This is usually the time of year when I would be doing five questions with the opposition. I am not chasing down a fellow SBNation writer for commentary on a meaningless preseaason game. As you can see, we have a new look here at Battle Red Blog. Most of us are doing good to log into the system much less answer someone else’s questions.

Your Houston Texans are officially opening up their 2025-2026 season tomorrow night and each game is an opportunity for DeMeco Ryans to learn something. As fans we have our own expectations/hopes coming into every season. So, here is a list of the top five things that we can look for on Saturday as potential insurance salesmen and grocery sackers take the field in the third and fourth quarter.

We’ve already failed at this one folks. Unless you have been living under a rock or you skipped the other stories on the front page of this site, C.J. Gardner-Johnson went down with a huge injury this week at the Greenbriar. We don’t know what the extent of the injury outside of the fact that it is a torn ACL. We can guess he will miss most if not all of the season. It’s a shame. He was slated to be our top safety and was coming off a pair of seasons where he had six interceptions.

Furthermore, secondary depth is not exactly a big thing for the Texans. Yes, they have Calen Bullock and Jalen Pitre, but Pitre has been playing in the box, so there is an open competition now for that third safety. I suppose that could be one thing to look for, but we will get to that soon enough. The number one goal every preseason is to get out unscathed.

Only an idiot would roll out their best plays in a preseason game. It’s going to be vanilla on both sides of the ball. The good news is that the Texans will be facing vanilla defenses. Brian Flores is not going to show everyone his best. Can you hit the guy in front of you and push him? It seems like a simple request, but that has been an issue for the Texans for several years now. Even when we remove the issues with pass protection, simply getting a consistent push has been difficult.

Three-fifths (or more) of this offensive line is new. We will see a bunch of different combinations on Saturday night. Which one of these guys can consistently open holes for the running backs? Even with the injury to CGJ, the Texans defense is bound to be one of the league’s ten best this season. We don’t need the 2000 Rams out there. We need a competent offense that can take care of the football and move it enough to score a reasonable amount of points.

The Texans might have the best tandem of corners in the NFL. Kamari Lassiter and Derek Stingley could both potentially make the Pro Bowl if they remain healthy. Therein lies the rub. Last season we saw both play Pro Bowl level defense but neither played every down. Lassiter missed a few games. Who is the number three corner and can that player reasonably hold down the fort until the stud comes back?

Last season, we saw Bullock step up inside and that made all the difference for the safeties. We also had Eric Murray that could reasonably play both slots and not get killed on a regular basis. Last season, the Texans tried a series of former number one picks in the hopes of striking gold. They didn’t find gold. They are trying it again this year, but they also drafted a corner that could develop into a serviceable backup. The corner and safety positions on the bench will be positions to watch all preseason.

Joe Mixon appears to be taking his annual August vacation and hopefully will be back rested and ready in September. Who is backing him up? Nick Chubb has looked good in some portions of camp, but he was banged up this week in practice. Woody Marks has been consistent for a rookie and should make the squad as a third down threat. That leaves Dameon Pierce, Dare Ogunbowale, J.J. Taylor, and Jawhar Jordan as possible fourth running backs. They all can’t make the cut.

Pierce literally just got back this week, so he may not even play in this one. This is the kind of game where Taylor and Jordan will get a ton of carries. It is their opportunity to show something because the loser of that battle might not even make it to the second preseason game. You also have British Brooks lingering as well. Yeah, gaining yards against second and third stringers might not seem like much, but we saw Cam Akers come out of nowhere and make the team based on his performance in these games.

A lot of this is in conjunction with the offensive line performance. Mixon rose above all the others because he showed an ability to make something out of nothing more often than the rest. We are in season three of the rebuild. The Texans are going to carry the top four or five running backs on the roster regardless of who they are and what they have done in the past.

Whittling down the wide receiver room

I was listening to the 610 boys in the afternoon and had to swerve to the side of the road because I was laughing so hard. They were going on and on about all of the plays Xavier Hutchinson made last season. It’s one thing to root for a guy and to talk him up based on what he is doing in camp. Hell, this is lying season where everyone is in the best shape of their career and they are all on the verge of stardom. Yet, there is no factual basis to make a comment like that.

Has Hutchinson made plays? I guess if we are literally looking at plays as plural then we would have to say that is a factual statement. However, he caught less than 50 percent of his targets in his first two seasons. That’s abysmal. I know the flagship station has to butter these guys up, but they can do better than what they did on Thursday. There has to be an air of objectivity.

Like with the running backs, there will be mitigating factors like a lot of Davis Mills and lesser quarterbacks. The offensive line is bound to be an issue. Nick Caley is not going to scheme these guys opsn either. They will have to do some heavy lifting on their own, but like with the running backs, this team likely carries six or seven receivers. The top four will be Nico Collins, Christian Kirk, and the two rookies. Who is getting those other two or three slots? It will end up being whoever can demonstrate a consistent ability to get open and catch the football. We can dance around the subject and go with some overly flowery language, but you put up numbers or you don’t