2021 Houston Texans Opponents: We Don’t Know The Schedule, But We Know Who They’re Playing

With the 2020 NFL season officially over, eyes now move to 2021 in hopes that next season will be better than this one. The Texans got ravaged by an early season schedule that saw them play five playoff teams before their Week 8 bye. Ten of the team’s twelve losses came against eventual playoff teams. Given that the Texans placed third in their division this past season, their 2021 schedule should be slightly easier in the strength of schedule department.

Here’s a look at Houston’s 2021 home opponents:

• Indianapolis Colts
• Tennessee Titans
• Jacksonville Jaguars
• New England Patriots
• New York Jets
• Los Angeles Rams
• Seattle Seahawks
• Los Angeles Chargers

The Texans will face the Patriots for the seventh consecutive season and the third straight time at NRG Stadium. Houston has won the previous two meetings and will look for their third straight win.

The Texans also face both Los Angeles teams, which means they will likely see Justin Herbert for the first time in his NFL career and Matthew Stafford in his first year with the Rams.

The Texans will look for their fourth straight win against the Jets and their first win against the Seahawks since 2009.

Here’s a look at their 2021 road opponents:

• Indianapolis Colts
• Tennessee Titans
• Jacksonville Jaguars
• Arizona Cardinals
• Buffalo Bills
• Cleveland Browns
• Miami Dolphins
• San Francisco 49ers

The Texans will face DeAndre Hopkins for the first time; I’m marking Nuk down for 200 yards in this game.

The Texans also have to head to Buffalo and Cleveland for two potential cold weather games against 2020 playoff teams.

They also travel to each coast — once to Miami to battle the Dolphins and once to Santa Clara to play the 49ers; both teams have playoff expectations (and dreams of acquiring Deshaun Watson?) in 2021.

Counting divisional opponents, eight games on Houston’s 2021 schedule will be against playoff teams. Some non-playoff opponents include the Dolphins and Cardinals, both of whom were a tiebreaker away from the NFL Playoffs in 2020, and the 49ers, who reached the Super Bowl just two seasons ago.

There are talks of the NFL adding a seventeenth game to the schedule to boost revenue and expand the season by one week.

According to Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer, the 17th game could keep geography in mind so as to not orce teams on the west coast to travel to the east coast and vice versa.

This means the Texans could find themselves facing the NFC South’s third place team as they were the AFC South’s third place team a year ago. That would match them up against the Carolina Panthers. Whether the Texans would be home or away for this matchup is to be determined, although it is possible that the league could adopt an AFC-NFC rotation to decide who gets homefield for the “17th game.”

Are there any games you are especially looking forward to in 2021?