Colts, Texans a world apart in QB protection
Sacks might have a lot to do with who wins the Colts-Texans AFC wild card playoff game Saturday in Houston.
See, there’s this wee little discrepancy.
Indianapolis allowed the fewest sacks of any NFL team in the regular season; Andrew Luck got tackled behind the line of scrimmage only 18 times. Barely once per game.
In contrast, Houston allowed most in the NFL; Deshaun Watson was sacked 62 times. Nearly four per game.
These are not typos — the discrepancy is that enormous. Houston’s porousness is nowhere near the NFL single-season record: the 1986 Philadelphia Eagles gave up 104 sacks. Poor Randall Cunningham.
How well the Texans offensive line can protect Watson might go a long way toward determining which team, Indy or Houston, advances to play next weekend in the AFC divisional playoffs. These AFC South rivals kick off wild-card weekend at Houston’s NRG Stadium on Saturday (4:35 p.m. EST, CTV via ESPN/ABC).
If Indy wins, it takes on the Chiefs on Jan. 12 in Kansas City. If Houston wins, it faces the Patriots on Jan. 13 in Foxboro, Mass.
If the Colts pass rush were more formidable, perhaps you’d have heard a lot more about this sacks-allowed contrast all week. But the Colts rank about middle of the NFL pack in sacks, tied for 19th with 38.
Still, Texans head coach Bill O’Brien continues to be concerned about the pounding his second-year passer is taking. It doesn’t matter what the score is, the 23-year-old Watson gets walloped a lot — 27 times when the Texans are winning, 26 times when losing, nine times when tied.
“We’ve got to do a better job,” O’Brien said this week. “We’re working on that. We’re working very hard on that. We don’t want him to take unnecessary hits … whether it’s a protection mistake, a protection technique or him maybe (needing to get) rid of the ball a little bit quicker.”
Although he got hit so badly in an early-season win over Dallas that team medical personnel were checking his heart rate on the sideline, Watson this week vowed that physically, “I feel great. I feel really good.”
That’d be much more believable coming from Luck. He got beat up a lot in his early years in the NFL, too, when he took longer to make decisions in the pocket, and when he worked behind poor offensive lines. Luck was sacked 100 times over his first three seasons, 15 times in seven games in Year 4, and 41 times in 15 starts in 2017 — annually between 4.2 per cent and 7.0 per cent of his dropbacks.
This year, behind a vastly upgraded offensive line featuring, Luck has been sacked on only 2.7 per cent of his dropbacks. Those linemen deserve at least to have their names mentioned. Left to right: eighth-year tackle Anthony Castonzo, rookie guard Quenton Nelson, third-year centre Ryan Kelly, fourth-year guard Mark Glowinski and rookie tackle Braden Smith.
“They’re good,” O’Brien said. “Very athletic, very strong, very good offensive line that plays well together. So it’s a big challenge for us.”
Luck factors himself into his sack avoidance, according to Texans defensive coordinator Romeo Crennel.
“He’s a strong player. He’s hard to sack,” Crennel said.
Luckily for the Texans, they arguably have more good pass rushers stuffed on their defensive line than any team in the NFL, including J.J. Watt, Jadeveon Clowney, Whitney Mercilus and Christian Covington of Vancouver.
BIG-HEARTED HOP: Texans star WR DeAndre Hopkins announced on social media he is donating his playoff cheque to the family of Jazmine Barnes, the sevenyear-old girl who died early Sunday after a gunman for no discernible reason fired his gun into the car driven by the girl’s mother in Harris County.
The mother is recovering from a gunshot wound while some of Barnes’ three sisters were injured by shattered car-window glass.
“I hate to hear what happened,” Hopkins said. “The city of Houston is always supportive of me, of this team. So I felt in my heart that it’s only right I give back to those who are down.
“What can I do? That’s nothing. That won’t bring back a person, so I’m not trying to make it all about me or anything like that.”