By Brandon Simmons
As of right now, despite the worries of COVID-19, the 2020 NFL season is expected to arrive for the Houston Texans. Thursday, the 2020 schedule was announced for the 2019 AFC South Champions and it started off with a champion’s welcome with the opening portion of the season.
The Texans will open their season on the road against the Kansas City Chiefs, on Thursday for opening night. It will be a rematch of the Texans’ divisional round loss to Kansas City last season. Their next game will be their home opener against the Baltimore Ravens, who they got blew out by last season. The next 2 games will split a road and home matchup between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Minnesota Vikings. The rest of the season they will only face 3 teams who made the playoffs the previous season.
There are a few other highlights on this schedule to make note of. Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson has a chance to duel with Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers when Green Bay visits Houston in Week 7. Watson and the Texans will also face Cincinnati Bengals rookie QB Joe Burrow and the new mystery QB for the New England Patriots. Houston will also be continuing its divisional rivalry with the Tennessee Titans from last season, who split the season series with the Texans and lost the division title, but still made it one game farther than Houston in the playoffs to the AFC championship. Outside of the season opener, the Texans will play against Detroit for their second Thanksgiving game in franchise history, which will be a sequel of their thrilling 2012 Thanksgiving Day win over the Lions.
Most of the Texans’ struggles could come from this first 4 game stretch but everything else on the schedule is very winnable. Houston will be trying to work in new offensive pieces, as well as implementing a new defensive scheme; so going against those 4 teams that early in the season will The make things difficult. The bright side of that, is that the Texans will have faced the Vikings the first week of the preseason and able to waste their mistakes then. The Titans series this season could become a split, same as the Colts series. The Thanksgiving game could be another dogfight with the Lions, as well as a trap game, depending on Houston’s record going into Week 12. With all that considered, the team should have a legit shot at winning 11 games this year.