I still think a good passing team could carve us up, unless our front 7 continues to dominate....
I think our oline (in turn our run game) is a major question mark. Foster seems to be able to hold his own, but there is a noticeable difference from last season. The right side is a disaster still.
Bradie James is terrible.
Our special teams needs to get a few guys back then prove the pre-season was legit.
Texans weaknesses:
Salary cap
Bradie James
T Holliday
Right tackle (I think the future rg is on the roster now and will improve enough to be considered a solid player/strength)
Goal line offense play calling
Is Earl Mitchell a solid nose tackle if cody goes down? (Nt depth)
Finally, we are the hunted instead of the hunter.
From a couple of other threads:
Texans averaged 0.51 yards off LT (ranked 31st) and 4.73 off RT (ranked 10th).
http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ol
It's not clear how the players were involved, but the difference is big enough to at least show that Newton has been effective in the run game.
I've been saying that there were more poor running plays to the left side and it seems like quite a few people didn't want to believe me.
Also, look at the last table where it shows we ran 6% of the time off LT and 10% of the time off RT.
They did not break down the runs off RG and LG, so on that part, we don't have separate numbers.
....
There are only 10 teams that allowed fewer QB hits and sacks combined than the Texans.
We allowed 3 sacks and 11 hits (for a total of 14).
Of those 10 teams, 3 allowed 13, 2 allowed 12, 2 allowed 11, and 2 allowed 10.
Buffalo is leading with just 5 QB Hits and zero sack.
I don't know how many of those QB Hits were due to a blitz where the QB did not have enough men to block, but for the Texans, there were a few times that Schaub decided to take to make a play; ie. there was a free blitzer that Schaub is responsible for.
So it's not like we're weak at protecting the QB as compared to the rest of the league.