This Sunday, the Cleveland Browns are back at home as they take on the Houston Texans in Week 10. To help preview a few topics from the Texans’ perspective, we reached out to Scott Barzilla from Battle Red Blog and exchanged five questions with him.
Chris: “The Texans are such a confusing team with their slow starts the past two years, and then they start picking up wins. This year, though, the difference seems to be that teams are scoring a lot more on Houston, and C.J. Stroud seems to be passing
the ball all over the place. Is that an accurate assessment?”
Scott: “I’d say that’s pretty accurate. They are also 1-4 in one score games, so they probably should be 4-4 or 5-3 if they had even average luck. Still, this is not the top five defense we were expecting but it also isn’t the Stroud we were expecting. I suppose that means it comes off in a wash.”
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Chris: “What do you view as the Texans’ biggest weakness on defense right now?”
Scott: “The secondary has performed poorly this year so every game has seen 3-5 explosive plays that seem to blow everything out of proportion. If they can get to Watson they could produce enough negative plays to offset that, but they will give up a handful of 20+ yard plays.”
Chris: “Which of the Saints’ draft picks has the best chance of making an impact in Week 9?”
Scott: “Keelan Rutledge will start at left guard so he is the easy answer there. He is the only rookie getting consistent playing time on this team which also might be an issue related to your first question..”
Chris: “Tell us about one player who Browns fans may not have heard of, but who could have an impact on this Sunday’s game.”
Scott: “It’s the secondary and the middle of the field. Kamari Lassiter has gone from Pro Bowler to one of the shakiest corners in football. Plus, the Texans have had issues at safety this year.”
Chris: “The Browns are underdogs against the Texans on Sunday (Browns +4.5 as of this question, per FanDuel). Who would you pick to win the game?”
Scott: “I think the Texans win this one. Cleveland is one of those teams playing with fool’s gold and so they don’t have the QB play to combat the pass rush or keep up. The one caveat is that Houston continues to attack through the air. Our OC has an annoying tendency to turtle at random moments and attempt to move the ball on the ground. That hasn’t worked all season.”
Thanks again to Scott for taking the time to answer my questions.
