After last Wednesday's schedule release, the National Football League has its 2025 slate of games all set, for all 32 teams. We now know the "when," for every game this coming season. While many folks immediately go running to the travel websites after the schedule comes out, so that they can make their road trip arrangements, I go running to the gambling websites to check out the early spreads on all 17 games.
It's the life of the gambler. The hustle never stops to find some soft lines to take advantage of and lock in before training camp begins to tell us things about these teams. To that end, the betting odds are out on all 17 Houston Texans games. Courtesy of Sports Book Review, here you go (spreads in parentheses):
WEEK 1 - Sunday, September 7 @ 4:25 PM at Rams (Texans +3.5)
WEEK 2 - Monday, September 15 @ 7 PM vs. Buccaneers (Texans -1.5)
WEEK 3 - Sunday, September 21 @ 1 PM at Jaguars (Texans -1.5)
WEEK 4 - Sunday, September 28 @ 1 PM vs. Titans (Texans -5.5)
WEEK 5 - Sunday, October 5 @ 1 PM at Ravens (Texans +7.5)
WEEK 6 - BYE WEEK
WEEK 7 - Monday, October 20 @ 10 PM at Seahawks (Texans +1.5)
WEEK 8 - Sunday, October 26 @ 1 PM vs. 49ers (Texans +1.5)
WEEK 9 - Sunday, November 2 @ 1 PM vs. Broncos (Texans +1.5)
WEEK 10 - Sunday, November 9 @ 1 PM vs. Jaguars (Texans -3.5)
WEEK 11 - Sunday, November 16 @ 1 PM at Titans (Texans -3)
WEEK 12 - Thursday, November 20 @ 8:15 PM vs. Bills (Texans +3.5)
WEEK 13 - Sunday, November 30 @ 1 PM at Colts (Texans -1.5)
WEEK 14 - Sunday, December 7 @ 8:20 PM at Chiefs (Texans +6.5)
WEEK 15 - Sunday, December 14 @ 1 PM vs. Cardinals (Texans -2.5)
WEEK 16 - Sunday, December 21 @ 4:25 PM vs. Raiders (Texans -4.5)
WEEK 17 - TBD at Chargers (Texans +3.5)
WEEK 18 - TBD vs. Colts (Texans -4.5)
A few thoughts on the Texans' 2025 schedule, from a gambling perspective:
The Texans are favored in nine of their 17 gamesThis stands to reason when you juxtapose it to the season win total that Vegas has posted for the Texans, which is 9.5 wins. They are viewed as a slightly better than .500 team, a team that, if it gets excellent quarterback play (and, related, improvement in the offensive line) should win at least 10 games once again. Not surprisingly, the biggest spreads are in road games at the Ravens (Texans +7.5) and the Chiefs (Texans +6.5), which just so happen to be the two teams that have eliminated the Texans in the postseason the last two years.
The toughest stretch, from a point spread perspective, doesn't match up with MY opinionIf you read my overview of the Texans 2025 schedule from last week, then you already know that I believe the most treacherous part of the schedule comes in Weeks 11 through 14, when the Texans have two road division games sandwiched around a Thursday night home game with the Bills in Week 12, and in Week 14 they have that aforementioned Chiefs game. In fact, by gambling standards, the tougher stretch might be Weeks 5 through 9, when the Texans are underdogs in four straight games, with a bye week in Week 6. The games are at Baltimore and Seattle (on Monday night), and home games against the Niners and Broncos.
You can get a feel for what teams the Texans are considered similar toLast season, the Texans went into 2024 with a ton of buzz and with many experts out there hot to trot on putting them among the six or seven best teams in football, particularly with the Texans having traded for Stefon Diggs. This season, it feels like they are viewed as, at best, a fringe top ten team overall, maybe closer to 15th than 10th. This is kind of born out in the spreads of these games. If you account for home field advantage being a three point value, these spreads would indicate that the Rams, Tampa Bay, San Francisco, Denver, the Chargers, and maybe even the Cardinals are all viewed as equal to or better than the Houston Texans, a far cry from a year ago, then the debate was "Are the Texans better than the Bills?"
My early "bet the farm" pick
Last season, my "bet the farm" pick was the Texans laying less than a touchdown in New England against a rookie quarterback, and a first year head coach. The Texans won by three touchdowns and covered easily. This season, I'm going with a similar handicap — the Texans laying just 5.5 points at home to the Titans is STEALING. The Titans will be starting a rookie quarterback in one of the toughest road environments for opposing quarterbacks, and the Texans will not be taking the Titans lightly at all, after losing at home to them last year. Lay the wood on Texans -5.5 versus Cam Ward and the Titans!
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