Every era has a defense that gets talked about like folklore — the 2002 Bucs, the 2013 Legion of Boom, the mid-2000s Ravens, the 2019 Patriots. The 2025 Houston Texans don't quite belong in that conversation but it's worth examining the metrics behind their pass defense ranks inside the top-10 since 2000.

A top-10 pass defense since 2000

Houston allowed -0.217 EPA/play against the pass in 2025. Sort every team-season since 2000 by pass defense EPA/play and the Texans rank 10th. The nine defenses in front of them:

That's the Sapp-Lynch Bucs, the Belichick-era Patriots, the Legion of Boom, and more. Then Houston.

And a top-20 defense, full stop

It's not just the pass game. Houston's overall defense allowed -0.161 EPA/play in 2025, which ranks 19th of the same 830 team-seasons since 2000. The all-time top of that list is a highlight reel: the 2000 Ravens (-0.263), 2002 Bucs (-0.252), 2008 and 2006 Ravens (-0.235, -0.234) to name a few. Within 2025, Houston also ranks 1st in the league in overall defensive EPA/play and 2nd in run EPA/play allowed (-0.077).

The five-year climb

The eye-popping part is that this isn't "always been good." Houston's defensive EPA/play, by season:

In 2020, Houston's defense was among the league's worst on a per-play basis. Five years later it ended up the best. The jump from 2024 to 2025 alone is notable.

Where the pressure shows up

Break Houston's pass defense down by throw depth, 2024 vs. 2025, and the source of the improvement is obvious:

Houston is crushing everything at or near the line of scrimmage. Short throw flipped from a giveaway (+0.016) to a genuine win for the defense (-0.123), even though completion percentage on those throws barely moved (67.5% in 2024 to 63.3% in 2025) — a sign the gain is coming from what happens after the catch.

"Great pass defense" doesn't have to mean "great everywhere" — Houston has essentially dared teams to throw underneath and then made that unprofitable, while conceding more on the shots that get through.

The lonely part: the offense

Now the awkward number. Houston's offense in 2025 sits at -0.031 EPA/play, which ranks 24th of 32 — bottom-half, closer to the Falcons (-0.022) and Chargers (-0.035) than to anyone contending for the AFC. The pass game specifically is closer to average — -0.001 EPA/play, good for 16th — so the offensive drag is broader than just the passing attack.

That's what makes this defense's ranking so unusual: several of the historically great defenses sitting above Houston on the all-time list — the 2000 Ravens, 2002 Bucs, 2019 Patriots, 2013 Seahawks — are also remembered as much for the modest offenses they carried as for their own numbers. Houston's 2025 defense already keeps that kind of company on the leaderboard.

If the offense finds even league-average production, this is a genuine title-caliber team by the numbers.