We have spent a great deal of time over the last couple of weeks looking at what is wrong. I have to cop to that myself as we have focused a lot of angst towards C.J. Stroud and deservedly so. Some of that could be labeled as click bait as the odds of Stroud being anywhere other than Houston are slim and none. A lot of the retorts to any Stroud speculation is that he needs more help in the form of better blockers upfront and a more consistent running game to support him.
Obviously, those are two different
things. Just like with Stroud, the focus on the offensive line seems to be an annual affair. We will certainly look at their performance in more detail as the offseason continues. According to ESPN, they ranked 30th in pass block win rate and 32nd in run block win rate. Naturally, those are just one set of numbers. We will dive into those in due time.
The bigger question is what will happen at running back. Nick Chubb is almost certainly not gong to be back. Chubb was never his former self, but maybe that lack of run blocking win rate played into his lack of production some. Joe Mixon is still technically under contract, but no one is quite sure what is going on with him and that probably includes the front office themselves. They have been cagey about what the issue is and what caused the issue.
Nick Caserio said that he was putting his best foot forward in trying to recover from his injury. If he is putting his best foot forward then we can surmise that he has both of his feet. Beyond that, there are no answers. Of course, I comment with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek, but I think the odds are better than 50/50 that Mixon doesn’t play another down for the Texans. They can recover nearly seven million dollars by cutting him and that money can go to a number of different players either on the offensive line or to another running back.
Clearly, the Texans will be in a salary cap crunch. Will Anderson is all but guaranteed a huge extension and that is already on top of huge Derek Stingley money. Even if we assume that C.J. Stroud’s contract will be punted until next offseason, there still will not be a ton of money available to throw around both the offensive line and in the running back room at the same time.
So, the Texans have a couple of different avenues they can go if they choose not to dive into the free agency pool for running back. Obviously, the easiest path is to draft another running back fairly early in the draft. A first round running back is probably not in the cards, but they do have two second round selections and a third round selection that could go to a back to pair with Woody Marks. However, there are a couple of candidates in house they could turn to.
- Jawhar Jordan: 45 carried, 193 yards, 4.5 YPA, 0 TD
- British Brooks: 17 carries, 78 yards, 4.6 YPA, 0 TD
Watching both backs down the stretch was uplifting and maddening at the same time. For comparison sake, Chubb added 4.1 yards per carry and Marks had only 3.6 yards per carry. Now, does that mean that either Jordan or Brooks are better than either of those two? Of course not. Those results were over the course of a couple of games for Jordan and one game for Brooks.
However, if you are looking for a complementary back then you could do a lot worse than either of them. You could easily foresee a roster with both backs making the final cut along with Dare Ogunbowale. Brooks has also served as a fullback (actually he was the highest rated fullback according to Pro Football Focus). Doing so would allow the Texans to spend their draft capital and free agency capital elsewhere.
Maybe more importantly, one of the issues with the Texans offense was that it took them a long time to settle on the best group of 11 players to play. Some of that was a reluctance to play younger players like Jayden Higgins and Jaylen Noel. Some of that was an inability to settle on the best five guys upfront. However, the rotation at running back was also one of the struggles for much of the season.
One can only hope that continuity in the running back room and receiver room will alleviate some of those issues. Obviously, the chances of the team returning the same five blockers into front of Stroud are slim and none. In particular, the team needs to seriously upgrade left guard and center if they want to elevate the line to something resembling league average. They may want to bring back Ed Ingram at right guard, so saving a little bit of money at running back may be an avenue to do that.
