The 2012 season was the Houston Texans' 11th in the National Football League (NFL) and their seventh under head coach Gary Kubiak.

The Houston Texans began their 10th anniversary campaign with lofty expectations, with many columnists picking them to represent the AFC in the Super Bowl.

Despite the lofty expectations, the Texans began the season rather flatly, only managing a field goal on offense against a younger, more inexperienced Dolphins team.

However, the game took a stunning turn after the two-minute warning of the first half as the Texans forced three Dolphin turnovers, and quickly converted them into touchdowns to stretch the lead to 24–3 before halftime.

On the first drive, Houston drove 60 yards aided by Tate and took a 3–0 lead on a Shayne Graham 31-yard field goal.

Jacksonville scored in just 2 plays on a Td pass from Blaine Gabbert to running back Maurice-Jones Drew.

Now back and in Denver, Manning came into the game looking to continue his mastery over the Houston Texans franchise.

However, it was Matt Schaub who took control of the game early, throwing 4 touchdown passes, and overcoming a brutal hit where he lost a chunk of his ear.

Despite Chris Johnson breaking out with his first 100+ yard rushing game for the Titans this season, Tennessee was unable to contain a dynamic Texans team, who recorded two touchdowns on defense en route to blowout the former Oilers 38–14.

The Texans were able to keep the Jets at bay just enough to earn a hard-fought win on the road, and improve to 5–0, remaining one of only two teams undefeated in the NFL to this point along with the Atlanta Falcons.

The Texans came into their first ever appearance on Sunday Night Football facing playoff favorites Green Bay, who had shockingly started the season 2–3, one of those losses ending in controversy.

And coming off another disappointing loss to Indianapolis the week before, the Green Bay Packers took out all of their early season frustrations out on the Texans at Reliant Stadium, and at the same time, reestablished themselves as the team to beat in the NFC.

The Texans had little time to think about the disappointing results the week before at home against Green Bay, as the Baltimore Ravens, the team who had eliminated them in the divisional round of the playoffs the previous year, were coming to town.

The Texans rebounded from their worst performance of the year with arguably one of their best as they had limited Baltimore's revitalized offense to just 13, forcing two turnovers in an impressive win going into the bye week.

It was the first time the Texans had ever defeated the Ravens in their franchise history (they had lost the previous six meetings, including the playoff matchup).

Reliant Stadium set a new Texans home attendance record of 71,708 fans during the regular season.

The game marked the anticipated return of former Texans number one draft pick Mario Williams, who had signed a multi-year $100 million contract with the Bills over the offseason, back to Reliant Stadium.

While Williams performed well in his return, the Bills were unable to muster up a touchdown drive over the Texans defense as Houston improved to 7–1 with a 21–9 win.

Despite the conditions, the Texans were able to grind out a 13–6 win on the road to improve to 8–1 on the season, 3–0 overall against the Chicago Bears and 1–1 on Sunday Night Football.

After a hard-fought win in Chicago, and on the cusp of a short turnaround for a Thursday afternoon matchup in Detroit the following week, the 8–1 Texans hosted the 1–8 Jaguars at Reliant.

After defeating the Jaguars at home in overtime, the Texans traveled to Detroit to play in their first ever Thanksgiving Day game.

Shayne Graham would follow suit with a 45-yard FG to tie it at 24, but Detroit would retake the lead early in the 4th quarter with a Joique Bell 23-yard TD run to make the score 31–24.

The Texans took the AFC's best record into Tennessee to face a reeling Titans team, fresh off of firing their offensive coordinator earlier in the week.

With their victory over the Colts, the Texans improved to 12–2 on the season and 5–0 against division rivals, thereby securing their second AFC South title in franchise history.

Because the Patriots dropped to 10–4 several hours later on the same day, the Texans can clinch homefield advantage throughout the playoffs by winning at least one of their two remaining games by virtue of their head-to-head tiebreaker over the Broncos.

Hoping to rebound from a tough loss, the Texans traveled to Indianapolis for game 2 against the Andrew Luck-led Colts.

In somewhat of a sloppy game for both teams, the Texans booted the Cincinnati Bengals out of the playoffs for the 2nd straight year and moved on to the divisional round.

After going up 6–0 on two Shayne Graham field goals to start the game, Matt Schaub threw an interception that was returned for a touchdown to give the Bengals a 7–6 lead.

The Texans were eliminated from the playoffs for the 2nd year in a row in a game reminiscent of the Week 14 matchup against the Patriots.

An intercepted pass that doomed a promising drive and a turnover on downs late in the 3rd quarter put the game out of reach as New England ran away with the score, boasting impressive performances from QB Tom Brady, RBs Stevan Ridley and Shane Vereen, and WR Wes Welker.