I’m pleased to be joined once again by Steph Stradley to preview the upcoming Titans-Texans game.
Stephanie Stradley is a Houston lawyer who writes about the Houston Texans for the Houston Chronicle’s Ultimate Texans blog. You can find her personal blog at StephStradley.com. You also can (and should) follow her on Twitter. In addition to her answering questions I sent, I answered questions she sent and you can find those over at her site.
Total Titans: Brian Hoyer, Ryan Mallett, back to Brian Hoyer, perhaps to remain there for the rest of the season. How much do you miss Ryan Fitzpatrick, and how much confidence do you have in Bill O’Brien, Rick Smith, and/or whoever else ends up making the decision to do a better job of handling the quarterback position in 2016 than O’Brien and Smith have in 2015?
Steph Stradley: All the quarterbacks the Texans have put on the field the past two seasons have been placeholder guys. Guys running the team because the Texans Powers That Be didn’t like the choices at the top of the 2014 draft.
It is a defensible choice to not choose a quarterback if you are going to build the rest of the team until you find your QB unicorn. (A Seattle sort of approach, I suppose.) That said, the entirety of the Texans’ 2014 and 2015 drafts so far is fairly disappointing with a few exceptions.
Hard to compare this year’s Texans offense to last year’s. Why? The defense played better last year so usually the offense wasn’t forced early to become one dimensional (though they were sort of that way running the ball so much).
So many of the 2015 offensive players have been hurt so there has been little continuity, particularly on the offensive line. Each week they’ve been “putting their five best offensive linemen out there” and it has been a mix and match of guys playing out of position. I think sometimes fans have no conception of how hard it is to switch from different sides of the line, much less from guard to tackle or vice versa.
Watching the Texans offense has been a misery of ill-placed passes, dropped balls, and no running game. The offensive line issues haven’t helped, but I’m not sure that the offense would be much better without those injuries. Wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins is the only dynamic, consistent player the Texans have on offense. Surprise! If you have a bunch of players who have had accuracy or drop issues in the past, hard to expect much different, even if you have the best system in the universe.
I have little confidence in the decision makers and coaches of the Texans right now in just about everything. I lost trust in GM Rick Smith years ago. As for Bill O’Brien, I think he is trying to do too much because he has to do too much given his staff. The offensive staff is the leanest in the league, tied with the Patriots (who already have a pretty good quarterback fellow). George Godsey, as OC, doubles up prepping the QBs too. The current staff as a whole is very lean in terms of NFL experience, so who is there to help Bill O’Brien as more of a peer instead of an underling?
In terms of developing quarterbacks, the positive argument for O’Brien is that the quarterbacks running the offense have been performing their best under him. Ryan Fitzpatrick had extremely positive things to say about his learning experience in Houston.
The negative argument is that it looks as though the last two years have been wasted developmental quarterback years. Tom Savage is on IR because he got killed behind a horrific offfensive line in the 4th preseason game. Reportedly, the Texans offense is complex and demanding on its quarterbacks, so even assuming they get O’Brien’s guy in 2016, when do we see a payoff in that?
And likely the biggest question mark about O’Brien has been his inexplicable handling of the quarterback situation in 2015. Having an extended quarterback competition. The quick hook on Brian Hoyer. The Ryan Mallett mess. Getting Tom Savage killed in the preseason.
Total Titans: Beyond quarterback issues, what makes the 2015 Texans so much worse than the 2014 Texans? I thought they’d regress a little bit, just because they were more 7-9 good, but they’re currently 31st by DVOA and have looked every bit that bad to me.
Stradley: The short answer? Injuries. Penalties. Poor replacement of departed players. Poor drafts for too many years catching up. Less turnover luck versus 2014.
Special teams has been terrible for many years, so that bottom of the league rank is always a DVOA boat anchor even when they are playing well. I thought they would make special teams a greater priority in the offseason but they just added rookie returner WR Keith Mumphrey. High effort player who was projected to be a UFA because he was seen as a possession guy with a lack of athleticism. They switched out one extra point missing kicker for another in season. As a group, they are slow.
So I was wrong. They did a big fat nothingburger to fix special teams in the offseason even though it has been obviously horrific for many years.
Strangely, for having an offensive-minded head coach, the offense has literally been as bad as the David Carr years. The Football Outsider numbers show that, and the conventional yards gained numbers reflect mostly pointless garbage time numbers.
The offense prior to the season was a wait and see on whether quarterbacks and offensive players who knew the system better could run it. Answer so far, a resounding no.
The defense imploding is pretty much a surprise to most. Lots of theories on why it is so bad. At first, it appeared that it was because the offense couldn’t stay on the field. And perhaps part of it is that. Beyond that, they don’t look like they play well together as a unit, and as a group they look slow.
J.J. Watt is getting very little help, and teams are loading up on him more than ever. (Referees also think he rarely is held. He is the Shaq/Yao Ming of having to get murdered before getting a call.) The Texans aren’t just allowing the run, they are allowing huge gashing runs. When teams can run at will, it is hard to generate a pass rush. Vince Wilfork has been a disappointing addition, and linebacker-safety play has been lacking. There has been a bit of a revolving door at cornerback with injuries.
On top of that, there is some thought that Romeo Crennel is using the players he has available to him in odd ways that put them in positions where they can’t succeed. (That sentence is the politest way that thought has ever been expressed.)
I think in terms of fixability, the defense has a better chance of getting better than the other units. The offense has looked functional in brief spurts.
Total Titans: All teams, even the really bad ones, do some things better than they do other things? What do the 2015 Houston Texans do best?
Stradley: Hmmm. Well. Good question. Kings of garbage time?
To put it in context, the Week 7 DVOA rankings for the Texans are: Overall 31st, Offense 27th, Defense 26th, Special Teams 32nd. All pretty craptastic and not suggesting any strengths. Usually, by Week 7, many of the teams at the bottom part of Football Outsider rankings have played some of the hardest schedules in the league. Not the Texans. Their past schedule was projected at 22nd hardest but their remaining game schedule is projected at 9th.
Pushing that gloom aside, the Texans generally play hard even when they aren’t playing smart. And their MO has been for individual players to excel, even if the unit as a group isn’t. Players like J.J. Watt and Jadeveon Clowney can cause mischief. DeAndre Hopkins is a dynamic player, and the offense sometimes will hit a hot streak.
Total Titans: The Colts’ struggles and tough slate of upcoming games are keeping everybody else’s AFC South title hopes alive, but what constitutes a successful rest of 2015 for the Texans? Is it winning as many games as possible? Getting a high draft pick if you’re going to be that bad? The development of particular players? The team improving as the season goes along? Beating the Titans twice?
Stradley: I’m not a Likes To Tank as a goal person. Sucks watching it. Can hurt player development. Can run good personnel off to escape the vortex of suck. Look at the 2014 Texans draft where they had the top pick in each round. What did that get them?
This year in some ways is tougher than the abysmal 2005 and 2013 years because in those years there was hope that The New Guy would come and fix things. I have no confidence that The Powers That Be will do the right thing because I am not sure they are capable of doing so, or for me to even articulate what fixing this is exactly. Usually, there are a few things to point to, but now it seems like so many things are wrong with the team. Many of the organizational and roster problems under Gary Kubiak have continued and arguably got worse under O’Brien.
For example, I would have liked to seen more dynamic players on offense added two years into O’Brien’s tenure with the team. Nope. More overall team speed. Nope. O’Brien is under a big fat contract, so I don’t think he is going anywhere unless he spontaneously combusts sometime this season which given his temper is a possibility.
It hurts to say that because he was my first choice of the available candidates. I like him, and I would like for him to be able to succeed. Perhaps a more experienced GM guiding him and shaping the roster would help, and maybe that is what happens 2016.
From the outside, it can be difficult to determine what is him and what is factors he does not control.
So for the rest of 2015? Yes, developing players, though Savage can’t play at all because he was end of the season IR’d. Perhaps getting a sense of whether O’Brien is the guy for the future or not. Maybe some watchable football? A big turnaround would be hard but not unprecedented. I don’t have a lot of optimism given the players already hurt and the upcoming schedule but I suppose somebody has to win the AFC South.
Total Titans: Is there anything I haven’t asked you about you’d like Titans fans to know about the Texans?
Stradley: I sometimes think what the 2015 season would have been like had the Texans not been on Hard Knocks. I think it would have been better for all involved. And then I think that is pointless thought-exercise and try to think of things that are a lot more fun.
Thanks again to Steph for another great Q&A exchange. Don’t forget to check out her site for my answers to her questions and more great Texans coverage.
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