other rumors claim<\/a> he wants to re-sign with the Seahawks in hopes of back-to-back championships.<\/p>\nHis 3 playoff outings in 2025\/26 brought 313 yards on 65 carries, a 4.8 yard per carry average and 4 touchdowns. Against the New England Patriots he racked up 135 yards on 27 carries. Had the Texans managed to get that sort of production against the Patriots in the divisional round, Stroud may not have been in a position where he started playing catch with the opponents.<\/p>\n
$35 million tied up in a tailback doesn\u2019t make sense for the 2026 Texans, however. So, odds of Walker playing for the good guys is pretty slim.<\/p>\n
2026 NFL Draft Running Backs<\/p>\n
If the Texans don\u2019t see an answer to the bellcow question in free agency, maybe there\u2019s a rock star in the draft.<\/p>\n
PFF.com has the Notre Dame tailback as their #1 running back prospect in the upcoming draft.<\/p>\n
\u201dWork between the tackles isn\u2019t as impactful\u201d might mean a big NO for Caley\u2019s offense. These Patriot South, EP style offensive coordinators do love to hammer the gap (see Bill O\u2019Brien).<\/p>\n
NFLdraftbuzz has Love ranked 91.3 out of 100, with a 97 break tackles rating – a trait that would help Houston as it continues to solidify an offensive line that seemingly lives to have running backs make first contact on the wrong side of the line.<\/p>\n
The Washington back lands at #2 on the PFF RB draft board and he seems a little more suitable for Caley\u2019s hammer the middle running game.<\/p>\n
While the speed is definitely worrisome, the ability to make defenders miss, and run over those who don\u2019t, would make a nice compliment to Woody Marks and Jawhar Jordan. At 5\u20198\u201d 228lbs, Coleman projects that sort of pinball\/bowling ball style that gets lost in the mix of bodies only to bounce out of the pack after sneakily t-boning an unsuspecting would-be tackler.<\/p>\n
Honestly, this sort of running back seems like the missing piece to the Texans offensive puzzle right now. A Maurice Jones-Drew style back would make the rest of this offense electric.<\/p>\n
The Nebraska Cornhusker is both slippery and elusive. He also provides a safety net for Stroud to dump off a pass and watch a teammate take it downfield, ala Etienne.<\/p>\n
Strength and weight are something Texans strength and conditioning coach Mike Eubanks can develop if the player has the same commitment to win that head coach Demeco Ryans seems to instill in all the players. Johnson\u2019s ability to make jump cuts and see the field translates well to the NFL and he\u2019s fast enough to run away from most big bodied defenders.<\/p>\n
Whether the Texans grab another free agent, pick up a back in the draft, trade for someone or do any combination thereof, they need another back. Will it be one of these guys? Maybe. We\u2019ll know in the next 10 weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After holding our collective breath for Dameon Pierce to carry on his rookie promise, and Joe Mixon to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":752659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2056],"tags":[7,221,253,80647,7162,2368,6,12843,222],"class_list":{"0":"post-752658","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-texans","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-houston","10":"tag-houston-texans","11":"tag-houston-texans-analysis","12":"tag-houston-texans-offseason","13":"tag-houstontexans","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-red-zone-play","16":"tag-texans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116071571870036104","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752658","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=752658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/752659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=752658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=752658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=752658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}