The 49ers and Texans are just mid, and people need to accept it

Once favorites to win their conferences, both San Francisco and Houston look weak as hell.

A few months in the NFL makes a world of difference. Just ask the 49ers and Texans. Once sweetheart picks to win their respective conferences, now we’re left with two hollow husks of what could have been — proving that hope in football is a fleeting, fool’s errand.

San Francisco and Houston are in very different positions this season. The Texans are 7-5, on pace to win the NFL’s most pathetic division in the AFC South. Meanwhile the Niners are 5-6, tied for last place in the NFC West, getting beat by two teams in the Seahawks and Cardinals who are in the process of ushering in new eras at head coach. Despite the difference in fates in 2024, both had a similar result on Sunday. The 49ers were decimated by the Packers, a team that should clearly beat, while the Texans found a way to lose to the hapless Titans, an organization they should dominate.

There are plenty of excuses you can make for either the 49ers or Texans, but truthfully, neither deserves them. Sure, key injuries have affected their campaigns, and unpredictable performances from star players might make fans feel better about their struggles, but these are two teams who are clearly regressing at the time they should have a stranglehold on their divisions.

Is it time to talk a little about C.J. Stroud? I think it might be. For as much gushing love as he garners from a lot of football writers and pundits there’s no denying that the Texans’ QB has been utter ass over the last four weeks. In fact, this has been a low-key issue for Stroud all season with mammoth games against bad opponents masking that he’s been an incredibly average quarterback during his sophomore season the second he sees half-decent competition.

Stroud’s splits against opponents in 2024 who are over .500 and sub .500 is eye opening.

• vs. sub .500 opponents (8 games): 173-for-273 (63%), 2,011 yards, 11 TD, 4 INT — 92.91 passer rating
• vs. over .500 opponents (4 games) 77-for-123 (62%), 864 yards, 3 TD, 5 INT — 74.71 passer rating

If you want to be confident about this then more power to you, but it’s undeniable that we have a trend here where Stroud simply doesn’t make explosive plays against good opponents. This is exacerbated by the fact that the Texans can’t run the ball effectively and are routinely forced to ask Stroud to bail them out — which more often than not he hasn’t been able to do.

This is a team who feels destined to make the playoffs (easily) because the AFC South is terrible, then get bounced in the Wild Card Round, at which point everyone wonders what went wrong, when in reality they were just mid all along.

Then there’s the San Francisco 49ers. Offensively the team has been ... fine? The problem is that “fine” isn’t good enough. The biggest issue for this Niners team is that they have no heart on defense anymore. Once the hallmark of this franchise, now the team is ready to be dog walked by any team in the league with a half-decent offensive unit.

San Francisco rank 20th in the NFL in points allowed per game at 23.63, which has been a monumental drop from their 3rd ranked 17.5 a year ago. This team is almost allowing a full touchdown extra every game, while seeing their scoring drop 4.0 points a game on offense.

That combined 10-point spread has been the difference between a 12-5 team a year ago that felt Super Bowl bound, and struggling to even stay in contention this year. Sure, the absence of Christian McCaffrey has been a big part of the offensive struggles of this football team, but it doesn’t justify why the secondary has been so piss-poor this season.

The key problem with this 49ers team is it feels like everyone is ready to punt on the season from Kyle Shanahan on down. There’s no real fight, no hard-edge to this team, no desire to fight from behind and claw their way back into contention. Rather it feels like everyone in this organization is ready and willing to use their injuries as excuses and live to fight in 2025. That kind of attitude can fester and become endemic of an organization, and Shanahan seems incapable of stopping it.

In recent years the 49ers never would have been blown out 38-10 by a Packers team simply because Brock Purdy and Nick Bosa were out. They would have at least found a way to keep things competitive, with the chips the shoulders of rotational player being more than big enough to fill the void. Now, well, San Francisco is just going through the motions.

This is a team who knows their last games will likely be too difficult to win, so they’re looking to expedite their vacation. It’s a damn shame, and fans deserve better.

Winner: Everything about the Denver Broncos

I’ll be the first to admit I was dead wrong about this team. The personnel changes, the wild turnover from year-to-year — it all felt like Denver was turning into Sean Payton’s vanity project at the expense of becoming a solid foundational football team.

Now, well, they might just be the best team in the AFC West — and a soft back-end of the schedule could see their January 5th matchup with the Chiefs determining if they can win the division.

Bo Nix is far from a perfect quarterback, but damn if he’s not the perfect Sean Payton quarterback. The rookie is absorbing his coach’s messaging like a sponge, and playing like an absolute star inside Payton’s system, a variant of the Coryell — which has largely fallen out of favor with much of the league.

While most teams are struggling to pass this season, the Broncos are living and thriving off their downfield game. With an average depth of target (aDOT) of 7.7, Nix hovers around the top of the league, and he’s converting on these downs by quickly developing a rapport with Cortland Sutton.

Meanwhile the Broncos’ defense speaks for itself. They’re aggressive, they’re diverse, a team that doesn’t allow big plays in any phase of the game. They’re custom built a lot like the Saints defenses of the past under Payton, which in turn allowed Drew Brees to play such free football without a lot of pressure to make every pass count, which in turn gave him the freedom to let it rip.

What we’ve see in 2024 is how much football has become a game of explosive plays. Right now the Broncos generate infinitely more than they give up, and it’s turned them into a beast.

Loser: Antonio Pearce

We can’t talk about the Broncos without also discussing the team they decimated. Again, I’ll admit that I was wrong here — because I loved the Antonio Pearce hiring in the offseason as being so sound, so fundamentally un-Raiders that it had to bring good things.

Now we’re three months into the season it appears that Pearce is utterly overwhelmed in this job. The pressure of taking a destitute interim team was nothing compared with a weight of expectations, and all the “good vibes” from players can’t turn this mess around.

I don’t know if there’s a single person in that front office who understands how to win an NFL football game. Not one. Not really. The Raiders play a paralyzingly old school West Coast offense with no modern wrinkles. They suck on defense. Everything is bad.

There’s always 2025.

Winner: Bryce Young’s transformation

It’s so rare to see a young quarterback take a benching the way Bryce Young did in Carolina and fight his way back to become a totally different guy. My understanding is that a lot was happening off the field for Bryce in the leadup to the season, but that doesn’t change how different he’s looked since regaining the starting role.

In four weeks since returning to as starting QB the stats speak for themselves:

76-for-123 (61.7%), 784 yards, 5 TD, 3 INT — 83.52 passer rating

That’s not going to blow anyone away, but if you’ve watched Bryce play you know two of those INTs came on wild defensive plays against the Broncos, which weren’t really on him — and he’s still been relying on a less-than-ideal WR unit that’s rich in youth and in dire straits with experience.

Young’s best game as a pro game against the Chiefs on Sunday, and more particularly a really good Kansas City pass defense. At no point did the game seem too big for him, and when the dust settled, he was getting props from Patrick Mahomes.

Meanwhile Andy Reid said that Young “was the right pick” in 2023, which is wild considering the amount of criticism that decision has faced. We might be a long way from seeing Bryce become a top-tier QB, but the foundation is being laid.

Loser: Minnesota Vikings

Call me a traditionalist, but giving up 17 points in the fourth quarter to a 4-6 team and needing overtime to beat them doesn’t scream “elite” to me. Sure, Minnesota is 9-2 in the standings and deserve their props, but this team is looking very, very weak down the stretch.

The Vikings haven’t won a game by more than a single score since September 22nd against the Texans. Outside of that they’ve been marred by close wins over the likes of Jacksonville, the Jets, and now the Bears.

If you want to ignore the glaring issues this team is having with Sam Darnold taking a step back and teams figuring out how to attack Brian Flores’ defense, then fine. Just don’t expect me to join you.

Winner: The Detroit-freaking-Lions

Until I’m given reason to think otherwise the Lions will get their props every single week. This team is so aggressive on both sides of the ball, but more importantly find ways to support each other better than any organization in football.

On Sunday we saw Jared Goff play decent, but not spectacular football at quarterback. It didn’t matter though, because the Lions' running game was ready to step up and fill the void. Meanwhile the defense just smothers its opponents and never allows them to find a rhythm.

There’s something so special about this team in a way no other organization in the NFL has right now. They are custom built to thrive in the playoffs unlike any other, and right now it feels impossible to imagine a Super Bowl without them in it.