 — championship week in most leagues — is a Monday night game at Lambeau Field. If you own a Texan and reach the final, your season ends after everyone else’s has, against a defence we already picked to win that game on our own Packers page. Plan your bracket around Week 15 and have a Week 17 replacement rostered by Thanksgiving.
Frequently asked
Should I draft Nico Collins in 2026?
Yes, as a top-10 receiver at an ADP of 21.8, with your eyes open about the hamstring. Collins finished WR10 in PPR last season at 14.95 points a game on 1,117 yards and six touchdowns, ranks ninth among qualified receivers at 2.35 yards per route run, and took a 26% target share in the opener on a team that has lost Christian Kirk, Jayden Higgins and, for now, Tank Dell (still on IR). The caution is availability: Houston ruled him out of Week 2 against Cincinnati on September 18 with a Grade 1 hamstring strain; he returned in Week 4 and scored twice, and he played through it again in Week 5’s win at Tennessee. He had a Grade 2 strain in 2024 and has missed games in all five of his NFL seasons. Roster a bench receiver you are happy to start — on Week 1 usage that was Xavier Hutchinson — and check the live Injury watch table on this page before kickoff.
Who is the Texans’ starting running back in 2026?
Woody Marks is the lead back while David Montgomery (groin) is week-to-week. Montgomery opened the season as the listed starter, but Marks played more snaps in Week 1 — 40 to 39 — and ran 20 routes to Montgomery’s 14. Montgomery took 20 carries and scored three touchdowns, which is why the box score reads like a bellcow and the usage does not. Our call is to fade Montgomery at his ADP of 47.5 and draft Marks at 137.6, because the passing-down role is the durable one in an offence we expect to trail, and because three-touchdown games do not repeat. If you want one of them at cost, take Marks. Montgomery was downgraded to out in Week 5 with a groin injury, and Marks has taken over as Houston’s lead back in the meantime — the exact shift our call anticipated.
Is C.J. Stroud worth drafting in 2026?
In superflex, yes, at an ADP of 147.7. In single-QB, no — stream instead. Stroud is QB22 on consensus boards and rostered in about a quarter of leagues, which is roughly right for a passer who averaged 217.2 yards a game with 19 touchdowns and 8 interceptions across his last 14 starts. His range of outcomes is unusually wide because of one split: ESPN has him at a 66 QBR from a clean pocket and 27 under pressure. Houston rebuilt three offensive line spots this offseason after finishing last in the league in run-blocking efficiency, so if that unit holds he beats his price. It is a bet on five linemen, not on the quarterback.
Will the Texans win the AFC South in 2026?
We project yes — 10–7, first in the division and the No. 4 seed — but it is closer than the betting favourite’s price suggests. Houston is +110 to +140 to win the division across books, yet Opta gives them only a 38.7% chance, PFF’s simulator actually projects Jacksonville higher, and NFLDraftBuzz moved Jacksonville to 12–5 after Week 1. Our margin is the division record: we have Houston 4–2 in the AFC South against Jacksonville’s 3–3, sweeping Indianapolis and splitting the two Jacksonville games. Change one of those six results and the division changes hands.
Should I draft the Texans defense in 2026?
Not at the price it was going for. Fantasy Life ranked Houston the No. 1 fantasy defence for 2026 on the back of a 2025 that finished second in defensive DVOA and allowed 17.3 points a game with nine of eleven starters returning. Then Buffalo scored 36 with 409 yards and no turnovers forced in Week 1, and our Week 2 board had Houston eighth of twelve, behind Philadelphia. The underlying 2025 was also flattered by a 7–5 record in one-possession games and field-goal variance 23.9% better than opponents. We project this unit around 12th in points allowed — a fine streaming defence, not a unit worth a mid-round pick.
When is the Texans bye week in 2026?
Week 8, and it is the best-timed bye of any team we have written up. It clears every fantasy playoff bracket, and it falls immediately after Houston’s Week 6 trip to London, so the players get the disruption and the recovery back to back. The one to plan around is not the bye at all — it is Week 17, when Houston plays at Green Bay on Monday night in what is championship week in most leagues.
Prediction tracker
Updated every Tuesday and Friday. Last update: November 3, 2026 — seven games graded, and we are 1 of 7. We had Houston beating Buffalo (Buffalo won 36–31), beating Indianapolis (the Colts won 19–17), and beating Dallas in Week 4 (Dallas won instead) — three wrong. We had Cincinnati winning in Houston, and the Bengals won 20–6 — right. We also had Houston losing at Tennessee in Week 5, and Houston won instead, 26–3 — wrong again. We missed Week 6 too: we had Jacksonville beating Houston at Wembley, and Houston won instead, 34–31. And we missed Week 7: we had Houston beating the Giants at home, and New York won in overtime, 27–21 — our sixth wrong call in seven weeks. Our own game-by-game sheet had Houston 4–3 through seven weeks; the real record is 2–5, two wins off the pace of the 10–7 we published. The defence gave back more ground too: 24.3 points allowed a game now, up from 23.8 after six weeks, after New York put up 27 in overtime. We do not revise the original forecast; we grade it.
| Metric | Predicted | Actual | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Team record | 10–7 | 2–5 | Two wins off pace — our sheet had 4–3 through Week 7 |
| AFC South finish | 1st | — | — |
| Playoffs | Yes — No. 4 seed | — | — |
| Points allowed rank | 12th | 24.3 allowed per game through seven weeks, up from 23.8 after six | Trending the wrong way after New York’s 27 points in Week 7 |
| Collins positional finish | Top-10 WR | — | — |
| Marks out-produces Montgomery from Week 8 on | Yes | — | — |
| Schultz finishes as a TE1 | Yes | — | — |
| Games called correctly | — | 1 of 7 | — |
Keep going
- Half-PPR fantasy rankings — where every Texan sits on our current board
- Start/Sit calls — our latest lineup decisions
- 2026 team fantasy outlooks — every team we have written up so far
- Jacksonville Jaguars fantasy outlook — 8–9 and second on our board, splitting the two head-to-heads that decide this division
- Indianapolis Colts fantasy outlook — 7–10 and third, swept by Houston in Weeks 3 and 11
- Green Bay Packers fantasy outlook — the Week 17 Monday-night host, and the page where we called Houston’s defence something we are correcting above
- Live injury report — every Texans designation, updated through the week
- Our track record — every call we make against consensus, graded after the games
Sources: HoustonTexans.com, Bengals.com, ESPN, CBS Sports, NFL.com, FOX Sports, Houston Chronicle, NBC Sports, Sports Illustrated and SI Betting, Athlon Sports, RotoWire, Pro Football Network, PFF, FTN Fantasy, Fantasy Life, Draft Sharks, PlayerProfiler, Sharp Football Analysis, FantasyPros, Fantasy Football Calculator, Fantasy Six Pack, DraftKings Network, Bleacher Report, Yahoo Sports, NFLDraftBuzz, Opta via The Analyst, Doc’s Sports, TheLines, OddsShopper, VegasInsider, BetMGM, DraftKings, FanDuel, Fanatics Sportsbook, Wikipedia. Odds, ADP and injury data current as of September 18, 2026. Analysis, not betting advice.