The Texans went to Foxborough in the divisional round and gave Tom Brady and the Patriots all they could handle for three quarters. It was a 24-16, one score game early in the fourth quarter. Should have been 17-16 at that point but our special teams let us down on a long kick return for a TD that the Pats had in the first half. Things fell apart in the fourth quarter (the Pats added 10 more points to reach 34), obviously, but we hung around for a lot longer than most people thought.
We didn't have our best player in J.J. Watt, who will be ready to go in 2017, and that was with Brock Osweiler running the show at quarterback. How are the Houston Texans not contenders? I believe we're easily right there with the Patriots, Steelers, Chiefs (any team in the AFC) with superstar J.J. Watt (3x defensive player of the year) back and dominating like his old self, and a better quarterback like Tony Romo.
We're very much contenders, IMO.
Heck, we nearly shocked the world this past year with the team we had. We just couldn't finish the deal in that fourth quarter at Foxborough. It didn't help that Will Fuller drops a beautifully thrown "Touchdown pass" by Osweiler. If he holds on it's a TD and that game is very much ours to take going into the fourth quarter. There were plenty of moments we could have changed the momentum and taken control of that game but our offense didn't make the big plays they needed to.
Anybody who says the Texans aren't a contender don't know football. We need better quarterback play, sure. But we have J.J. Watt coming back and we have all off-season to improve our quarterback situation. We also need Will Fuller to improve his damn hands!
But we're as good as most teams in the AFC, IMO.
We're very much a contender. It makes me mad if anybody says differently.