If this holiday season teaches us anything, it’s that we take many things for granted in this life. Specifically, as Texans fans, we’ve had the luxury to take many things for granted in recent years. We’ve
benefitted immensely from the last four draft classes, which yielded so many quality players that the Texans went from afterthought to Super Bowl dark horse in the span of just a couple years. We took former LT Laremy Tunsil for granted, and now emit much of the same indifference towards Tytus Howard, probably Houston’s best and most consistent offensive lineman of the DeMeco Ryans era. We even unknowingly take advantage of having a kicker like Ka’imi Fairbairn, who’s been able to power Houston’s vaunted “all field-goal offense” for several years on end.
Today’s a day where that can change. Where we can turn on our televisions for the weekly sweat-session and instead cool our jets and appreciate what the players have been able to accomplish this season. I may be getting a little ahead of myself here, but I don’t expect the Las Vegas Raiders to give the red-hot Houston Texans much trouble. Big, comforting wins have been a rarity in Houston this year, but since they had one last week when hosting the Arizona Cardinals, I’m going to trust that I can look past the score of this game and towards the performances of these five individual players:
1.) LT Aireontae Ersery
The Raiders don’t have many parts to their defense that will catch your attention. One spot where they will, however, in along the defensive line, where DE Maxx Crosby roams. Crosby will jump from one edge of the offensive line to the other depending on the play, but I’ll be particularly interested in how rookie LT Aireontae Ersery performs against one of the AFC’s best pass rushers.
Ersery has played well this season for the most part, but has struggled mightily when facing premium players like DE/DT Chris Jones or DE/DT Jeffery Simmons. Crosby will be another big test for him, and if he can at least limit the damage done on the left side of the offensive line, then I will be over the moon with his game.
2.) Tommy Togiai
DEs Danielle Hunter and Will Anderson respectively have over 10.5 good reasons to garner most of the attention on Houston’s defensive line, but DT Tommy Togiai deserves plenty of flowers for stepping up the last few weeks. He and DT Sheldon Rankins are now absorbing the lion’s share of defensive interior snaps since DT Tim Settle and DT Mario Edwards Jr. suffered season-ending injuries. Rankins has been the solid, disruptive interior rusher that was advertised upon his return to Houston back in March, but Togiai has stepped up in a big way alongside him! He was one of only two Texans to sack Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes a couple weeks ago, and tallied three tackles against the Cardinals last week.
The Texans and general manager Nick Caserio haven’t idled in their injured state, however, as they’ve already claimed DT Naquan Jones from the L.A. Chargers’ waivers, promoted DT Marlon Davidson to the active roster from the practice squad, and signed their 2024 7th-round draftee DL Marcus Harris to the practice squad. They also have international player DT Haggai Ndubuisi on the roster, who played his first NFL snaps against the Chiefs a few weeks ago and logged a tackle. Hopefully, Houston won’t need these recently added players to ball today, as I’m hoping Tommy Togiai will make his third-straight start one to remember.
3.) CB/S Myles Bryant
Similar to defensive interior, the defensive backfield has been ravished by injuries. When Battle Red Blog contributor Kenneth Levy covered the thinning secondary back on November 12th, they had recently lost S M.J. Stewart to a season-ending injury. Since then, the situation has got even more desperate: rookie CB Jaylin Smith was placed on season-ending IR, rookie S Jaylen Reed started playing more on defense (and fairly well) until he broke a metal plate in his forearm in Week 13, ending his season, and the Texans waived S Jalen Mills last week. In the rubble of safety injuries, CB/S Myles Bryant has stepped up and become a starter for the Texans.
Despite only being 5’ 9”, Myles Bryant has been a solid, if unspectacular fifth defensive back for the Texans. He’s a fast and very aggressive tackler, capable of keeping of with all of the coverage assignments he’s responsible for in defensive coordinator Matt Burke’s scheme, but isn’t a locksmith in coverage like some of his teammates. Cardinals TE Trey McBridge made that clear last week:
The Las Vegas Raiders were certainly watching this game unfold last week, and will try to get their own star TE, Brock Bowers, heavily involved. It’s a mismatch to have the undersized Bryant trying to cover these players, but hopefully he and Texans LB E.J. Speed will be able to team up to close any open passing lanes the Raiders try to create for Bowers.
4.) QB CJ Stroud
Okay, now for the offense! Since CJ Stroud’s return from a concussion in week 13, Houston has finally started to mold into a respectable offense. First-year offensive coordinator Nick Caley came to Houston with the task of re-tooling the passing offense in order to give Stroud more control, and more open options within the first couple seconds of the ball being snapped. They were about as far away from that as possible in September, but have now put three straight games together with Stroud orchestrating some impressive drives – even when points are still hard to come by. What’s changed to make them more efficient. According to the Athletic’s Derrik Klassen,
“From an X’s and O’s standpoint, the biggest change has been the Texans ability to scheme up drop-back passing plays in which each route of the progression flows right into CJ Stroud’s vision and as he’s moving through the concept.”
Klassen uses two specific plays in the Texans’ wins over the Colts and Chiefs as examples of Stroud successfully moving through his progressions to make well-timed passes, which you can view below:
Although, I’d argue it’s more than just better scheme and Stroud finding his groove back. I believe placing Trent Brown at RT and moving Tytus Howard to LG has given the Texans their best starting offensive line all season, which have kept Stroud cleaner and given him time to acclimate to a new offensive scheme. In return, he’s gotten better, and his receivers have gradually improved in their route-trees to get where they need to be. It’s been a team-wide effort to get this offense back on track, and now it’ll just be about Stroud stacking more quality performances to increase his confidence. Las Vegas comes in with the 14th ranked passing defense, as well, so despite being a bad team, they will probably give Stroud some challenges through the air. If he can have another game with 250+ passing yards and no turnovers, the CJ Stroud hype train will be boarding once again.
5.) RB Jawhar Jordan
Here’s the biggest wildcard of the game. Houston’s 2024 6th-round pick Jawhar Jordan made his NFL regular season debut last week, and tallied up 101 yards on just 15 carries against the Arizona Cardinals. He’s been a practice squad warrior since arriving to Houston, but last week, he showed the speed, decisiveness, and athleticism that made him an intriguing prospect coming out of Louisville. He tore the Cardinals up down the middle, carved them out along the edge, and used his speed to make pursuing defenders look silly, a miracle performance after Houston had lost their rookie sensation, RB Woody Marks, to an injury earlier in the game. Houston needed Jordan to become the lead back for that game, and he had arguably as good of a game as any Houston tailback has all season!
Soon after his breakout game, the Texans promoted Jordan to the active roster for this upcoming matchup. Kenneth Levy recently stated about Jordan in his plea to Texans leadership to start him today,
“DeMeco Ryans and the coaching staff should award the promising start to Jordan’s career with a start against the Raiders. Give Marks a break and see if they can’t turn this remarkable performance into a late-season surprise.”
With how many times Woody Marks has had to limp to the sideline in the last month, I couldn’t agree more with Kenneth. Jordan has earned the chance to get another crack as the lead back, and they couldn’t ask for a better game to give him that chance.
And that’s my list! I’m really rooting for Jawhar Jordan to be another surprise starter for this team, as Houston has been struggling to find answers on the ground as season long. Now that Stroud is starting to look like his old self again, a complementary ground game could complete this offensive turnaround, making Houston a true Super-Bowl caliber team.
That’s just me wishcasting, though. Who do you think will ball out this game? Will we be fawning over usual suspects CJ Stroud and WR Nico Collins again in a few hours, or will some other lesser known player steal our hearts? Let us know in the comments below!
GO TEXANS!!!!
