Greenard always looks for an edge
HOUSTON — The first chirps at Texans’ training camp happened on Tuesday.
The defense had just made three consecutive stops in the team’s two-minute drill, forcing a fourth down. And edge rusher Jonathan Greenard wanted to let the offense know what that meant. “That’s ball game!” he yelled. “That’s ball game!”
Unfortunately, he was wrong. Quarterback Davis Mills and the offense converted on a fourth down shortly after.
But that Greenard was talking and willing to stand by his defense shows he’s coming into his own as he heads into Year 3 with the Texans.
“First off, you don’t talk unless you feel confident about who you are as a football player and what you can do, and sometimes it takes that leader to get things going a little bit,” Texans coach Lovie Smith said. “It’s training camp. It’s not like it’s the wedding night and everybody is excited and all that. It’s training camp. So, you expect those kind of things from Jonathan.”
“When you talk, you need to be able to make plays, and he can do that.”
Greenard had a breakout season in 2021. He led the Texans with eight sacks, including seven in the first five games. He also had two forced fumbles and four pass deflections. And this was despite being a healthy scratch the first two games. He also missed one game because of COVID-19 and another because of a nagging foot injury.
But Greenard, the Texans’ 2020 third-round pick, was by far their best defensive player last year.
“I’m anxious to see how far he can go,” Smith said. “Being banged up and missing a lot of the offseason work put him behind a little bit, but you see we’ll continue to give him more and more reps. He’s a big part have we’re going to do this year.”
This past offseason, Greenard had a procedure done to clean up his foot injury and now he’s back healthy and ready to pick up where he left off.
“It’s definitely exciting,” Greenard said. “But at the same time, I also understand what’s at stake. I understand nobody cares about (what he did last year).”
Smith often talks about the defense needing to get better as the Texans try to turn things around. They ranked 31st out of 32 teams in total defense in 2021 and allowed 26.6 points per game, which was sixth-worst in the league.
The 25-year-old, who is in the third year of four-year rookie contract, figures to be a major
piece in the Texans’ continued rebuild and one of its solutions as he continues to develop. At 6foot-3, 263 pounds, Greenard isn’t the biggest edge rusher, but he definitely has the skills. His opponents recognize that too.
When asked to describe Greenard, right tackle Tytus Howard said Greenard is smaller, but has a lot of power.
“A lot of different, versatility of moves,” Howard said. “So when you go against Jonathan, you can’t just think you’re going to see the same thing over and over. He kind of keeps you on your toes a little bit.”
That’s all in the strategy of being a pass rusher. Throughout camp, Greenard has had constant conversations with offensive tackles Laremy Tunsil and Howard to better understand what each person is thinking when going up against each other. For instance, Greenard did a spin move against Tunsil and Howard in Tuesday’s practice, and asked the tackles what they were thinking in those situations as offensive tackles.
“If you go to them, that’s what they want to you to do,” Greenard said. “They want you to come to them and play their game. You’ve got to bring them out to you. I’m going to always take that from them.”
Greenard is hoping that homework and extra work will pay off when the season begins in a month.
“This is a new year,” Greenard said. “I could have one sack, 10 sacks, don’t matter what it was. I still got to go get whatever that number is. At the end of the day, we are all going to do that collectively and that’s going to help us better for the team and that way we can move forward and get where we want to go.”