GROUND RULES
Slow and steady rushing attack pays dividends with a diverse approach
Running backs score in multiple ways in opener.
Let’s start with the wildcat, the direct snap to Mark Ingram, a zone-read handoff to yet another Texans running back, Phillip Lindsay, who orbited the line’s left edge and glided 5 yards for Houston’s final touchdown in a 37-21 thrashing of the Jaguars, last year’s last-place team.
The play was “a little curveball,” Ingram said, a third-quarter score that offensive coordinator Tim Kelly pulled from a new playbook that’s founded on first-time NFL coach David Culley’s insistence on establishing an effective run game.
Texans running backs scored three touchdowns in three different ways — Lindsay’s wildcat run, Ingram’s 1-yard touchdown and a 7-yard reception by David Johnson — and the diversity revealed how the team plans on using the five running backs on its 53-man roster, an oddity amid NFL franchises that normally only carry three or four.
“We’ve got five guys who can do a lot of things,” Ingram said.
First-time general manager Nick Caserio said jokingly in training camp that the Texans couldn’t possibly field all five running backs on the field at once; they weren’t running the wishbone. But Sunday’s game showed that the Texans often will use at least two running backs simultaneously, and Kelly’s creative personnel groupings, including the wildcat package, will be an essential factor in the offense’s success this season.
“We’re definitely going to have to run the ball for us to continue to be the team we want to be,” said quarterback Tyrod Taylor, whose 40 yards on four scrambles added to Houston’s 160 total rushing yards against Jacksonville.
Taylor has the leeway to make pre-snap checks based on defensive looks, and Culley credited the 11-year veteran for shifting to plays that led to productive runs. The effective run game created situations in which the Jaguars defense tilted toward the run, which allowed dynamic receiver Brandin Cooks to exploit favorable one-on-one matchups.
“Anytime you can run the ball in this game, it opens everything else up,” said Cooks, whose five catches for 132 yards included deep shots of 40 and 52 yards.
Ingram said the Texans “have a vision” for all the running backs. On Sunday, he clearly was the feature back. Ingram recorded 85 yards and a 1-yard touchdown on 26 carries, his most rushing attempts since carrying the ball 27 times for the Saints in a 27-24 loss against the 49ers in 2014.
The 11-year veteran repeatedly pounded a reconstructed Jaguars front that ranked second-to-last in the NFL against the run last season, and it’s uncertain yet whether the 31-year-old Ingram will be able to sustain such a workload throughout the league’s first 17-game season. But his role as a power back was effective while the Texans cleared running lanes with a steady rotation of multiple tight end formations.
The Texans decided to elevate Antony Auclair from the practice squad, and there were several situations when the former Buccaneers tight end platooned with either Pharaoh Brown or Jordan Akins to bolster the run game as lead blockers.
Kelly cycled through his options to create red zone scores. The three tight ends were involved in a power package that helped Ingram reach the Jaguars 7 on a 6-yard run on the offense’s second drive. Two plays later, the Texans subbed in Johnson, who caught a wide-open 7-yard touchdown off a pick route by Akins.
Johnson, a former All-Pro for the Cardinals, was at the center of what has so far been proven to be a lopsided trade for the Texans, who, under former coach and general manager Bill O’Brien, exchanged three-time All-Pro DeAndre Hopkins for Johnson last year. But the 29-year-old Johnson can be a versatile option as a runner and pass-catcher, and the Texans used him in several two-back looks in tandem with Lindsay and Rex Burkhead against the Jaguars.
On third-and-4 in the third quarter, Johnson was the inside receiver on a trips set to the left while Burkhead was in the backfield. Taylor completed a 7-yard pass to Nico Collins along the right sideline, and the Texans were able to stay up-tempo, rotate the same personnel into a two-back shotgun formation and create a wide-open nine-yard pass to Johnson on a crossing route on the next play.
“We were able to stay on the field to be able to use all those guys and use all our personnel groups,” Culley said. “And that’s a sign of consistency on offense.”
The Texans run game was not a gashing, dominant force against the Jaguars. It was more of a gradual hammering. The offense averaged 3.9 yards per carry, less than the unit’s average a year ago (4.3), and the efforts the Texans took to create running lanes indicate they may struggle against better NFL defenses.
Ingram only gained a yard on first-and-goal at the Jaguars’ 3 in the second quarter, and, after a Collins offensive pass interference penalty, the Texans had to settle for a field goal. Then, on a third-and-1 in the third quarter, Ingram was stuffed for no gain despite Auclair and Brown lead blocking from the backfield.
“There’s some runs that weren’t as clean, and I think we can improve and learn from it and grow from it,” Ingram said. “It’s always better to learn in a victory as opposed to a loss.”