What is the farthest the Houston Texans have gone in the NFL Playoffs?

What a comeback year for a franchise that is in the midst of its 22nd season. The Houston Texans began play in 2022 in the AFC South. As expected, the team took its lumps in the early years. In 2009, the team finished above .500 for the first time with a 9-7 mark.

The Texans took a step backwards in 2010 by finishing 6-10. It hasn’t been a smooth run since 2011, but it may surprise some to know that over the past 13 seasons, this club has won seven division titles. That includes 2023, when DeMeco Ryans’s squad overcame a 0-2 start to finish 10-7.

Last week, behind rookie quarterback C.J. Stroud and an opportunistic defense, the Texans routed the favored Cleveland Browns, 45-14, at Houston in the wild card round. Ryans’s team will take on the top-seeded Ravens at Baltimore in the divisional playoffs and hope to make a little franchise history.

What is the farthest the Houston Texans have gone in the NFL Playoffs?

The Texans have never won a Super Bowl.

Including last week’s win over the Browns, the Texans own a 5-6 career playoff record. All five wins have come in the Wild Card Round, while four of the six setbacks have occurred in the AFC Divisional Playoffs. Ironically, the first of the four was a 20-13 defeat at the hands of the Ravens in Baltimore in 2011. The next came a year later at Foxborough, when the New England Patriots hung a 41-28 loss on Gary Kubiak’s Texans.

After a win over the Raiders in the 2016 wild card round, the Texans were once again in New England and would fall to the eventual Super Bowl LI champions, 34-16. In 2019, Bill O’Brien’s team knocked off the Bills in overtime, and then owned a stunning 24-0 second-quarter lead at Kansas City. The Chiefs came roaring back and outscored Houston, 51-7, the rest of the way to hand the Texans a stunning 51-31 defeat.

Last week’s win over the Browns was the club’s first playoff showing since that debacle at Arrowhead Stadium. Hence, a Texans’ upset of the Ravens would put the team in the AFC Championship Game for the first time ever.