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The dust has settled at Reliant Stadium after the first preseason game ended in a disappointing loss. Houston was beat by the Los Angeles Chargers 27-7. After the frustrating loss, it was easy to slip into a frustrating spiral of worry and exasperation. All the hype and excitement of football being back escaped immediately. With that, I asked the writers of the Battle Red Blog for their hot takes on the Texans first preseason game of the 2026 slate. Groupthink: Over-reactions to Texans’ preseason loss One preseason game in, and it’s already time to panic. The Houston Texans were drubbed in the second half of their first preseason game against the LA Chargers. Give me your over-reactions to this game Going to go first since these are super fresh. First, I don’t care what string was out there, without Nico Collins this offense is a bottom five team in the league. After three full rebuilds of the offensive line they still can’t block anything. The ROI for this offensive line has to be the worst in the league. Second and more specifically, Blake Fisher could be the biggest bust in franchise history. At least Kenyon Green started games. Fisher looked overwhelmed by third stringers. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s cut and the Texans sign a free agent or another team’s cut tackle. He looked faster than before, but was overpowered in pass protection and led to multipe errant throws by Mills. Third, the CB4 role is still very much up for grabs. The options were Alijah Huzzie, Tremon Smith, and Collin Wright. None of which played well today. Wright was picked on by Trey Lance. Huzzie looked slow and was at the point of inflection for two TDs. Tremon Smith is actually slow and can only play off coverage. Not an exciting night by our vaunted secondary. First preseason game, so any analysis could and should be taken with a massive amount of salt. Be that as it may, the game came across as your standard acme first preseason game. Interesting to see the 1st team oline open the game, but that is a good thing. Defense seems to have decent depth, even if it was mainly against the Chargers 2-4th string. The short yardage struggles were not cool, and it would appear that Houston might need at least another arm to get through camp/preseason. otherwise, a loss that means…nothing. At least the regular season is that much closer. Hard to overreact but we do get a new third string quarterback so let’s start the Marcus Mariota to Houston rumors. It was disappointing to see so many short yardage failures but otherwise it’s a nothing burger. Overall, I’m pretty happy with how the defensive rookies and how some of the young DBs looked, but I’m disappointed with how many pressures the offensive line gave up in the second half. It’s not all of their fault, but I wasn’t happy to see some of the pressures that Sam Hagen, Jarrett Patterson, and Blake Fisher appeared to give up. Also, this goes without saying, but I was really disappointed to see Graham Mertz go down. I know he’s a sixth-round QB that ideally won’t ever see the field during the regular season, but it would have been nice to get a full preseason look at him in his second year with the Texans. Davis Mills may not be here for much longer, and this season could have been the chance for us to see if Graham Mertz could be his heir apparent, and now that’s gone. As for the good, I thought the starting offensive line looked solid, and both Josh Kelly and Jared Wayne stood out more than I expected. Merlin Klein also looked like a good receiver and blocker in the few snaps he was out there, hopefully Brevin Jordan will be out there next week. I was also happy with how both Jaylen Reed and Kamari Ramsey looked. I’m still a little nervous about the CBs’ depth behind Stingley and Lassiter, which will likely be made up of players like Jaylin Smith, Tremon Smith, and/or Collin Wright, but it’s at least better than it was last year…I think. Was hoping for a big game from Solomon Byrd, and got some highlight plays from him, but was, as he often is during his preseason games, a mixed bag. In fact, I think that describes this game pretty well, overall. At the risk of sounding like jaded old guy, I’m pretty out on these preseason games nowadays. They just feel like glorified joint-practices used as cash grabs. You can say Davis Mills didn’t look great and Graham looked worse, but neither had the benefit of a starting O-Line or solid chemistry with the other 10 guys on the field. Blah. Wake me when the season starts… I’m older than all you guys. I’m the only one allowed to cry old, but I can’t disagree with this. The fear of injuries is so great that it doesn’t make financial sense to play starters. Yet, I don’t see any better way to shake the rust off. It’s a real catch 22. To echo the sentiments of the old guys, as a near-old, it’s hard to really get much of a feel on anything except how good you should feel about your backups. Given how much the backups struggled against the Chargers, it’s not a great sign. But it’s also the first game. A single data point does not a correlation make, and to be honest if we get to a point in the season where any of these guys are playing at all, we’ve got bigger problems than our lack of depth. I’ll feel like I know more, both about the starters and the backups, with Thursday’s game against Las Vegas. But with the data we have, the starters looked kinda good the backups looked kinda bad, not a whole lot more to glean beyond that. 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