It’s broken, so Texans fixing it
Dismal offense getting the draft attention it needs
In 456 NFL playoff games since the 1970 merger with the AFL, only four times was a team held without a point at home.
The Texans joined that group in January with a zeroed-out performance against the Kansas City Chiefs.
They were so pitiful that at one point Bill O’Brien made the illogical, if not indefensible, decision to take his quarterback and tailback out of the game and put J.J. Watt, who was nursing a groin injury, in the backfield near the goal line.
The play told you everything you needed to know about the Texans’ offense. It was dreadful. The Texans ranked near the bottom of the league in yards per pass attempt (26th), yards per rushing attempt (28th) and scoring percentage (28th).
You didn’t have to be psychic to figure the Texans needed to address their offensive issues. The team’s offseason response
shows they were not blind to that fact.
After signing free agents in quarterback Brock Osweiler and running back Lamar Miller, the Texans continue their offensive haul in the draft.
For the first time since the team’s initial draft in 2002, the Texans’ first three picks were all offensive players.
They selected speedy wideout Will Fuller out of Notre Dame in Thursday’s first round.
On Friday, the Texans took two more swings at glaring offensive needs by selecting Fuller’s college teammate Nick Martin in the second round (50th overall) and receiver Braxton Miller of Ohio State in the third (85th overall).
Martin, a center who also started double-digit games at guard for the Fighting Irish, brings a nastiness to the game that served him well in his three years as a starter in South Bend. And he is an established team leader to boot.
The brother of Dallas Cowboy All-Pro guard Zack Martin, a first-round choice in 2014, should make an instant impact on the interior of the Texans’ offensive line.
Miller was a quarterback for the Buckeyes, then moved to receiver last year, where he started to excel by virtue of hard work and football intelligence. Oh, and he is strong, fast, elusive and selfless.
Adding playmakers
Obviously, the Texans will have a different look offensively next season.
That’s a good thing. Remember that seasonending zero?
“It is absolutely an intent for us; we wanted to add playmakers to this football team,” general manager Rick Smith said. “We feel like we’ve got a good team. We feel like if we could add guys that have dimensions, it could help us.”
The Texans even did something Smith had never done: traded up in the first round to get their man. And they did it again in the second, moving up two spots to nab Martin.
These might not be smart moves — we probably won’t know for a couple years — but they were necessary.
The Texans hope Fuller becomes a nice complement to DeAndre Hopkins, who has blossomed into one of the NFL’s most dynamic wideouts.
And they want Martin, who most scouts had rated as the second-best center in the draft, to plug a hole left when Ben Jones signed with the Tennessee Titans. Smith even described Martin as a “plug-and-play” guy.
OK, all of these acquisitions come with questions marks — Osweiler has started only seven games, Miller has never been a workhorse back, Fuller is smallish and has had a case of the dropsies and Martin isn’t as athletic as he was before suffering a knee injury in 2013 — but at least there is hope.
The offense the Texans put on the field much of last year came with questions marks, too. And exclamation marks … following expletives.
Once Arian Foster was injured, Hopkins was the lone offensive player that defenses considered a threat.
That had to change if this team wanted to do any damage in the postseason.
Biggest overall since ’07
It will be fascinating to watch what comes from the biggest overhaul in the offense since the offseason of 2007.
That year the Texans traded for Matt Schaub, signed tailback Ahman Green and drafted speedy wide receiver Jacoby Jones in the third round.
While the Green pickup didn’t work out, the Texans’ offense improved from 28th to 12th in scoring average, with a jump of a full seven points a game.
Don’t expect that type of improvement with this season’s unit, but even if the Texans scored only a field goal more per game they likely would become a top-10 scoring unit, which would be a significant jump from their 21stplace standing a year ago.
It is hard to believe the Texans drafted offensive players in the first two rounds.
From 2004 to 2015, the Texans took only four offensive players in the first and second rounds, compared to 17 on defense.
Yeah, yeah, defense wins championships, but a bad offense loses football games.
Last season, the Texans scored 21 or fewer points in 11 games. They lost seven of those games, including the aforementioned 30-0 drubbing by Kansas City in the playoffs.
This was a team that had to do something offensively, and thus far it has. Weren’t you tired of watching the Texans struggle to move the football?
“It is absolutely an intent for us; we wanted to add playmakers to this football team. We feel like we’ve got a good team. We feel like if we could add guys that have dimensions, it could help us.” Rick Smith, Texans general manager