The Most Interesting Defense in the NFL showed up on Thursday night. It wasn’t the greatest defensive performance in the history of football. There were breakdowns and plays that made you yell at your television. Still, it was a brilliant performance just the same and the Texans pulled out an improbable 23-19 victory over the vaunted Buffalo Bills.
Even a day after that brilliant win, emotions are running high. Most of them are of the positive variety. When the Texans were 0-3 this day didn’t seem possible. When they were 3-5 and without C.J. Stroud at quarterback it didn’t seem...
Battle Red Blog
The Texans have had the pressure turned up to eleven all November long…and they just keep winning!
Each and every game since Davis Mills has mounted the starting job at signal caller, Houston has been clawing, scratching, and digging for every single point, barely escaping with victories that most other teams would have walked away with. Tonight’s pivotal Thursday night game against the Bills was no different: without Stroud and Jalen Pitre again, the Texans were going to have to prove everyone wrong and take it to the might Buffalo Bills. And, just like every other game this season, the...
Battle Red Blog
Hello, good evening and welcome to week 12 of the NFL season.
Tonight, we have the unfortunate honor of watching the Houston Texans in prime time. Yes, Thursday night on Amazon still counts. And if you’ve watched the Texans in prime time at any point in the last, I dunno, 20 years, you’ll understand why it’s an unfortunate honor.
The Texans are at home and clad in their battle red finest to take on the Buffalo Bills.
If you are not a Texans fan watching this game, my sincerest apologies for what you’re about to see.
If you ARE a...
Battle Red Blog
As if the Houston Texans hadn’t made enough news coming from their RB corps, now it looks like the team will be operating with one less running back.
The same day they announce that RB Joe Mixon won’t play for the rest of the season (which, again, has been disputed by Mixon himself), the Texans have also made the decision to waive former star running back Dameon Pierce.
Pierce, who started out really well, who nearly reached 1,000 rushing yards (939) in his first season, never quite got back the spark he showed in his rookie year. His production totals...
Battle Red Blog
It is has been widely speculated that Joe Mixon was likely to miss the entire season with a mysterious foot injury. Now, it would appear that the Texans are finally acknowledging what has been speculated by people around the league and in press rooms in Houston and beyond. It would appear that the team will be stuck with Woody Marks and Nick Chubb as their primary ball carriers.
Both DeMeco Ryans and Nick Caserio have been dancing around that concept all season long at press conferences and interviews on the team’s flagship station (610 AM). We still don’t know what...
Battle Red Blog
Welcome to week 11 of the Cyclone tracker!
This is where we follow our resident weather-themed duo in rookie receivers Jayden Higgins and Jaylin Noel, both out of Iowa State (hence, the “Cyclone” twins).
As always, there will be analysis, projections, commentary, and relevant updates that happen in real time.
Position: WR
Projected Week 11 storm path: 3.0 targets, 2.5 receptions, 30.5 yards, 1 TD, 8.5 fantasy points
Actual Week 11 path: 7 targets, 4 receptions, 55 yards, 0 TD’s, 9.5 fantasy pts
Total stats through Week 11: 36...
Battle Red Blog
I love to do this every now and then for both football and baseball. The general idea is that removing names is a purer way to look at numbers. We feel a certain way about players positively or negatively. There is nothing wrong with that, but those emotions often get in the way of dispassionate analysis. Granted, we are looking at quarterbacks here. We can throw in all of the numbers in the universe and still not capture everything that is going on.
We can divide analysis into two basic categories: tangible evidence and intangible evidence. Tangibles are things we...
Battle Red Blog
The Houston Texans have won their last two games with backup quarterback Davis Mills under center, and they’re looking to keep that momentum rolling at home against the Buffalo Bills.
The last time these teams met was a season ago — a game that ended up being one of the worst performances of Josh Allen’s career. If Houston wants to stay competitive on Sunday, they’ll need a similar outing from Allen, and with the way this defense is playing, that’s absolutely on the table.
Starting quarterback C.J. Stroud is set to miss another game after suffering a concussion against the...
Battle Red Blog
Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the NFL. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Texans fans and fans across the country. Sign up here to participate in the weekly emailed surveys.
Heading into Week 12, we want to know how you’re feeling after watching the team so far this year. Every week of the season we will ask fans if they are confident the team is headed in the right direction and more of the most pressing questions facing the coming game. Let us know what you think!
Battle Red Blog
With great drama, suspense, and even terror, the Houston Texans surmounted the surmountable Tennessee Titans, swept them off their porch with a 35-yard kick, and grasped their fifth win the 2025 season. After much deliberation was spent after starting 0-3, the Houston Texans scratched and clawed their way back into playoff contention with seven weeks left in the NFL season.
This mid-season comeback has definitely caught the eyes of some power rankers out there, but this ugly, exhausting, 16-13 hiccup of a victory will quickly challenge their opinions on the Texans as a whole. Houston was one big mistake away...
Battle Red Blog
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Our goal is to create more and better conversations on Battle Red Blog and elsewhere across the SB Nation network. Anytime someone engages with your comments or Feed posts on another SB Nation community,...
Battle Red Blog
In last week’s broadcast, Chris Myers, the commentator voted most likely to sound like an exaggerated cartoon character, said something along the lines of “the team with the #1 defense at the end of the season has never failed to make the playoffs…” /paraphrase
While this may/may not be true, it’s hard to recall a team with such polar opposites when it comes to defense and offense.
Per...
Battle Red Blog