Too good to be true? There for the taking

This felt impossible in September.

And if the Texans were 100 percent honest with you, they would admit this was not even in the back of their minds when the team buses pulled up to The Greenbrier for training camp in West Virginia.

A first-round bye and a guaranteed home divisional-round game in the playoffs? Really???

Get real.

But here we are as Christmas Day approaches and a crazy 2018 draws to a close. And for the first time in franchise history, Houston’s NFL team has a shot to do something special: Capitalize on opportunity.

“(I) won’t make any assertions as it relates to (this being a playoff team),” new general manager Brian Gaine said July 25, before training camp began in the mountains. “My hope is we play to the best of our abilities and let the results come from that.

“But you have to earn the right to win, and that’s something that Bill (O’Brien) and I have talked about with our players — you have to earn the right to win. We’re going to work on doing that on a weekly basis.”

The once 0-3 Texans have earned this opportunity.

But can they finally cash it in? That, increasingly proud believers and lingering skeptics, is the huge Q that hovers above.

Gary Kubiak’s team faltered, then failed down the stretch in

2012. The best Texans team of all-time (12-4 after an 11-1 start) felt more and more vulnerable as January approached. New England also was in the middle of its dynasty, which made the season’s final outcome — Patriots 41-28 in the second round — a formality.

Thursday, the 2018 Texans received another late-season boost. Troubled New England wideout Josh Gordon announced he was leaving football again, at the same time that it was reported the NFL was on the verge of suspending Gordon indefinitely.

The Patriots are 9-5, have dropped back-to-back games, and Tom Brady is blowing it in the red zone. Now, they’ve lost their No. 1 wide receiver.

The Texans are 10-4, have an inside track at the AFC’s No. 2 playoff seed and have won 10 of their last 11 contests, thanks to Deshaun Watson’s lategame magic.

The times they are a changing?

“Everything you want is in front of you and it’s up to you to do it. You wouldn’t want that any other way,” said defensive lineman D.J. Reader, who played his butt off Saturday during a gritty road win over the New York Jets. “As long as you can control it, that’s the best thing. You’re not worried about anybody else. As long as you go out there and take care of business, you’ve got it.”

Rest and relevance

Teams that finish 9-7 and barely make the playoffs don’t TCB.

But a team that earns a first-round bye, is rewarded with an extra week of much-needed rest, then hosts its first divisional game? That would mark franchise history for the Texans, who previously were forced to play all three of their secondround playoff contests away from NRG Stadium.

For years, O’Brien has preached the importance of being relevant at Thanksgiving. Stay in the hunt, start trending upward as December approaches, discover the identity of your team and hammer the vision home in time for the playoffs.

That’s how the Texans reached the divisional round in 2016 while being led by Brock Osweiler and Tom Savage. That’s how O’Brien’s crew played the Patriots tight for three-plus quarters at New England in the second round, before being undone by the overly priced QB who eventually led them to Watson.

“You can’t ride the wave. You have to try the best you can to stay steady,” O’Brien said. “I think it’s good that we’ve won a lot of close games. I think we have a team that plays very hard, plays with good effort. We have a team that plays together.

“It hasn’t always been pretty. But we’ve been able to come out on the winning end more than the losing end, and that’s important. We have a steady team — a team that really believes in one another. I think that’s where you want to be around Christmastime. You want to be in the hunt, and we’re obviously in the hunt.”

Golden opportunity

These Texans can be better than that.

New England is vulnerable. Kansas City is 11-3 but now living without star running back Kareem Hunt. San Diego is 11-3 but in second place in the AFC West, thanks to the Chiefs.

The Texans are a game up with two to go. They also have DeAndre Hopkins, J.J. Watt, Jadeveon Clowney and Watson.

In Philadelphia, they’ll play a 7-7 team again relying on its backup quarterback. Then, it’s awful Jacksonville to close out the regular season at NRG.

This is the best chance the Texans have had to do something real when it matters. They have a QB who was born to win.

Do you believe?