Houston’s Has Met Its Biggest Opponent: Themselves
Kamari Lassiter: defensive pass interference against Dallas. Dropped an interception against the Bills. Passing 55 times without Nico Collins against the Bengals. Poor clock management against the Colts.
Though Houston was on the very short list for Super Bowl contenders going into the season, they’re 0-4; like a child who failed a science project they never worked on, they have nobody to blame but themselves. Now, a defense that looked close to perfect last year feels as sloppy as the offense last season. Combined with a team that refuses to acknowledge the needed improvements to go to the next level. Houston has come back from a 0-3 record twice before, but the way they’ve lost these games has shown why Houston is farther than ever from reaching SoFi this season.
The Defensive Scars
Last season, after starting 0-3, head coach Demeco Ryans handed defensive play-calling to defensive coordinator Matt Burke, and the defense took off. Houston’s defense was built on the opposite of the Jesse Minter-Mike McDonald defenses that have dominated the past two seasons. Instead of having multiple versatile players move around the entire field like Mike McDonald’s defense and Minter’s style of projecting simplicity to offenses to put their guard down, Burke and Ryan did the complete opposite. The whole idea of Houston was never disguising their defensive coverages and just having these strong and fast dudes run at anyone with the ball. Loosely similar to the Legion-of-Boom Seahawks, whose whole philosophy was ‘we’re running cover three every play, but you can’t outplay our guys’. Houston last season would just call cover one, two, or three, and then all of a sudden multiple big and fast dudes are chasing you down until they take the life out of the person with the ball.
What helped this defense work so successfully was that everyone on that defense rarely blew their coverage, leading to a great unit built on the idea of just having bigger dudes who won’t mess up on the backend. The problem this year is that they stuck to that same defense and changed nothing at all. While given their success, that seems obvious, teams spend months figuring out ways to solve defenses, and Houston has been solved already. As these big and fast dudes run straight at you, offenses have just figured out how to get passes off against this defense.
The issue with this defense being solved is that, unlike last season’s team that made up for a lot of offensive issues, Houston’s offense has looked great at times this year, and now the defense can’t catch up.
If you think you can win year in and year out with a defense built on out-athleting a league full of the best athletes in the world, the clock is gonna run down before some team solves it. Houston’s defense, only a year after being one of the most dominant units in football, became predictable.
Somehow You’re Not The Main Problem
For years, Houston’s biggest weakness has been the offense. Now, for the first time since Stroud’s rookie season, it’s the least of their issues.
Though the offensive line is still a prevalent issue that is a constant disability to Houston’s ability to become a high-functioning offense, Houston’s offense this season, with Nico Collins on the field, has been great. Despite a running game that is still lackluster, more due to the offensive line, Stroud and this passing offense as a whole have righted the ship for Houston. Following a bad playoff run, to say the least, and being the main reason for the Texans’ inability to reach the Super Bowl, Stroud has now looked the closest to his rookie season self. Outside of some untimely fumbles, Stroud’s ability to look comfortable in the pocket for the first time in two years was glaring.
In the prior two seasons, Stroud, due to his lack of time in the pocket, felt like his internal clock was turned all the way up, rearing its ugliest head in New England. Stroud now, more or less due to the inability of the front office, has had to adjust to the very little time in the pocket. Even through all this praise, the offense is still very flawed.
This offseason’s acquisition of David Montgomery felt like Houston identifying the wrong part of their offensive woes. Though the talent at running back was less than ideal, it doesn’t help that the inability to construct a competent offensive line has hurt the running game more than the pure talent. Through the first four games of the season, Woody Marks and David Montgomery together have averaged only 2.9 yards per carry (YPC), which, compared to other teams, would be dead last in the league. For years, Houston has seemingly tried to fix every aspect of their offense except the one that needs to be fixed most: the offensive line.
Houston has improved drastically on offense, but they will never reach Super Bowl caliber with a line as weak as Houston’s is.
Where Does Toro & Co. Go From Here?
With Ryans going back to playcalling the defense, maybe the defense improves at least a little, but it feels like putting a Band-Aid on a gunshot: no matter what you put, it needs a real solution. This defense clearly still has talent all around the field, but with very little window-dressing or anything covering their main goal, the game plan of ‘our guys are bigger and run faster’ will lead them down the same road of obsolescence that they’re already on right now.
For the offense, despite showing signs of life in the two games with Collins, this offense and team as a whole seemingly distracted everyone from the fact that this team isn’t good enough in the places it needs to be great at. Though the team has had a tough start to their schedule team-wise, the toughest opponent isn’t even Buffalo, Dallas, or even Indianapolis, but themselves.