10. Houston Texans
You can’t overreact to one game, but the Houston Texans’ win against the Arizona Cardinals was one of their most impressive overall wins of the season. Even taking the opponent into consideration, we just haven’t seen Houston play this kind of dominant football for most of the year. You have to go back to October 26 for the last time the Texans won a game by more than a score. Even though they’ve been one of the hottest teams in the league over the past couple of months, they were able to maybe build a little bit more confidence offensively in this game than in previous weeks.
Houston has a real shot to go from starting the year 0-3 to winning their division. They probably have the best defense in the NFL right now, and a scary one that can rush the quarterback and play suffocating coverage on the back end.
9. Chicago Bears
The Chicago Bears were one of a number of teams that just went out on Sunday and absolutely cleaned up against their opponent. The 1:00 PM window was loaded with lopsided matchups, apparently, and the Bears got back on track after their annoying loss last week to the Packers.
And I say annoying because they kind of had a great chance to finish the comeback at the end, and couldn’t make it happen. Now, they’re going to get a chance at redemption in Week 16 with a home game against the Packers and another chance to push for an NFC North title.
That Browns defense is obviously no joke, but the Bears didn’t let Shedeur Sanders really get anything going at all. In fact, they didn’t really let the Browns’ offense, as a whole, get anything going. Even when Cleveland got close to scoring, that Chicago defense did what it’s done all year and took the ball away. This team is going to be so interesting in the postseason for two reasons: They can run the ball, and they can create takeaways in bunches.