NFL Week 7 Power Rankings Index

Where is everyone rankings the Houston Texans after their bye week?

This week, the Houston Texans football may not have done anything substantial, but the Houston Texans organization did something quite spectacular: they fired Jack Easterby!

Finally!!!!

After one of the strangest, confusing, and definitely-not-evidence-of-corruption stints of a vice president of football operations in recent NFL history, the hilariously unqualified and subsequently disastrous Jack Easterby is finally relieved of making a tangible difference to a professional football team. While the actual control Easterby had on the Texans was never fully revealed to the general public, a Sports Illustrated piece describing his controversial rise to prominence gave us enough information to realize he wasn’t fit for the position.

Hopefully, this stand to be a moment we can look back upon as when the Texans began to come out of the shadows as a sloppy, inept organization into something more capable of putting a good football team together. Good play from rookies and more draft assets upcoming show that the time is now to make a move to be better, and the Texans brass seemed to agree that doing so meant firing Jack Easterby.

With that, lets dive into where the NFL world is ranking the Houston Texans entering week 7:

ESPN:

30. Houston Texans(1-3-1)

Week 6 ranking: 28

The Texans aren’t as bad as their record of 1-3-1 would suggest. In every Texans’ game this season the result has come down to one drive in the fourth quarter, but in the majority of them, they haven’t been able to pull out the win. Closing has been their issue as they’ve only been outscored by 13 points, which ranks 17th in the NFL. The defense has kept games close by allowing only 19 points per game, 13th in the NFL. And some results came against respectable opponents in the Los Angeles Chargers, Indianapolis Colts and Denver Broncos led by star quarterbacks. — DJ Bien-Aime

NFL.COM:

31. Houston Texans (1-3-1)

Previous rank: No. 31

The Texans ended their bye week with a major organizational shakeup. The team parted ways with executive vice president of football operations Jack Easterby, a former team chaplain turned front-office executive who rose to a high position of influence after Houston fired former coach and GM Bill O’Brien four games into the 2020 season. This news was not met with sorrow from a large portion of the fan base. Meanwhile, Texans fans must hope a better version of Davis Mills shows up after the bye: The second-year QB has finished with a passer rating under 100 in all five games.

PRO FOOTBALL TALK:

30. Texans (1-3-1; No. 28): They probably should shoot to the top 20 simply for firing Jack Easterby.

USA TODAY:

31. Texans (29): Productive bye week for Houston, which took Watson jerseys off the streets and swept controversial VP Jack Easterby out of the front office.

THE RINGER:

31. Houston Texans (1-3-1, last week: 31)

Davis Mills and the offense are playing their way to a new quarterback next offseason, which is exactly what the doctor ordered for the rebuilding Texans. Houston ranks 27th in offensive EPA per drive (-0.49), and Mills is the catalyst of all the inefficiency. Only Baker Mayfield has a lower EPA per dropback average through Week 6 than Mills. The two leading favorites to go no. 1 in the 2023 NFL Draft are Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud (+190) and Alabama’s Bryce Young (+260); start turning on those guys’ games, Texans faithful.

SPORTS ILLUSTRATED:

29. Houston Texans (1-3-1)

Last week: win at Jacksonville, 13–6

Next week: at Las Vegas

The Texans parted ways with Jack Easterby on Monday. The chaplain turned high-ranking executive, whose pawprints were all over the Texans’ teardown under Bill O’Brien, is now on the outs. The one question is why? Ownership allowed him to completely reshape the organization and ditched him in the middle of the 2022 season for no discernable reason. Unless, that is, they finally got around to reading this.

CBS SPORTS:

27. Houston Texans (1-3-1)

They come off their bye with a road game at Las Vegas against the Raiders. They need to get more out of their offense going forward.

BLEACHER REPORT:

31. Houston Texans (1-3-1)

Last Week: 31

Week 6 Result: Bye Week

The Houston Texans were the last team in the NFL to get win No. 1 this season. But that win came last week against the Jacksonville Jaguars, and after finally tasting victory, Texans head coach Lovie Smith said that Houston’s off week came at the perfect time.

“We’re in pretty good shape, we have a chance to really get healthy right now, and we have a sample of who we think we can be this year,” Smith said. “[And] as coaches, to be able to analyze everything that we’ve done and go from there. So early, late, seems like it’s the perfect time for us where we are right now.”

Getting that win was nice, but neither one win nor a week off is going to fix all that ails the Texans. Entering Week 6, Houston ranked 30th in total offense, 27th in scoring offense and 29th in total defense.

There have been bright spots, whether it’s the play of rookie running back Dameon Pierce on offense or the performance of fellow first-year player Jalen Pitre on defense.

But teams that rank in the bottom five in both total offense and total defense aren’t going to win many games.

YAHOO! SPORTS:

31. Houston Texans (1-3-1, LW: 30)

The Texans are coming off a bye and randomly firing (sorry, ”mutually parting ways” with) executive vice president of football operations Jack Easterby on Monday is on brand for a franchise that doesn’t have a lot of direction. Easterby was a controversial figure inside the organization and a change isn’t bad, it’s just weird timing.

The time has come for Davis Mills to prove himself. The Texans are really starting to turn a corner here, and if he wants to be part of the future, he needs to prove he can part of it now.

This coming Sunday, the Easterby-less Texans will travel to face the 1-4 Las Vegas Raiders. With Dameon Pierce now the lead-back and the offensive line getting stronger, it’s time for Davis Mills to win a football game. See you then!

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