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The period between the Super Bowl and start of the NFL year is probably the coaches and players favorite part of the year. It is the time where they can take a breath for at least a moment before working on free agency and the draft. Players obviously will start working out in the spring at the latest. So, it is a terrific time for those of us here to take stock in the last season and ask some of the bigger questions. Naturally, we have done that some at Battle Red Blog, so we wanted to farm this out to some local sports media members to hear what they have to say.
Patrick Creighton co-hosts “Area 45” with Shaun Bijani nightly over at Sports Radio 610. He also happens to be my boss over Crawfish Boxes. Obviously, Sports Radio 610 is pretty heavy Texans since it is the flagship, so he seemed like a good source for Texans takes as the offseason gets started. As always, I will do a little shameless self-promotion for our work at Crawfish Boxes. We started our conversation with a general outlook on the season as whole.
Battle Red Blog: Looking back on the whole season, did the Texans reach your expectations that had coming into the season? Did they exceed expectations? Underperform?
Patrick Creighton: Entering the season, expectations were that this team would win the division and make its first afc title game. They didn’t do either of those things so they underperformed. It’s the way the season unfolded that that makes the bad taste in your mouth.
Once again the offense underperformed. The OL was still substandard. But the quarterback playing the absolute worst game of his life in the divisional round really stings, because he’s a guy that has previously risen to the occasion in big spots and because their defense was the best in the league. They had a shot but they blew it, so they underperformed and gave us an offensive stinker in the final game they played.
BRB: Obviously, a lot was made of C.J. Stroud’s performance in the playoffs and his long-term future is probably the most high profile question coming into the offseason. Where are you on Stroud and his future in Houston?
PC: Stroud certainly has top end talent and we have seen it. It’s frustrating that the longer he has been coached by the Texans the worse he has gotten. Equally frustrating is the teams keeping the status quo around him. Even when they changed OCs, they kept basically all the same coaching staff around him. There were too many times the offensive struggled of 2025 looked like the offensive struggles of 2024.
They decided to put more responsibility on CJ to make adjustments at the line but consistently struggled to get play calls in fast enough for him to do so. This was a problem all season long and into the playoffs – that’s on coaches.
Clearly there is more to unlock with CJ but there’s a huge question to whether this coaching staff is capable of doing so.
I think CJ can be the guy, but there’s have been too many systemic failures around him (poor OL and poor blocking schemes, poor play calling and play design, inconsistency (at best) in running game, refusal by coaches to make adjustments, having no offensive identity etc) that have undermined his growth substantially
They took a rookie QB and gave him a rookie OC. Replaced that rookie OC with another rookie OC. The coaching on the defensive side of the ball is elite. The coaching on the offensive side of the ball is below league average.
Texans need to care about the offense the way they care about the defense. Otherwise they will cycle through a 2nd overall pick and play free agent bingo with someone else’s discarded QB.
I think there’s a legit possibility CJ finds his best football playing for someone else because the Texans didn’t put enough effort and resources into developing him and into making the parts around him work
BRB: Will Anderson is obviously a huge priority to get signed long-term this offseason. Are there any other free agents from the Texans that you feel should be a priority to re-sign?
PC: The Texans strength is their defense, and defense is never about just one player. That means the Texans have a lot of important players to bring back for their defense.
Houston has a lot of free agents on defense, especially on the defensive line. Defensive tackle was a position group that improved a lot from 2024 to 2025 and on that group alone they have Sheldon Rankins, Denico Autry, Tim Settle , Foley Fatukasi, Leki Fotu and Naquan Jones. Of that group, they should be interested in bringing back Rankins, Autry, and Fatukasi at a minimum.
Punter Tommy Townsend is one of the best and they should be keeping him as well.
OT Trent Brown made an impact on the OL. He missed a lot of time as he was coming back from surgery to start the year, and if the price is right he should be back too as an insurance policy.
BRB: The Joe Mixon story is one of the more bizarre stories from the last year. Obviously, none of us knows exactly what happened, but if you had to speculate, do you think it was a football or non-football related injury? Do you think he plays another down for the Texans?
PC: The way the Texans had him listed makes it seem this was not a football related injury. The team has been very protective of not sharing what happened to Joe Mixon, and said he had a “rare condition”. If this rare condition prevented him from playing football all season, then I don’t see how he can be expected to play a full season ever again. This should be the end for Mixon as a Texan.
BRB: Obviously, free agency and the draft are not here yet and we don’t know exactly who will be available, but in general, which positions do you see the Texans targeting there?
PC: Clearly they need to target the OL. Center and guard should be huge priorities. They need to decide as a team if they are ready to give Blake Fisher a shot at RT so they can keep Tytus Howard at Guard, or if they want to get two guards and move Tytus back to RT.
Offensive line absolutely must be Job One this offseason. They cannot fail here again.
While RG Ed Ingram was perhaps their best run blocker, his passing game shortcomings are noteworthy. I’d let someone else overpay for him in free agency.
We want to thank Patrick for taking the time to answer our questions. He is definitely one of the more insightful voices around town and always makes things entertaining as well. Please go check out “Area 45” on Sports Radio 610. It is usually on from 7-10 following Houston Texans programming. When there is no Texans programming it can be heard from 6-10.