{"id":769739,"date":"2026-02-22T21:05:23","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T21:05:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/769739\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T21:05:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T21:05:23","slug":"houston-texans-analysis-defensive-flaws-buffalo-bills-could-exploit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/769739\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston Texans analysis: Defensive flaws Buffalo Bills could exploit"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s been a lot of digital ink spent on talking up how good the Houston Texans\u2019 defense is as we prepare to watch the Buffalo Bills try and take them down in front of millions tuned in to Thursday Night Football. I could easily do an article on just stats showing how that\u2019s true. They allow the second least yards per play, with the best defense when it comes to yards per pass specifically. They have the fourth best interception rate, allow the least points per game and per drive (my favorite metric).<\/p>\n

The Texans have this stat, that stat, and the other stat going for them; proof of their formidability. But everyone else has already written that article, so allow me to write a quick-hitter pointing out not only that they\u2019re not invulnerable, but they may have very specific and exploitable vulnerabilities.<\/p>\n

I want to be clear that nothing I\u2019m about to suggest is to sway anyone towards the idea that Houston doesn\u2019t have an elite defense. They do. All the league ranks I noted above are all true, and quarterback Josh Allen and company will have their work cut out for them trying to put up points Thursday night.<\/p>\n

That said, all of those very true stats are aggregate numbers representing the totality of their work this season. Let\u2019s get a little less aggregate for a second, starting with their rushing defense.<\/p>\n

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In totality, the Texans allow the fourth-least yards per rushing play with 3.85 yards per carry. Rushes toward the left end, left guard, and right guard all have average numbers when it comes to yards per rush. Put differently, that\u2019s half the field in which Houston can give up a little ground. Even more starting is their numbers up the middle. They allow 4.4 yards per rush there, good for a 24th rating in the league. By my rule of four, that\u2019s one rank away from the \u201cbad\u201d category<\/p>\n

Want even better news? And I mean even better than what I just mentioned in light of having running back James Cook III and an actual buffalo at quarterback with Josh Allen. Sometimes these numbers can be skewed due to low attempts in a particular direction. Houston has had 77 runs up the middle against them, the 12th-most in the league. That\u2019s high enough to give this stat some extra validity.<\/p>\n

Conclusion: The Bills should be able to run effectively up the middle.<\/p>\n

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Remember from above that the Texans\u2019 defense has the best rating in the league for yards allowed per pass. They allow a scant 5.45 yards per throw in that metric. There isn\u2019t a ton to work with here as they are very good pretty much across the board. The biggest exception are short throws across the middle, where they allow 7.7 yards per pass \u2014 which puts them 24th in the league. Even with that though, Houston is ninth in the league when it comes to completion percentage in this area. They\u2019re not allowing a ton of completions, but they are giving up yards here.<\/p>\n

I say \u201cbiggest exception\u201d in regards to the above as passes that are deep right also show some potential as targets for Buffalo. I\u2019m a little more hesitant with that due to the lower number of attempts there, but it still could be an area to go after for the Bills.<\/p>\n

It should come as some relief to Bills Mafia that this might be a case of unstoppable force vs. immovable object. The Bills have the second-highest yards per play and points per drive in the league, so they\u2019re doing pretty well for themselves. Having Josh Allen always helps in that regard. But there\u2019s one other consideration here.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s like the old saying \u201cthe worst defense is a garbage offense.\u201d That\u2019s an old saying right? I\u2019m not just riffing on a different one? Either way, it\u2019s true here. Go back up and look at the offense\u2019s side of those charts.<\/p>\n

As good as the defense is, the offense is bad. Add to that information the fact that quarterback C.J. Stroud won\u2019t be suiting up in Week 12. Houston\u2019s defense should pose a problem, but perhaps not an insurmountable one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s been a lot of digital ink spent on talking up how good the Houston Texans\u2019 defense is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":769740,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2056],"tags":[85590,1622,7,221,253,2368,6,222],"class_list":{"0":"post-769739","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-texans","8":"tag-buffalo-bills-analysis","9":"tag-buffalo-bills-opinion","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-houston","12":"tag-houston-texans","13":"tag-houstontexans","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-texans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116116321237119617","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769739","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=769739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/769740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=769739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=769739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=769739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}