HOUSTON — For the first time in their 16 years, the Houston Texans approach a football season thinking they’re contending for the Super Bowl. Never mind they were 4-12 last season. For most of that they were without their magical dual-threat quarterback, Deshaun Watson, and three-time Defensive Player of the Year J.J. Watt.

Both Watt and Watson are healthy, as is another frequently injured Texan star, Whitney Mercilus.   Along those lines, Jadeveon Clowney is close, almost ready for full pads at West Virginia’s Greenbrier resort.

While this city swelters with a heat index approaching Mercury, the local pro football team is basking in the breezes of the Allegheny Mountains, temperatures topping out in the 70s.

Greenbrier was once a favored vacation retreat for presidents. It’s been famous for two centuries as a spa with sulphur springs. Perfect for soothing athletes’ aching muscles.

There’s also a PGA Tour golf course. And a casino that probably will be taking football bets in September. I’m guessing the Greenbrier is as opposite as you can get from what The Junction Boys of Bear Bryant endured in 1956.

Early reports indicate the Texans may be a little giddy in the fresh mountain air. DeAndre Hopkins, who’s never been called a diva, declared himself “the best receiver in the NFL.”

And if you’re talking best connections, it won’t be Big Ben-to A.B. or Ryan-to-Julio. At least not for long. Step aside for Deshaun-to-DeHop: “I expect us to be the best duo in the NFL, honestly.”

The sample size for the DeHop Duo is only 7 games. But the athleticism and grit of the Watson Texans justified a touch of swagger. And it may be a good thing. Overconfidence can be fatal to a football team, but underconfidence always is. The Texans haven’t had any sort of swagger since 2015 when Watt chortled about turning “the Red Rifle into a BB gun.”

Watt, who in those days was quite the trash talker (“None of you guys can block ME”) is more subdued now, after missing all but eight games of the past 32.  Not to say he’s media-shy. Last week he posted a photo on Twitter of, presumably, his bulging torso. And the comment: @JJWatt: “People are talking about this.”

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Though he can be annoyingly flippant, no one is more passionate about his profession and his team and his community than Watt, who totally deserved his NFL Man of the Year award. Here’s hoping that at 29 the workaholic athlete has figured out how to preserve his bones, how far to push, when to ease off.

The city dreams that Watt, Clowney and Mercilus link up for the most torrid inside-outside pass rush the sport has ever seen. If, if, if all of them are healthy for an entire season, the dream has a chance to become real.

Las Vegas doesn’t see the Texans as a hopeless long shot. OddsShark rates Houston and New Orleans tied with the seventh-best chance to win the Super Bowl – ahead of Atlanta.

New Orleans, by the way, was the first NFL team to train at Greenbrier, in 2014. Saints coach Sean Payton praised it for its ideal weather and its remote location — far from large cities where players might find distraction.

But training camp in paradise has not merged into championship football.   After three straight 7-9s, Payton decided on a change of scenery, even scenery as pleasing as this.

So last year the door to Greenbrier opened for the Texans.   They got their bodies fit and minds focused, an exception being the coach, who broke camp thinking Tom Savage was a better quarterback than Deshaun Watson.

This time they know who their quarterback is, the one who put up 33 points in New England and lost by 3. The Texans are surely better this year, though Hopkins cannot be expected to catch 13 touchdowns again. Houston counts on the Patriots being not as good without Danny Amendola, Dion Lewis, Nate Solder, Malcolm Butler and defensive coordinator Matt Patricia.

So it was not encouraging that Clowney, six months after routine arthroscopic knee surgery, opened camp pedaling a stationary bike and giving no projection on when he might be capable of a full workout. “JD is in rehab mode,” coach Bill O’Brien said, trying not to appear judgmental.

Clowney is in the final year of his rookie deal and will earn $12.3 million. He’s well-liked in the city— fans talk of him being approachable, friendly and funny.   But the Texans do not want to extend him unless he shows more durability.

For the most part, the fan base seems optimistic that Clowney, who’s never been known as a workout warrior, will play harder than he ever has when the real season begins and free-agency multimillions are near his grasp.

The giddiness in the blue-green mountains is apparent on the local sports talk shows. There’s much chatter about the Texans having “the No. 1 defense in the league” and being a season-opening bargain at +6 ½ at New England.

I think the spread should be a couple of points lower, but the Texans have weaknesses that Bill Belichick will exploit. For example: the offensive line.

Pro Football Focus calls it “one of the worst offensive lines that we’ve seen in the PFF era.”

A blocking tight end could help here, but the Texans have none of those, with C.J. Fiedorowicz retiring at 26 after his fourth concussion.

There’s no one to defend New England’s All-Pro tight end, 6-foot-6, 260-pound Rob Gronkowski. Houston’s prized free-agent signing, Tyrann Matthieu, is a playmaking strong safety, but there’s only so much he can do at 5-9, 185 pounds, and it doesn’t include blanketing Gronk. The Texans have no linebackers who excel at coverage, and that includes Clowney.

And is O’Brien any sort of match for his mentor? O’Brien refuses to hire an offensive coordinator, so at times – the most important times – he’s overwhelmed by his responsibilities on the sidelines. Belichick delegates while O’Brien micromanages.

And I’m also wondering if there’s a Curse of Greenbrier. After giving up West Virginia, the Saints trained in sultry Louisiana a year ago and they went 11-5 and came within a Minnesota Miracle of playing for the NFC Championship. The Texans in 2016 camped at home and made the playoffs at 9-7, considerably better than they achieved last year after their bucolic prelude.

Greenbrier may be perfect for relaxation, and we can appreciate the West Virginia taxpayers contributing $25 million to build the most modern NFL facility. But I’m not sure it’s the best conditioner for an NFL season. The Bear went a bit far, as he later admitted, but I think the Texans would be better sweating a little more, like the rest of us.