The confusion over the Texans' magic number is because if Houston doesn't win both games and Indy beats the Titans next week, they can finish tied in record, with a head-to-head split, tied division record, tied common opponents record and tied in conference record. That pushes the division title to the Strength of Victory tiebreaker.

 

Both Colts and Texans defeated Titans, Jags, Bucs and each other (since this metric only matters if the teams finish with the same record, they cancel each other out) so those games can be ignored.

 

The Texans have defeated: Bengals + Jets + Saints ... for a total of 25 opponent wins (or 26 if the Saints win Monday night)

The Colts have defeated: Broncos + Falcons ... for a total of 17 opponent wins (you can safely add either 3 wins for Titans or 5 for Dolphins in - because this tiebreaker is irrelevant if Indy loses both games to finish 6-10)

 

So the Texans currently have a 3 to 6 game lead in Strength of Victory. Mathematically this can be reversed, so when you look at the official NFL clinching scenarios, an Indy loss is required ... but as things sit right now, the Texans would win the tiebreak. The big question here is whether it ends up on the 3-game side or the 6-game side. To swing 6 games, Indy needs ALL of Broncos-over-Bengals (counts 2), Falcons-over-Saints (counts 2), Titans-over-Texans and Falcons-over-Panthers ... good luck on that last one. 

 

Any Houston win eliminates the Jaguars (via 4-2 vs 3-3 division records).

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