San Francisco 49ers vs. Houston Texans Preview & Prediction | PFF
San Francisco 49ers traveling to Houston to take on the Houston Texans here. Uh which side of the ball you want to start with? You want to start with the Niners who are coming off a uh a big Sunday Night Football win here or uh you want to talk about the Texans coming off a Monday Night Football loss, which where are we starting here? I’m going to go with this Texans pass rush with Will Anderson and Denal Hunter. It’s been the best most consistent part of their team so far. It’s the first thing you worry about when you play this Houston team is how are we going to pass protect and how is our quarterback going to protect himself? And I think it’s interesting in the context of is it going to be Brock Pery or M. Jones because you’ve got a little bit of two different styles that go on there between those two quarterbacks. Obviously Pertie still trying to play through this toe injury and he’s one who’s known to get out the outside the pocket and improvise a little bit. Can he do that against an elite pass rush, a team leading the league in pass rush grade and pass rush win rate. So good off the edge. And you see at the bottom there, they hardly have to blitz because their four-man rush is so good at all times. And that makes it really difficult with a team that can constantly drop seven into zone coverage and win with those four guys up front, especially Anderson and Hunter. Or if it’s going to be M. Jones, then we’ve talked before this season about the very low average time to throw, his ability to get rid of the football and see things quickly and just get it to the right spot. That would play a big factor in this game, too. I think then I think the 49ers would have a chance to win with either quarterback. But for both of them, it’s going to be about mitigating this pass rush that has been so good. It’s really been the best part of Houston’s team this year. Yeah, on the Texans side of things, you know, we’ve talked about this a lot, so I don’t want to sound too much like a broken record, but Woody Marks has been able to play pretty well for them as you’re the main ball carrier over the last couple of weeks, but then this past week against the Seahawks specifically, I understand it’s it’s a late night. You’re traveling to Seattle. You’re taking on one of the best teams in the NFL. You could struggle, but really it just looked like the beginning of the season Houston Texans that was struggling to get anything going. And unfortunately, it’s the run blocking now that’s failing them. We talked a lot about the pass blocking for this team that we were worried about going into the season. Specifically last week, 47.8 run blocking grade against the Seattle Seahawks. They were not able to get anything going. And then specifically, Dalton, I don’t know if you saw this, 86.7% defeated run blocking percentage for them as a team. That is, oh my gosh. Obviously, it only goes up to 100%. And for 86.7% of the time they are earning not just a neutral grade but a negative grade when it comes to run blocking that it’s never going to get it done. It’s going to be something that’s always going to hold your offense back no matter what. And we’re just here having the same conversations about the Texans. And unfortunately I hate to just sound like a parrot or a broken record or an echo chamber or whatever but until the offensive line gets better it doesn’t matter. It does not matter. And unfortunately for them, they’re going up against a San Francisco 49ers team that defended the run as a team, not just up front, as a team very, very well last week. And if we have a similar performance where I can’t remember what Marx’s stats were last week. Hold on, let me pull it up. Markx had 10 carries for 15 yards for 1.5 average per carry number. like that’s and he had and he had he had 11 of those yards on one carry. So, it just shows you how often he is getting pressure and and tacklers either in the back field or at the line of scrimmage, it’s just it you’re never going to be able to win the way that you need to if your offensive line is blocking like that. So, until the Texans show me some sort of consistency along the offensive line, I cannot take them to win football games. Give me the 49ers here. Uh I will take them 20-4. That’s the That’s the score that I’m going with. Vegas has this one a lot closer. Vegas has the Texans actually favored in Houston by a point and a half. What do you think? Are you going with the 49ers? You going with the Texans? I I’m actually going 49ers also. Kind of a weird score. I think it’s going to be a defensive game. 19 to6 San Francisco. I think they get out with a road win and Kyle Shanahan just finds a way to do it. And I do like the idea with George KD being back, Luke Ferrell blocking well at tight end, Kyle back there at fullback. I like the idea that the Niners can load up the box with extra blockers in the run game and really attack this four-man front that the Texans are always in. If they can get some of those guys at the second level in the run game like they did last week against Atlanta, I think they can have more success there. And Christian McCaffrey could have another big day. He’s obviously the engine. He’s going to be the big part of it. And I think KD is going to get involved a little bit more in the passing game as well. It’s going to be ugly. It’s going to be really defensive. I think both teams, especially the Ners, are going to want to stay out of obvious passing situations, but their ability to run the football and just control the pace like they did last week against Atlanta’s the difference in the game.
PFF’s Dalton Wasserman and Trevor Sikkema preview the matchup between The San Francisco 49ers and The Houston Texans.
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8 comments
49ers will need to run the quick game and run the ball. No deep passes.
mac must dink and dunk; if that fails, he's proficient at nut cracking
No doubt Shanahan will be doing a repeat of last week's game. The pass rush isn't very effective when you run at it. Texans are only average at run defense.
Paused the video before it starts. Going to guess they pick the Texans because the niners have "too many injuries"
NINERS got these nobody trash Texans. NINERS win by 2 scores.
I think the 49ers are equipped to play well against good pass rushes… not because of the OL, but because you have CMC in the flats and check downs which neutralizes good rushes. I’m more worried about the 49ers lack of rush with Huff being out the game. I could see this one going either way.
No! You guys picked the Niners? lol. Go Niners
No no no I don’t need videoless background replays with insufferable talkers who go a million miles per hour