Year Nine of the Houston Texans begins this Sunday with a home game at Reliant Stadium against the dreaded Peyton Manning and the Colts, so it’s time for my seventh (!) annual preview of the hometown team.

The Texans finished off their eighth season in grand style by beating the mostly-trying Patriots with an impressive 21-point 4th quarter comeback. The win wasn’t enough to propel the Texans into the playoffs, but it was the Texans’ fourth win in their final five games of the 2009 season, which gave the franchise it’s first winning record (9-7). In the rather barren terrain of accomplishments that is Texansland, that was a major accomplishment.

Nevertheless, from a won-lost record standpoint, the Texans remain one of the worst expansion franchises in the history of the National Football League after eight seasons. As is usually the case in football, a myriad of influences have combined to cause the Texans’ poor overall record, not all of which are the fault of Texans management and players. Nevertheless, with a team as young and relatively unsuccessful as the Texans, it’s always helpful to review the team’s journey in evaluating whether it is probable that the team has made the progress necessary to make the leap into the NFL playoffs.

The Texans were the toast of Houston for their first three seasons during which Houston’s professional football-deprived fans were simply happy to have an NFL team again and didn’t really have much in the way of expectations. Texans management and the local mainstream media trumpeted the party line that Texans were building a playoff contender “the right way” — that is through prudent drafting and development of young players while eschewing the temptation of short-term rewards provided by over-priced veterans who were on the downside of their careers.

The progressively better won-loss records in the first three seasons (4-12, 5-11, and 7-9) — plus the drafting of young stars such as WR Andre Johnson, RB Dominack Davis (or whatever he ended up changing his name to) and CB Dunta Robinson — seemed to indicate that the Texans’ plan was working. The local mainstream media completely bought into that narrative.

Unfortunately, those progressively better won-loss records distracted Texans management from recognizing that the quality of the Texans’ overall roster was not close to that of an NFL playoff contender. The best evidence of that deficiency was that the Texans entered each of their first four seasons with the same two core problems — the Texans’ offensive line could not protect the quarterback and the Texans’ defensive front could not pressure the opposition’s QB.

Former Texans GM Charlie Casserly never could solve the offensive and defensive line problems (remember LT Tony Boselli, the flirtation with LT Orlando Pace, prospects such as Seth Wand and the thoroughly unimpressive DT’s, Anthony Weaver and Travis Johnson?). The 2005 draft was an absolute disaster (DT Johnson as the 15th pick in the first round?) and initial Texans head coach Dom Capers’ changes to the offensive and defensive systems between Years Three and Four proved equally dubious. After the Texans limped home with a desultory 2-14 record in Year Four, Texans owner Bob McNair mercifully cut the Casserly and Capers regime loose.

Subsequently, McNair decided to blow up his original management model and surprisingly hired Gary Kubiak, who promptly made (acquiesced to?) a whopper of a blunder in his first major personnel decision as Texans’ coach — retaining QB David Carr even though it was reasonably clear as early as before Year Three that Carr was unlikely to develop into even an average NFL QB.

Kubiak — who is a quick study in evaluating talent — promptly soured on Carr during the early stages of Year Five as Texans fans endured one of the worst offenses in the NFL that season. As a result of that horrible Year Five offense, Kubiak arguably overpaid for QB Matt Schaub before Year Six and clearly overpaid for over-the-hill free agent RB, Ahman Green. Not much changed through 12 games of Year Six as even the local mainstream media cheerleaders were questioning whether Kubiak was the proper coach to right the Texans’ ship.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the Texans showed some spark and won three of their last four games to finish with an 8-8 record for Year Six, the first non-losing record in franchise history. The Texans’ offense — even without Schaub and star WR Andre Johnson for five and seven games respectively — improved to 12th in the NFL in yards gained and 14th in points scored, by far the best finish of any Texans offense. That was enough to give long-suffering Texans fans hope that things might finally turn around for the franchise the following season.

Unfortunately, the Texans treaded water in Year Seven. A solid season-ending win over the Bears allowed the Texans to finish at 8-8 again, but the team did not contend for a playoff spot and suffered several demoralizing defeats. Given that the team had a 7-9 record after Year Three, a reasonable case could be made that not much progress had been made from the end of Year Three through Year Seven. The offense was better, but the defense was worse than it was after Year Three. Moreover, the 2007 draft was beginning to look almost as bad as the horrid 2005 draft. Had the deck chairs simply been rearranged on the Texans’ version of the Titanic?

Thankfully, several signs emerged in Year Seven that indicated the Texans were headed in the right direction. The offensive line and the receiving corps were far-improved and had more depth than at any time in franchise history. Despite being somewhat brittle, Schaub showed the talent necessary to be a consistently above-average NFL QB and RB Steve Slaton emerged as a game-breaking running back. Although the Texans’ defense did not improve statistically in Year Seven, the Texans had accumulated a nucleus of young defensive players who — with proper coaching and sensible personnel adjustments — were likely to gel into a reasonably effective unit sometime over the next couple of seasons.

Unfortunately, that progress really did not occur in Year Eight. After yet another loss to the Colts in Week 12, the Texans were 5-6 and already a long shot for the playoffs despite a generally favorable schedule. Slaton had inexplicably turned into a fumbling mess of a running back who ended up going on injured reserve after losing his starting job to a group of journeyman RB’s. So, despite winning four of their last five games to post their first winning record, the Texans’ Year Eight performance had the look of fool’s gold.

Although disappointing, that performance was good enough to earn Texans’ coach Gary Kubiak another season at the helm. I’ve been skeptical from the start that Kubiak is the right coach to lead the Texans into the playoffs, primarily because I believe that he was not a good fit for the “strong coach” model that McNair adopted when he fired Casserly and Capers. McNair has endured quite a bit of on-the-job training with Kubiak that he probably would not have experienced with a more seasoned head coach.

On the other hand, each of Kubiak’s teams have improved during his tenure with the Texans and his current team appears on paper to be the strongest that the Texans have fielded in their nine seasons. Thus, even though every other NFL team has either made the playoffs or fired its head coach during Kubiak’s tenure with the Texans, Kubiak supporters can make a decent case that McNair made the right choice in retaining him, at least for Year Nine.

Despite my skepticism about Kubiak’s ability to lead the Texans over the playoff hump, he does have many positive characteristics. The players like him and play hard for him. He handles the players and media well, and I have always been impressed by his willingness to recognize mistakes, cut losses and make changes. Kubiak does not seem to be burdened with the stubbornness that often undermines NFL head coaches.

Moreover, continuity in coaching staffs is an underappreciated factor in the success of NFL teams, so maybe giving Kubiak more rope than most NFL coaches receive will finally produce McNair a winner. McNair certainly deserves it in view of his patient support of the Texans’ football operation.

But what does all of this mean for the Texans in Year Nine?

Given the high number of variables that play into a successful NFL season, picking NFL playoff teams is a highly speculative endeavor, at best. Given that constant change is a fact of NFL life, assessing something as seemingly simple as strength of schedule is a moving target and can literally change overnight, particularly given the high injury risk in the NFL.

My sense is that the Texans have accumulated enough talented football players on offense to be playoff-caliber so long as QB Schaub remains healthy and new PK Neil Rackers doesn’t have a meltdown like Kris Brown had last season. But defensive improvement will probably again be the key to whether this season is a breakthrough season for the Texans or another disappointment.

Inasmuch as one of the Texan’s best defensive players (LB Brian Cushing) is suspended for the first four games and Kubiak elected to go with a young and relatively inexperienced secondary, my sense is that defensive improvement will be slow and probably not evident until later in the season. Accordingly, I’m placing the over/under for Texans’ wins this season at eight, the same number as I predicted last season. Eight wins will not be good enough to make the playoffs.

Oh well, patience is certainly a virtue for anyone who is a Texans fan.

Finally, as with my regular baseball reports on the Stros, I’m dispensing this season with the weekly football game reviews that I’ve done over the past seven years. The blogosphere has grown to the point where virtually every pro and college team has a blog that covers each team far better than I ever could in my once-a-week posts. As with the Stros, I’ll continue to do an occasional post on discrete games or issues during the season, but simply not on a weekly basis anymore.

Moreover, with the maturation of the sports blogosphere, there really is no reason to rely any longer on the mainstream media for football news and analysis. For several years now, Alan Burge has been doing a much better job of covering the Texans on a nuts and bolts basis than the mainstream media, while bloggers Stephanie Stradley, Lance Zerlein and Houston Diehards all provide first-rate analysis of particular issues facing the Texans.

Similarly, on the college football front, both The
Wizard of Odds and the Pre-Snap Report are excellent resources for keeping up with the college football season overall. With regard to blogs that cover particular teams, Barking Carnival is my favorite for the Texas Longhorns, while I Am the 12th Man does a good job of covering the Texas Aggies.

On the local front, the best sources of information on the Houston Cougars are Steve Campbell’s blog and Fight for Red and White blog, while The Rice Football Webletter does a great job of covering the Owls.

So, with that, let the games begin!