Seven Hopes for the 2025 Houston Texans Schedule

The 2025 Schedule comes out tonight

The Houston Texans know who and where they are playing this season, but will find out when they play those teams tonight.

Houston will play nine home games and eight road games this season.

Here are seven hopes for the 2025 schedule.

A Later Bye Week

The Houston Texans were disadvantaged with a late-season bye week last year. They would never use it as an excuse, but it affected the Texans. Houston had some injuries that a bye week would’ve helped in the middle of the year, like Nico Collins. Bobby Slowik didn’t fix the offense in the bye week last year. He might not have been capable, but perhaps an earlier break would’ve allowed an adjustment and a little more from the disappointing offense.

The NFL can’t make it late again. Ideally, it’s near the middle of the schedule.

Spread Out Primetime Games

The Texans played most of their non-typical games in the back half of their schedule. They played Thursday Night Football, Sunday Night Football, and Monday Night Football all in a row. That’s ridiculous. There were days when I was unsure what day it was, I can’t imagine how annoying that was for the players. Then there was the Saturday game in Kansas City that preceded a Wednesday game against the Ravens on Christmas.

Spread the primetime games out. I believe the Texans will get four primetime games with two Monday Night Football appearances.

Early Kansas City and Baltimore Trips

I’d like to see the Chiefs and Ravens early in the schedule. The Texans need to beat one, if not both, if they plan to be anywhere other than the fourth spot in the NFL playoff seeding. It would be nice to catch the Chiefs early as they try to figure out their offensive line. There is never a good time to play Baltimore, but the Ravens haven’t been incredibly hot to start the past few seasons.

The tiebreakers against these teams will be important if Houston is better than last year. The Texans, knowing where they stand down the stretch and determining how hard they need to press in the final weeks, would also be a positive.

Late Los Angeles Visits

Two visits to Los Angeles late in the year mean good weather. The opposing crowd won’t be tough either. The Rams have an excellent defensive line. Playing them later in the season would be nice since the Texans will have a vastly different offensive line. Matt Stafford is always banged up late in the season. As for the Chargers element, the further they get away from the playoff revenge, the better.

Buccaneers on Monday Night Football

The 2023 matchup against Tampa Bay was one of C.J. Stroud’s best games ever. Baker Mayfield was excellent. Let’s have the two square off again in a fun Monday matchup. It’s an impressive offense for DeMeco Ryans to try to stop. The defense is solid for Nick Caley’s new offense to try to score on. Troy Aikman and Joe Buck calling a shootout would be electric.

Thursday at Home Versus the Jaguars Wearing the Battle Red Jersey

It is always better to have Thursday games at home. Jacksonville has a draw with top draft pick Travis Hunter. While Hunter is exciting, he alone can’t get Jacksonville on a lot of primetime games. Hunter, along with the initial rematch after the big hit by Azeez Al-Shaair on Trevor Lawrence, makes for a fun couple of storylines for the short week. Throw in the best jersey combination for a little extra pizzazz.

Some Afternoon Sunday Games

While the Texans might be less desirable for primetime games than a year ago, they still have some opponents that were also playoff teams. Could you imagine the top afternoon game against the Buffalo Bills? How about Tom Brady on the call against the Los Angeles Rams? Even settling in for the road game in Seattle should come in the afternoon.

Two years ago Sunday at noon was the constant. Last season saw too many shenanigans. A normal schedule, with a couple of Sunday features, would be welcome.

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Houston Texans special teams coordinator Frank Ross will join Landry Locker and me on the S&L Texans Talk channel at 4 pm today. We will discuss the special teams of the team, other elements of football, and Ross’s charity work with Coach’s Cuts. We will also be donating to Coach’s Cuts during the show. You don’t want to miss this one. See you this afternoon.