WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W. Va. \u2013 Dalton Schultz ran directly into his heads-first take on a disappointing ending to the Texans\u2019 season.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t a performance the veteran tight end individually or the Texans collectively were happy about.<\/p>\n
Although he caught all four passes thrown to him for 63 yards in a playoff game, Schultz had breakdowns as a blocker with Kansas City Chiefs defensive end George Karlaftis recording three sacks and four quarterback hits on C.J. Stroud. Not all of those sacks were on Schultz, but he was a part of those disruptions of the Texans\u2019 passing game as the team allowed eight sacks overall and 14 quarterback hits.<\/p>\n
The final outcome, a 23-14 defeat to the Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium, left Schultz unhappy and determined to earn the next postseason opportunity as the Texans fell to 0-6 all-time in the divisional round. Like his teammates, Schultz is looking to take steps forward in the games that matter the most.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy performance is always second to the team,\u201d Schultz said. \u201cI\u2019ve never made it past the divisional round in my career, and so, for me, I\u2019ve been trying to get past that round since the first time that I made it. So, for me, it\u2019s just not good enough. As a personal [assessment], obviously, I didn\u2019t do enough in that game to win it. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo, I think it always goes back to how did we all do, \u2018Great, we all did well.\u2019 Then, let me look at me, did I do enough to have us play well? Then same thing in the opposite way. Did we lose? Yeah, we lost. Nobody did well. How am I critiquing myself? Obviously, I didn\u2019t do enough. I always look at it through, how did we do. Because, ultimately, that\u2019s all I care about. That\u2019s what we care about.\u201d<\/p>\n
Through a few weeks of training camp, Schultz has displayed a hunger to improve on last season when the former Dallas Cowboys starter caught 53 passes for 532 yards and two touchdowns on 85 targets. After signing a three-year, $36 million contract extension following a five-touchdown, 58-catch first season in Houston, Schultz\u2019s numbers declined. <\/p>\n
Schultz has delivered some impressive catches and displayed sound blocking technique at camp and appears to be in a good place in this offense. It has been encouraging enough to see that Texans coach DeMeco Ryans said it hearkens back to how he looked during his time with the Cowboys.<\/p>\n
\u201cDalton has continued to improve throughout camp, he\u2019s come out with a phenomenal attitude, urgency to get better in the running game also in the passing game,\u201d Ryans said. \u201cPeople that have been here, you\u2019ve seen him make some tremendous catches in the passing game and looking like the old Dalton and the guy we thought we would get coming from Dallas. <\/p>\n
\u201cA guy who made a ton of plays in the passing game. That\u2019s who I\u2019m seeing showing up this camp. So, it\u2019s good to see him. He\u2019s looking fresh, playing fast, making plays, great catch radius and making big plays in the passing game. I expect to see more of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
If Schultz regains the form that made him one of the most dangerous pass-catching tight ends in the game, the Texans\u2019 offense could take off. Having Schultz as an increased passing option to go with Nico Collins, Christian Kirk and rookies Jayden Higgins and Jaylin Noel is an impressive group of downfield threats.<\/p>\n
Schultz, who missed some time during the spring with a soft-tissue leg injury, is healthy and looking sharp at camp. He appears to be energized in many ways.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like there\u2019s a good burst of energy around the building,\u201d Schultz said. \u201cAdditions and the draft class and the changes from last year, I think that\u2019s definitely given the whole room, the whole place, the whole facility a new energy. <\/p>\n
\u201cI feel good. I had a couple of things in the offseason that I was kind of working through and now, finally getting back on the field, finally getting back to football I feel really good.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Schultz, 29, was a part of an offense that took a step backward last season under former offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik, who was dismissed and replaced by new offensive coordinator Nick Caley.<\/p>\n
Caley has an extensive background as a tight ends coach with the Los Angeles Rams coaching Tyler Higbee and with the New England Patriots as the position coach for Rob Gronkowski and Martellus Bennett.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s good, especially in these installs,\u201d Schultz said. \u201cTight end you\u2019ve got a lot on your plate: run game, pass game, pass protection, everything. You have to know everything. So, having a guy that\u2019s installing that knowing that there\u2019s a few quirks on certain things that\u2019s like, \u2018Hey, on this you can treat it like X, Y and Z.\u2019 <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s able to give you that on the front end before you go out for yourself and run it and have to learn it for yourself. So, he\u2019s able to get you almost ahead of the curve in some of these installs.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Schultz\u2019s first season with the Texans two years ago, he caught 59 passes for 635 yards and five touchdowns to earn a lucrative contract extension.<\/p>\n
He only had a few drops, but any dropped passes are uncharacteristic for Schultz. Schultz has 323 career catches for 3,289 yards and 24 touchdowns as one of the most productive tight ends in the NFL in every category over the past four seasons.<\/p>\n
Schultz took issue with a suggestion that his health affected his season last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d Schultz said. \u201cThat\u2019s hard, everybody\u2019s hurt. I went through some rehabs and some deficiencies that I had. Everybody\u2019s hurt. Nobody\u2019s fresh, especially in the playoffs. You aren\u2019t playing somebody at 100%, that\u2019s the beauty of the game.<\/p>\n
” It\u2019s to try to find a way to give everything you have into whatever percentage that you want to call your health at that point. Everybody\u2019s fighting through that. So, that\u2019s just the battle. That\u2019s the war of attrition that we play and I was happy to get an offseason under my belt where I could just refocus on getting my body to a really nice baseline.\u201d<\/p>\n
From a philosophical standpoint, Schultz has taken on something of a minimalist approach. He\u2019s keeping the main thing the main thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t do anything drastic, but I\u2019d say this is the first year where I\u2019ve kind of accepted the fact that sometimes less is more,\u201d Schultz said. \u201cI\u2019ve always been, \u2018I\u2019m working. I\u2019m here to work. I\u2019m here to do reps. I\u2019m here to take it all. Let me work.\u2019 <\/p>\n
\u201cThe older you get, sometimes you\u2019ve got to pull the reins back a little bit. I would say that this year I\u2019ve listened to them. I don\u2019t know. My younger years, I\u2019ll always be like, \u2018Screw you I\u2019m taking my reps.\u2019 But, this is the first year where I\u2019ve been able to back off and seen and felt improvements from that. Sometimes, being able to listen to when the reins are being pulled in a little bit, it\u2019s helped.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aaron Wilson is a Texans and NFL reporter for KPRC 2 and click2houston.com<\/p>\n
Copyright 2025 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W. Va. \u2013 Dalton Schultz ran directly into his heads-first take on a disappointing ending…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2056],"tags":[1718,7,221,253,2368,6,982,222,3865],"class_list":{"0":"post-261089","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-texans","8":"tag-dalton-schultz","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-houston","11":"tag-houston-texans","12":"tag-houstontexans","13":"tag-nfl","14":"tag-stanford","15":"tag-texans","16":"tag-tight-end"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114970598097703827","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}