Coming off the first playoff appearance, division title and playoff win in franchise history, the Texans are hot right now.
The hype around of Texans is evident in the SB Nation Power Rankings, which list the Texans at No. 5 as training camps get underway. The order was determined by ballots for all 32 SB Nation NFL bloggers with the rankings averaged out.
SB Nation's Texans blog, Battle Red Blog, is wary, given the departed players, but still expects the Texans to make a run for the playoffs again.
Coming off the first successful season in franchise history, the Texans saw 40 percent of their starting OL (Winston and Brisiel), one of their starting LBs (DeMeco Ryans) and one of the most physically gifted players in all of football (Mario Williams) depart. Oh, and their starting QB is coming off a season-ending injury. Not exactly a recipe for smooth sailing, but the Texans still boast plenty of talent, the offensive genius of Gary Kubiak, the defensive wizardry of Wade Phillips, and a division that isn't as stout as it was a couple of years ago. I like Houston's chances to make postseason noise yet again.
Read more on the Texans at the Battle Red Blog and SB Nation Houston.