Game Preview: Houston Texans
The return of Wilson, can we get that 3rd win of the season? Let's break down the Texans.
🗽 Good morning Jets fans. I hope you were suitably stuffed last night for Thanksgiving and now you can recover today by looking forward to the Jets game. Welcome to the end of the week, which means one thing, preview time.
🏈 There’s a sense of excitement ahead of the Jets game this year, I can feel that electricity coursing through the fanbase. It’s the kind of jolt that only a QB can administer. Zach Wilson is back, and now it’s time to see what he’s learned while he’s been away. The Jets offense is the #1 ranked offense over the last three weeks, and who would have believed you if you’d predicted that when Zach Wilson went down? Or even if you’d predicted it at the start of the year.
The 2-8 Texans stand in our way, fresh off a victory over the 8-3 Tennessee Titans. Who would have thought that Tennessee would lose to both the Jets and Titans in the same year and possess an 8-3 record. Football is a weird and very wonderful game.
🏈 Game Day 🏈
Who: New York Jets @ Houston Texans
Where: NRG Stadium, Houston
When: 6:00 pm EST - Sunday 28th of November.
Head to Head: 8 games, 5 wins, 3 losses
Offensive Ranking:
Points (Jets 28th, Texans 32nd)
Total Yards (Jets 23rd, Texans 32nd)
Passing (Jets 12th, Texans 31st)
Rushing (Jets 30th, Texans 32nd)
Defensive Ranking:
Points (Jets 32nd, Texans 29th)
Total Yards (Jets 31st, Texans 27th)
Passing (Jets 31st, Texans 24th)
Rushing (Jets 28th, Texans 30th)
Turnovers:
Differential (Jets -15, Texans +2)
Defensive Interceptions (Jets 3, Texans 13)
Offensive interceptions (Jets 18, Texans 11)
The Houston Texans Offense
🏈 Gone are the days of the Houston Texans possessing one of the scarier offenses in football. The less said about Deshaun Watson the better, but what they’d give to have a QB that’s capable of putting up the stat line that Watson did last year, 4823 yards and 33 touchdowns. What they’d give to have a receiver like DeAndre Hopkins, a player they traded to Arizona off the back of three consecutive First-Team All-Pro selections.
It’s safe to say the Houston Texans have torn it down, and they’re in the process of building it back up again.
The 2021 Texans offense has been led by veteran Tyrod Taylor and rookie Davis Mills.
Taylor signed a one-year contract with Houston to reunite with his former QB coach from Buffalo in David Culley. Despite being named the opening day starter, Taylor has appeared sparingly for Houston this year due to a hamstring injury that he picked up against Cleveland in week two. After returning in week 9 against Miami, Taylor has struggled to generate much offense over the last two weeks, completing less than 60% of his passes for 0 TD’s and 3 INT’s.
The multi-dimensional play of Taylor is always the cause for concern, he’s just as likely to beat you on the ground if you don’t contain him in the pocket, just like he did against the Titans on his winning TD run. The Jets have a tendency on defense to be a touch sloppy and ill-disciplined, so making Tyrod beat you from the pocket should be a priority for Jeff Ulbrich and the Jets defense.
Looking over the Houston offense, a lack of talent is evident immediately.
Following the trade between the Texans and Saints which sent leading rusher Mark Ingram to New Orleans, Houston is left with veteran David Johnson (3.0 yards per carry) and Rex Burkhead (69 rushing yards) as their main two backs. Phillip Lindsay (2.6 yards a carry) who was with the franchise was waived on Tuesday evening.
In terms of the passing game, Brandin Cooks is still with the Texans and he’s quietly having himself a nice season with 659 yards on 59 receptions. But everything behind him is pretty underwhelming. Chris Conley (233 yards), Nico Collins (200 yards), and TE Jorgan Akins (184 yards). Although Akins was a healthy scratch against Tennessee, the first time that’s ever happened to the veteran. Head coach David Culley decided to go with rookie Brevin Jordan out of Miami who had one catch for 7 yards on the day.
Offensive Coordinator: Tim Kelly
🏈 Kelly has been in Houston for a long time, in 2014 he joined as an offensive quality control coach before being promoted to tight ends coach in 2017 and then offensive coordinator in 2019. David Cully decided to keep Kelly on as offensive coordinator after taking over from Bill O’Brien as head coach, a lot of that was due to Deshaun Watson campaigning for Kelly to stay on.
All off-season Kelly preached that he wanted his unit to be tough, physical and smart. The Texans run a very balanced attack with the split between pass and run being almost 50/50. Kelly calls the plays for Houston which is something that he did under Bill O’Brien as well and with Watson having the season he did in 2020, that was probably the right call. But getting that production out of Watson and getting it out of Taylor are two very different things.
The Houston Texans Defense
🏈 If you took a look at the box score from last Sunday’s victory over the Titans, you’d think the Texans defense were world-beaters. They came down with 4 interceptions against Ryan Tannehill and 2 sacks too. They limited the Titans to just 13 points, but here’s how stats can be deceiving.
The Titans put up 420 yards to the 190 by the Texans, they put up 317 passing yards against 107, rushed for 103 yards against 83 and moved the ball at 5.3 yards per attempt in comparison to 3.1 for Houston. I switched on the Titans game and Ryan Tannehill just made unforced errors that cost his team the victory.
He may have thrown 4 INT’s, but he could have thrown 6 or 7, that’s how bad he was. The Texans weren’t flying to the ball, they weren’t disguising their coverages and causing confusion. They were largely sitting in their cover-2 zone scheme and daring the Titans to beat them, and had Tannehill not targeted the wrong guys at the wrong times consistently, they would have been able to do that easily.
It has to be said that it was pouring on Sunday and Tannehill seemed to struggle to grip the ball, but as can be seen from the 317 passing yards, when he got it right, it wasn’t difficult to move the ball on the Texans.
That’s not meant as any disrespect to the Texans, they did what they had to do to beat the Titans. They stuck to their task, they played disciplined football and they took the chances presented to them. Lovie Smith is one of my favorite coaches in football, so I’m happy for him, but this defense can be exploited, it’s why they rank 29th in points allowed and 27 in total yards allowed.
Saying that, for me the Texans have more talent on the defensive side of the ball than they do on the offensive side. Lovie Smith preaches takeaways, he always has and always will, and that’s been a staple of this defense. 9 different players have recorded at least one interception with Lonnie Johnson Jr leading the pack with 3. If you consider the Jets have just 3 interceptions all season, this is quite significant.
Houston have also forced 13 fumbles and has three players with 3 sacks or more on the season. Jonathan Greenard leads the way with 7 sacks, followed by Jacob Martin with 3 and veteran Whitney Mercilus also with 3. Yet the Texans have a pressure-generated rate of just 19.9% which is 4th worst in the league. By comparison, the Jets generate pressure on 23.8% of plays.
With improved offensive line play and the Texans generating very little pressure, this is a perfect time to reintroduce Zach Wilson.
For as long as I can remember the Houston Texans have always been a 3-4 team, that was until this season, where Lovie Smith changed things up to run from a 4-3 base. The changes has brought out the best in Greenard who’s now playing with his hand in the dirt, and it’s also helping Ross Blacklock, the Texans 2nd round pick from 2020, now he’s been kicked inside he’s starting to make more of an impact at DT.
The Texans have talent on the defensive side of the ball, but I’d feel pretty confident about this match-up if I were the Jets. Cornerbacks Terrance Mitchell and Desmond King II have played well in spurts, King in particular had a good game against Tennessee, but I’d back Corey Davis and Elijah Moore in those matchups.
Defensive coordinator: Lovie Smith
🏈 As mentioned above Lovie Smith loves his 4-3 and although the defensive metrics don’t look great, the Texans were one of the worst teams in the league defensively last year, so he had plenty of work to do.
Houston play a lot of cover 2 with some. cover 3 mixed in. If the Texans do sit back in that cover 2 shell a lot, it will force Zach to either be more conservative and take what’s given to him, or it’ll force him into making mistakes by challenging deep. Against a scheme like the one Smith runs, you will get punished if you attack the seams at the wrong time.
I’ve always been a big fan of Smith, going back to when he was the Bears head coach between 2004 and 2012, in my early years writing about the NFL, I was a defense-first kind of writer. So Lovie Smith’s work with the Bears, especially that 2006 unit that led the league with 44 takeaways. They beat the Jets 10-0 that year to move to 9-1 and I remember Chad Pennington just not being able to move the ball against that defense. Thats when they had guys like Charles Tillman, Brian Urlacher, Lance Briggs and Adewale Ogunleye.
Star Player 🌟
Jonathan Greenard - DE
🏈 I went back and forward on who to feature here, but I ended on Greenard. His rookie campaign was a little disappointing in the end, having recorded just the one sack to go with two tackles for a loss, but as mentioned above he was largely playing as a stand-up OLB. That doesn’t really suit his game.
In 2021 he has been far and away the best defensive player on this Houston Texans team. Through 7 games played he has recorded 7 sacks, 9 tackles for a loss, 9 QB hits, 1 forced fumble, and 3 passes defended. In short, he’s been spectacular.
Funnily enough Greenard missed the Titans victory through injury, but signs are he’s trending towards facing the Jets come Sunday.
Drafted in the 3rd round of the 2020 draft out of Florida, Greenard actually started his college career with Louisville. As a graduate transfer Greenard was able to play immediately in 2020 and he finished the season with 52 tackles, 15.5 for a loss, 9.5 sacks and 3 forced fumbles, he was named First-Team All-SEC and had significant buzz around him before the draft.