Plain and simple: PROGRESS. Defense needs to improve quickly and visibly in almost every aspect (just improve, not necessarily be “lights out”). Offense needs to improve in the red zone. Special teams needs a punt returner that doesn’t play hot potato with the ball.

Record-wise, we need a winning season. Going 8-8 and making the playoffs (a ridiculous pipe dream in our division) would be nice, but wouldn’t show any real progress. 9-7 without playoffs is acceptable to me, but it wouldn’t be really satisfying. 10-6 would do the trick.

And, as a whole, we need to do a better job of beating the teams we’re supposed to beat and competing with the ones to whom we’re underdogs. Forget the whole “playing to the level of our competition” shit. Beat the fucking Raiders!

I pretty much echo what Big TexBD says:
1) We need to be better in the red zone on offense. Put up more points, not just rack up yards.
2) We need to be much better on defense. I don’t think any Texans fans can see us being any worse than we were for the1st half of last year. 2nd half showed promise, so we need to build on that and be better from the get-go next year.
3) We need to be more consistent, especially on the road. Like BTBD said, beat the teams we are supposed to beat.
4) If we win 10 and still do not make the playoffs then that to me will be enough. If we go 10-6, that means we will be in the playoff hunt until the last 2 weeks at a minimum. I would rather make the playoffs with less than 10 wins but that doesn’t seem likely in our division.

1 – A .500 record on the road. Saying they should finish over .500 is too much of a stretch. They’re just SUCH a bad road team, that I think right at .500 is realistic.

2 – Undefeated at home against the AFC South. We’re already a very good home team – now it’s time to become a great one. We were 6-2 at home this year, and I’m pretty sure last year as well. I really think 8-0 is a realistic expectation for 2009, but I would take 7-1 and RUN LIKE HELL with it.

3 – Develop an identity on defense. I’ve seen that mentioned elsewhere, and I think it’s a very succinct way to get across all the things we want to accomplish on defense.

4 – Push the running game from where it is now (better than average-to-good) to very good – maybe top 8 in the league.

Is that just too pie in the sky?

I did not necessarily mean the delta regular season win total, but overall success. Miami won 10 more games in ‘08 vs ’07, Atlanta 7 more. Arizona only 1 more but due to their unexpected playoff success arguably has had the biggest quantum leap in success. We probably wont be able to 9-7, like the Cards did and make the playoffs, and it would really suck to go 11-5 and be hosed like NE, but if we can go 10-6 or better and win just one playoff game that would be what I consider a quantum leap in success. To replicate what Arizona has just done would be (Romespeak) phenomenal.
Now let’s do it.