The Houston Texans Offense Is Figuring Things Out Just In Time Ahead of Texans vs. Chiefs

The Houston Texans Offense Is Figuring Things Out Just In Time Ahead of Texans vs. Chiefs

All right, you guys know I’ve fought this uh for a long time and I’ve been very very careful in just uh how much I allow myself to get excited about the offensive line and a bunch of the obvious improvements that they’ve made. But, uh, after watching the Colts game over a few times and, uh, just really looking and starting to reflect on everything, the Texans offensive line has figured out things to an incredible degree to the point where on the season now they’re an average offensive line. But remember, they’ve had to lift themselves up from the dredges in those first few weeks of the season. So, these last several weeks, I’ve been saying, look, they’re performing like an average offensive line. I was saying that even before the stats got up there. They’re officially like an average offensive line right now. I’m gonna show you uh just one quick stat and then I want to watch the blitzes from this last week. But if you look at this um this is pass blocking and passing efficiency combined. And if it’s a little confusing, don’t worry because at the very least the Texans are right there in the middle. Um the thing to know about this, if I could get the damn thing to to to shrink up the way it needs to. Hold on a second. There we go. It was just too big. Team blocking, team pass blocking, and pass play efficiency. So, right now, EPA per dropback, that’s the vertical access. They’re about an average passing offense. Bottom access is pass protection composite score. They’re a little bit above average in pass protection. And the trajectory on that is is going up, you know, and that pass protection composite score is from a few different services. So, it’s not just taking PFF or anything like that. The last couple weeks they’ve given up two sacks in total. But if we just watch the blitzes, this is the first time today I’d sat down and just watched just the Didn’t have my camera. Didn’t have my Yep. Okay, I’m back. I’m back. That stupid thing. All right. Ball comes out quick. He He finds Hutchinson quick across the middle. Hutchinson has a nice run after catch. Really the biggest thing in a lot of these plays, we’re going to watch a bootleg here. So CJ effective to the left and the right uh with the boot in this game. Remember um remember Perkins weirdly saying CJ couldn’t throw to the left. It’s one of the weirdest things I’ve ever heard said about a quarterback whether he’s good or bad. Um but this one right here we and we’ve talked about this. This is the red zone play that was actually a really good read. It was good protection. It’s just that Grover Stewart got his big paw up in the air and blocked. You can see Dalton Schultz was wide open over the middle. Probably would have been a touchdown. I mean, if anything, can I criticize Jake Andrews for the center for blocking Grover Stewart so effectively that Grover just planted and and and jumped tough? I mean, that like these are all blitzes. The things that used to just destroy the Texans cuz they didn’t know how to handle anything. This is a sevenman blitz, which doesn’t make any sense at all. Somebody screwed up here. So, they sent even one more than was supposed to be there. And CJ knows he’s hot, but what’s what happens? All the guys on the inside are protected. What do you protect from the inside out? So, you got seven guys being blocked by six. The numbers don’t add up. Everybody’s accounted for except the guys on the outside. CJ knows he’s hot and he gets it off to Nico Collins over the middle on a cover zero blitz. So, CJ recognizes the pass protection was on point. Watch this one. Woody Marks and 44. Zire Franklin just attacks him. CJ balls out quick. Boom. Fiveman pressure. I mean, the ball’s out. Boot. This is a really I mean, with with Latu in his face the entire time. Boy, look at that throw. It looks so much nicer from It looked impressive from the sideline in the TV copy, but from the end zone, I mean, Lu’s in his face right there. And Lu’s fast. CJ knows CJ knows he can’t think like, “Oh, I’m going to run. I’m going to beat this guy to the edge.” He knows that. So, he knows Lu’s coming for him. With him in his face and just just a flick of the wrist, I just Oh, this was mastery. It was just a play after play after play and these are all the blade. I didn’t pull up just the good plays. These are the blitzes in the game, at least once sorted by NFL.com. Schultz loses his guy just at the end. But just in terms of understanding the protections and some of the things we saw, remember like versus the um remember versus the the Jags early on. It was just such a mess. And off to the left you got Christian Kirk with the blitzer coming off the edge. Like just gets in his way long enough. CJ knows where the trouble is. Makes a pinpoint throw. This one pressure in his face. Try to make something of it or do the smart thing and just dirt it. Probably the smart move there. Didn’t try to extend it. Didn’t make it any worse than it had to be. And this is the one that’s on the thumbnail. Just look at this pocket. Look at these guys doing the proper thing. Uh, watch Woody Marks. And this is an odd look. This is an odd front, which can get tricky, especially when you got one guy standing up over the center. You’ve got two guys coming off the edge. Woody Marks comes across for the backer, attacks him, and then there’s a twist going on there. as a backer comes in that defensive tackle’s coming around. So Ed Ingram’s going to lose 44. Zyra Franklin, but gets enough of him that the the the pocket integrity is maintained and then you get the throw to Jaden Higgins. Sorry everybody, I kind of forgot that you guys existed. I’m so so entranced by all of this, these things that we haven’t seen. Uh we’ve seen more and more of it, but now it’s with CJ in there. And I just how quickly and how well CJ was operating. Look on this one. Eding room had a rough snap on this. But I think this one CJ starts off with a read to his left. Yeah. Oh god. Oh, I need a cigarette. And I don’t smoke, man. So, like this is good stuff. This is really good stuff. Uh if Markx isn’t if if Markx isn’t good to go, yeah, I’m going to freak out a little bit, but for the moment, I’m happy. I’ll do my preview tomorrow and we’ll talk about all of these injuries. Some of them very very concerning. But the other one uh that I got this from uh from the kunk here. Stout under pressure this year. Completed 60.3% of his passes went under pressure this season, the second highest in the NFL and the highest rate of his career. Uh that’s um it’s increasingly matching the eyeball test. The O line has been much better. The uh the running backs have been much better. The tight ends have been much better. The receivers, like we saw out of Christian Kirk there, they’ve been better when tasked with pass protection, but really more than anything compared to early in the year, they’re exactly where they need to be. And CJ’s been able to get the ball out quickly. Davis Mills was able to get the ball out quickly. And part of that is just that Kayle’s offense is starting to take hold. Kaylee was asked today, Nick Kayley, the offensive coordinator, was asked today about how do they get better at blitz pickup? What have they been working on? Yeah, well, I think it it’s we we stress communication. We stress seeing it through the same set of eyes. Um, it starts with our mic point and our declaration and then everybody else being able to communicate and know exactly what we’re doing. Um, leave nothing to chance, communicate, and then be able to make our calls accordingly. Um, they want to protect inside out and we rep, you know, we take a lot of reps in terms of blitz pickup, stunts, pick, stunts, games, etc. like that. Um, so it’s like anything else, you got to work at it to improve it and that’s what we’re still trying to do. All right. Yeah. Uh, right. Oh, yeah. So, you had to work at it. Okay, cool. This is the thing, and I know many of you have heard me vent about this before. I, as a defensive lineman, watched many offensive lines work in my career. Some of them very good. Early in my career, we had some really good O lines. Um, some of them really bad. The expansion years were a little bit tough. But what would drive me insane was when you would see an offensive line coach and his what he thought working on blitz was was um telling the guys, “Hey, this is the this is one of the blitzes they run. Line up and we’re going to walk through it exactly the way the defense has shown it on film. Okay, remember remember how they’re going to attack you. Okay, let’s talk about it beforehand. All right, now now we got it. Now we got it. It’s out there like they’re rehearsing a dance step or something. The really good coaches, the really good offensive line coaches make it gamelike in that you don’t know exactly what’s coming. You got to be on point with your rules. And certainly you scout what the opposing team is doing. They’re going to be watching some Steve Spagnolo blitzes this week. Um, but you need to get them to be able to think and ingrain everything automatically. And over the course of the season, I think we’ve started to see the evidence of Cole Papovich and Nick Kaye actually knowing what the [ __ ] they’re doing, which is not what’s been going on the last couple years. I used to get I I I got in an argument with an offensive line coach once cuz um cuz he was just so inept at at just actually teaching his guys how to pick up blitzes. He just had him out there doing a dress rehearsal hoping that the head coach wouldn’t get mad. They’re just some offensive line coaches just don’t want to f up the drill. Excuse me for my profanity earlier. Um, just don’t want to they just don’t want to f up the drill. They don’t want to get yelled at by the head coach. So, they let everybody know beforehand, hey, these little blitzes you’re going to see in blitz pickup. Okay. And this is the exact sequence in which you’re going to see them. Boulder dash. Um, this is the other one I wanted to look at. This is where I know the Chiefs blitz a lot. Spagnolo very, very good at it. They disguise him well. this defense with the Chiefs this year, even though they haven’t been letting up a lot of points. I mean, just look at them this season. This was on NFL Live. Um, they’re 27th in sacks, they’re 26th in turnovers, 23rd in yards per play. On third down, they’re 26th in the league. Mina Kines had some stats on how they’ve been when they blitz, and they they sounded a whole lot like those stats. They just haven’t been as effective at making the big plays. Then you take the offense and you look at Pat Mahomes. Mahomes is doing the things that Pat Mahomes has always done. And I mean, he’s on pace to have more touchdowns this season than he had in the previous each of the previous two seasons. But, you know, where these last couple years, the Chiefs defense was so good and it would put the the the Chiefs offense in position to take advantage of it. and the Chiefs just don’t have as many opportunities to take advantage of that field position or those turnovers because the defense is not they’re not creating impact plays the way they used to. So, I think much like the the Colts last week, there’s certain things about the Chiefs and how they’ve been operating this year that um are it’s it’s I’m kind of glad. Previously, I wasn’t happy that the Texans were catching the Chiefs uh late in the season. This year, I think just as it is with the Colts, I think you’re catching them at the right time cuz teams are starting to they’re starting to rise and fall. And I think we’re going to see the best version of the Texans offense. And the other part, cuz I know some of you are going to be saying, “Well, hey Seth, we’d love to see more points scored.” Yeah, I get it. There is some of the way the Texans are calling the game um that they they’re keeping them low possession games. They’re winning the time of possession. there the number of possessions has been down around like nine or 10 at times and you know the average is 12 or 13 12 to 14 which means the average would be 13 um series in a game and if they could just punch the damn ball in in the red zone it would make a big whole difference. So that’s one of the things that we’re just waiting to to see if they click. Here’s CJ yesterday. I don’t think I played this yesterday on um the blitz in the uh on uh No, no, we don’t have it in here. Well, screw it then. We’ll just leave it at that. Let me check some comments real quick. Our offense needs to stay in rhythm, right? The um and one big way to stay in rhythm is to not have these procedural penalties. It’s one of the things that I’m uh I’m not nervous about it. It was just kind of shocking to me because they’d fixed a lot of that stuff. Houston’s one of the best in offensive turnovers, too. Yeah, ball security, ball security’s been like there’s there’s one of the the the turnover margin and everything like the Texans are doing those things to keep themselves in games. Let’s see. Uh I think poor communication was really one of the main reasons for our O line failures. Yeah. Uh, and that’s that’s another benefit of having just multiple veterans out there now, too. I mean, Arante Urser is a conscientious young man. I’m very impressed with him and I think he’s learning a lot of the stuff that sometimes young guys aren’t learning and paying attention to in the meetings. I mean, he’s been incredibly accountable early on in the season when he was struggling. He’s just he said everything you would want him to say. Not that that matters, but look, we just went through multiple years where Larry Tonsel, even though he’s really good, would also never take accountability for his penalties or anything like that. It felt like other guys on the offensive line kind of wanted to follow suit and and and acting like, “Hey, everything’s fine. I don’t know why the media is mean to us. We’re doing great.” And it just it it was a culture that was not fun to root for. Um I think that’s changed. like Arante Ursery is just he’s very at least in football terms I don’t know how he is as a person or anything but he struck me as a very mature young player um in the way he handles his business but now you got Titus Howard at left guard a veteran playing next to a rookie you’ve got a veteran at right guard you’ve got an extreme veteran at right tackle and the communication issues aren’t nearly as much of an issue when you’re talking to um offensive tackles one of the next steps that they could is something that JJ actually commented on today. I don’t have his quotes here, but JJ had some good thoughts about it. It was an article in Pro Football Focus. I don’t have that either. Boy, what a what a horrendous job of preparing. If I were a good old offensive line coach, I would be tearing me a new one right now on this lack of preparation. So, um, thank you. Thank you for bearing with me through my technical difficulties earlier on. This what happens when I stay up past it’s past my bedtime. I’m gonna blame it on I’m gonna blame it on Yeah, I go to bed at 6 PM. That’s That’s I’m just tired.

Former Houston Texans player Seth Payne takes a look at some of the promising signs with Houston’s offense as Texans vs K.C. Chiefs approaches. Houston travels to Kansas City in Week 14 of the NFL season.