NFL Week 4 - The Houston Texans look like they belong in some upstart minor league. They're coached by a relic from the turn of the 21st century. Their quarterback is an overpromoted clipboard jockey. Their roster is full of veterans with "so
that's where he ended up" name recognition. Everything about the Texans screams USFL. For the second year in a row.
The 0-2-1 Texans are now the favorites to end up with the first overall pick in the 2023 draft
according to our Football Outsiders playoff odds simulations. Yet they are also just a few plays away from being 3-0. They would have beaten the Chicago Bears in Week 3 if not for a goal-line Davis Mills interception, settling for a 23-yard field goal, and other scattered miscues in a 23-20 loss. They might have beaten the Denver Broncos in Week 2 if they punched in a touchdown from first-and-goal from the 4-yard line. And the Texans could have beaten the Colts a dozen different ways when they held a 20-3 fourth-quarter lead in the season-opener that ended in a tie.
We can pull the ol' "a play here and a play there" routine with most NFL teams right now. The point is not that the Texans are secretly good, simply that they are not as bad as their record, and it's time to come up with an improvement plan to make them better.
That's right folks: TankWatch is back!
TankWatch: Houston Texans
The Texans Story So Far: After appointing Lovie Smith as a placeholder coach for an organization incapable of making up its mind, the Texans successfully sparked an offseason bidding war for Deshaun Watson's services. It was like some minor comic book villain getting Lex Luthor and Brainiac to out-bid each other for a lump of Kryptonite, and it worked: the Texans pried three first-round picks and change from the Cleveland Browns. The team then added a deep and promising draft class headlined by cornerback Derek Stingley to a Nick Caserio-built roster of bargain-bin veterans
The results so far? A team just good enough to lose.
What's Going Right? A few things:
- The draft class looks great. Safety Jalen Pitre intercepted two passes and recorded a sack against the Bears. Running back Dameon "Three Pitbulls" Pierce has become a fantasy favorite and folk hero with his Beast Mode rushing style. Stingley is having a typical early season for a rookie cornerback: some penalties and mistakes, but plenty of opportunities to flash his ability to stick with top receivers. Guard Kenyon Green is holding his own as a starter.
- Caserio's latest batch of stopgap veterans, headlined by Jerry Hughes, is also playing rather well. O.J. Howard caught two touchdown passes in the season-opener. Steven Nelson has been fine opposite Stingley.
- Lovie Smith's beard looks like freshly fallen snow on a cedar grove at sunset.
- Everything looks professional. The Texans no longer feel like a sidebar project to help team vizier Jack Easterby sell Christian comedy improv videos. That's remarkable after a winter in which Easterby tried his darndest to promote Josh McCown from backup quarterback to head coach.
What's Going Wrong? Of course there's a lot here:
- The run defense is pitiful. The Texans rank 30th in run defensive DVOA. The Bears (admittedly an excellent rushing team) gashed them with runs/scrambles of 52, 41, 29, and 19 yards in Week 3.
- The Texans goal-to-go offense ranks 31st in DVOA, ahead of only the Denver Fumbles and Field Goals Club. Davis double-clutched before throwing an interception into the end zone against the Bears. Pierce is a bruiser, but he's also a fumble-prone rookie, and opponents know what's coming when he lines up in an I-formation at the goal line.
- Everything is too conservative. Smith kept his safeties deep for the entire Colts comeback, even when Frank Reich countered by running Jonathan Taylor late in the fourth quarter. Pep Hamilton's offense is content to run Pierce and Rex Burkhead into the ground while trying to open up the middle of the field for Mills. There are moments of flair, like a fake punt against the Bears, but the Texans play every week like they are trying not to lose.
- Mills is a creaky journeyman veteran disguised as a second-year prospect: a less mistake-prone Mike Glennon. He'll limit anything the Texans try to do offensively.
What Needs to be Done? We're not going to pretend the McNair family will sell the team or Easterby will leave to to start a TikTok ministry. So let's propose some solutions from within the McNair/Easterby Cinematic Universe.
- The Texans must determine what they want to be. The Texans only promoted Smith because they spent so much time flirting with McCown that they were about to get pulled over for driving 120 mph past the Rooney Rule. The Texans will move on from Lovie in the offseason, and that will be an opportunity to finally establish a post-Deshaun/J.J. Watt/Bill O'Brien identity. Will they seek a Mini McVay? Someone from the Andy Reid tree? A college hotshot? A defensive coach? Some of those choices sound sketchy, but failure to choose would be the worst choice of all.
- The Texans must plan to draft a quarterback. Giving Mills an extended 2022 audition is fine; there's a slim chance that he will develop into more than a bottom-quartile starter. But with two first-round picks in 2023, and their own pick likely to be high, the Texans must position themselves as major players in the Bryce Young/C.J. Stroud sweepstakes.
- The Texans must establish a core. There's not much young talent behind this year's rookies and some stray Nico Collins types. The Texans must spend 2022 developing their Stingley/Pitre/Pierce building blocks while trying to find other players under 24 who can grow alongside them. That may mean phasing out some Hughes/Nelson/Desmond King/Christian Kirksey types as the season wears on. That won't be a popular decision among Caserio (the NFL's greatest secret shopper), Lovie (veterans are safe), or Easterby (he's heard of those guys!), but someone's gotta make the call.
- Create a coherent cap plan. The Texans have $49 million in 2023 cap space: not bad, but not outstanding for a last-place team with no A-tier veteran stars. Much of their 2023 cap space is tied up in left tackle Laremy Tunsil ($35 million) and Brandin Cooks ($26.6 million). That's fine—they are two of the Texans' best players, and both could prove invaluable when developing a real quarterback prospect—but all those AAA-affiliate veterans are nickel-and-diming away the Texans' future budget. Caserio should switch philosophies from spackling together the roster with veterans to embracing a youth movement and saving money for future tactical free-agent strikes. Again: an unpopular change in Houston which must occur.
How Bad are the Texans? DVOA ranks them as the
second-best team in the AFC South through three games! Of course, even the world's biggest Colts skeptic (me) thinks Matt Ryan and company will figure things out to a degree, and Mike Vrabel could take the field with his arms and legs cut off and win a few Titans games. But the Texans are mediocre by design, and they need to take a long look at the early-season jolt the Jaguars are enjoying. The climb from laughingstock to credibility does not need to be that long. The Texans just need to stop snoozing through gap years.
What's Next for the Texans? They host the Chargers, who are so injury-crippled that Texans +4.5 looks tasty. Then they visit the Jaguars, who may be huffing a little helium right now. For self-esteem purposes, the Texans need to split that series. For draft position purposes? Their lay-low-and-lose-late tactics are working just fine.