NFL Week 5: Bills at Texans — Four Things To Watch For

Through the first four weeks of the 2024 NFL season, uncovering the Houston Texans and their 3-1 record, it feels like we’ve been conducting a beauty contest as much as we’ve been conducting a football season. In the Texans three wins, they’ve won by a combined total of 12 points and have been largely sloppy and underwhelming. Their one loss was a 34-7 blowout at the hands of the Vikings.

In other words, despite being 3-1, there hasn’t been a game played, as of yet, in which the Texans have felt nor looked like a legitimate Super Bowl contender. There is still confidence in the marketplace — the Texans are sixth on the Super Bowl odds board in Vegas — but they need to start playing like we assumed they were capable of.

That said, the Buffalo Bills come to town this weekend. Like the Texans, they are viewed as an upper echelon Super Bowl contender. This is my promise to the Texans — the beauty contest will be put on hold for this week. Find any way you can to beat the Bills, and there will be joy on the postgame radio show (which i host) and on my Monday radio show on SportsRadio 610.

Here are a few things to watch for on the road to sheer joy on Sunday:

4. Protecting Stroud
It felt like most of what worked in the passing game for the Texans this past Sunday against Jacksonville came off script, with C.J. Stroud getting flushed from the pocket. That’s no way to be living. In an ideal world, Stroud would have ample time to find receivers while slinging it from the pocket. The Bills pose a notable threat pressuring the quarterback. Greg Rousseau and A.J. Epenesa are capable defensive ends, and former Houston Cougar Ed Oliver is a load on the interior, where the Texans have been particularly weak protecting Stroud. The offensive line needs to stand up on Sunday.

3. Josh Allen on the run
While Stroud does his best damage from the pocket, his Buffalo counterpart, Josh Allen, inflicts his wounds on the run. When Allen escapes the pocket or gets on the move by design, good things typically happen for the Bills. Allen has some other worldly improv skills and a cannon of a right arm to go with it. The Texans will need to be disciplined up front and close down escape routes for Allen on passing downs.

2. Stefon Diggs
The soap opera storyline in this game is certainly one of the best involving the Texans, and maybe one of the best around the league, period. Diggs wanted out of Buffalo after last season, despite being a perennial Pro Bowler on a perennial playoff team. Diggs has been a model teammate and leader since arriving in Houston, and both sides, the Bills and Diggs, have gone out of their way to remain cordial throughout the weeks leading up to this game. I’m anxious to see how drastically this vibe changes after several of the “firsts” in this game — first Diggs catch, first big hit on Diggs, first Allen turnover, etc.

1. Penalty parade must end
The last three weeks of Houston Texans football have been among the most absurd in my 18 seasons of covering the team, largely because of the whopping 35 penalties committed, along with the fact that the Texans actually won two of those games. After each of those three games, we were assured that the penalties have been addressed, and the team will do better. Three games is my breaking point. I can’t, in good conscience, pick the Texans to beat a team as good as the Bills without proof that this penalty-riddled unit is NOT who they are long term. Here’s hoping for a clean game from the Texans, because double digit penalties will undoubtedly result in a loss. I just don’t trust them right now….

SPREAD: Bills -1
PREDICTION: Bills 34, Texans 27
SEASON RECORD: 3-1 SU, 0-4 ATS

Listen to Sean Pendergast on SportsRadio 610 from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. weekdays. Also, follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/SeanTPendergast, on Instagram at instagram.com/sean.pendergast, and like him on Facebook at facebook.com/SeanTPendergast.