The AFC South champions of just a season ago, the Houston Texans, will kickoff their preseason exploits with a road game against the Minnesota Vikings at America Field Friday night at 9:00 pm ET.

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Via Pregame.com:

The Texans have ruled the AFC South roost the last two seasons, winning the division with 10-6 and 12-4 records. Almost everyone is expecting more of the same this season with the Colts being the only division opponent seemingly capable of presenting a challenge to Houston.

On the subject of challenges, few teams have done so opposite Houston in the preseason, not on Gary Kubiak's watch anyway. Kubiak is 16-12 overall and 16-9-3 against the spread in the preseason with the Texans.

Houston performed extremely well in last year's exhibition slate, earning 26-13, 20-9, and 28-24 wins over Carolina, San Francisco, and Minnesota, respectively. The Texans lone preseason loss came in a week three meeting with the Saints in New Orleans (27-34).

Houston may be a bit short handed this evening, though. Sam Montgomery, Brandon Harris, Wade Smith, Ben Tate, Whitney Mercilus, and J.J. Watt are all on the injury report and Arian Foster yet to even participate in training camp due to a right calf strain.

Minnesota has a few injuries of its own with Desmond Bishop, Xavier Rhodes, and Jared Allen all dealing with various ailments. Nonetheless, it does not seem likely that any of those players, with the exception of Rhodes, would have played all that much this evening.  

The Vikings are 3-5 in exhibition play with Leslie Frazier as head coach. Last year they were 1-3 in the preseason, losing to the Niners and Chargers in addition to the aforementioned loss to the Texans.