Football didn’t look easy for the Houston Texans against the Indianapolis Colts last Sunday.
That’s not to say NFL contests should be that way for even the best of teams, especially games in-division. But Houston couldn’t even operate its offense at times against Indianapolis. C.J. Stroud was running for his life, particularly in the first half, when he was pressured on an astounding 71.4% of his dropbacks. One of his offensive linemen, former first-round left guard Kenyon Green, was benched. And the Texans almost gave up a 10-point lead they had halfway through the third quarter.
“Happy to come out with the win,” coach DeMeco Ryans said postgame, “but there will always be things to clean up.”
At what point should Ryans & Co. be concerned, though?
As the Texans enter their Thursday night game against the New York Jets, they are 6-2 and on the fast track to making the playoffs for a second consecutive year. But they haven’t looked like a team equipped to build off their surprising divisional-round appearance last season. Certainly not like the juggernaut they were made out to be in the offseason after the flurry of moves they made to bolster the roster around Stroud.
The loss of star receiver Stefon Diggs to a season-ending ACL injury doesn’t help the cause — on top of the fact that leading receiver Nico Collins will miss at least one more game on injured reserve while he tends to a hamstring issue.
Houston is 4-0 against teams that are .500 or worse, including a season sweep of Indianapolis. But it’s 2-2 against clubs that have a winning record. One of those victories came against the Chicago Bears and Caleb Williams, who was making his second career start. The other came versus the Buffalo Bills, against whom the Texans blew a 17-point second-half lead and needed a 59-yard field goal as time expired to win.
Five of Houston’s six wins have been decided by six or fewer points. The one that wasn’t was a 20-point victory over the 2-6 New England Patriots in Week 6.
The Texans are currently 15th in the NFL with a point differential of plus-9, the worst mark among AFC teams currently in playoff spots. The last team to make the Super Bowl with a point-differential ranking that low for the entire season was the 2011 New York Giants, who ranked 19th that regular season (and beat the Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI). Long story short is that pulling out tight wins for an entire season hasn’t been a recipe of success for championship-caliber teams historically.
A major issue for Houston has been execution.
The Texans are the fifth-most penalized team (61 on the year). The offensive line has been credited with 22 accepted penalties alone, according to NFLpenalties.com — a league-high 12 to perennial Pro Bowl left tackle Laremy Tunsil, five to Green, three to right guard Shaq Mason and two to right tackle Tytus Howard.
Adding to the woes up front: They’ve done an awful job protecting Stroud, who has been sacked 22 times this season, third-most in the league. The Texans have been pressured on 29.2% of their dropbacks, second-worst in the NFL, and pressured 93 times overall, also second-worst, according to Pro Football Reference.
“As we keep going, we’ll keep evaluating our offensive line and see where our guys are,” Ryans said.
Running back Joe Mixon has had to carry the offense — and it’s worked. In his three games since returning from a sprained ankle, he has rushed 63 times for 319 yards (5.0 yards per carry) and four touchdowns. For the season, he’s averaging 100.6 rushing yards per game, which ranks third in the league.
Ryans’ pass rush has also been dominant with the edge-rushing tandem of Will Anderson Jr. and Danielle Hunter, both of whom rank among the top four in quarterback pressures through the first eight weeks of the season, according to Next Gen Stats. They’re the only teammate duo within the top 15.
Even with Diggs out, the Texans should be fine at receiver, too. Collins is expected back sooner rather than later and Tank Dell, who’s had a slow start to the year, should see an uptick in targets. He was pacing for more than 1,000 yards receiving as a rookie last season before breaking his leg.
The reality is that Houston still has the talent on both sides of the ball to make a deep playoff run.
“I would say just trust ourselves, stay aggressive, and I think we can do a better job of getting seven [points] and not three and scoring touchdowns in the red zone. I think that’s the big thing,” Stroud said of prepping for the Jets on a short week. “I feel like we can keep running the ball really well. I think that’s huge for us and our play-action passes were going really well. We can work on our dropback pass and things like that.
“There’s a lot of things to learn from to get better.”
Ben Arthur is an NFL reporter for FOX Sports. He previously worked for The Tennessean/USA TODAY Network, where he was the Titans beat writer for a year and a half. He covered the Seattle Seahawks for SeattlePI.com for three seasons (2018-20) prior to moving to Tennessee. You can follow Ben on Twitter at @benyarthur.
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