Defense needs a plan to stop Chiefs TE Kelce
Beginning with the first two games of the season against Kansas City and Baltimore, the Texans better improve their coverage against tight ends, or they’ll get roasted like last season.
In 2019, the Texans surrendered 10 touchdown passes to tight ends, and the most notable culprit was the Chiefs’ Travis Kelce.
In the Texans’ 51-31 loss in the divisional round of the playoffs at Arrowhead Stadium, Kelce collaborated with quarterback Patrick Mahomes for 10 catches, 134 yards and three touchdowns.
Including the Texans’ 31-24 regular-season victory at Kansas City, Kelce had 14 catches for 192 yards and three touchdowns in two games against them.
If starting the season against Kelce isn’t tough enough, the Texans have to cover the Ravens’ Mark Andrews in their first game at NRG Stadium.
Like Kelce, Andrews is 6-5 and weighing in the 260-pound neighborhood. Both are coming off Pro Bowl seasons, and both feasted on the Texans last season.
In the Ravens’ 41-7 victory in Baltimore – the Texans’ most lopsided defeat of the season -Andrews caught four passes for 75 yards and a touchdown.
As good as Andrews was last season playing with quarterback Lamar Jackson, the NFL’s Most Valuable Player, no tight end torments the Texans like Kelce, who’s coming off his fourth consecutive 1,000-yard season.
With Kelce in the lineup, the Chiefs have a 4-2 record against the Texans, including 2-0 in the playoffs. In those six games, Kelce has caught 41 passes for 558 yards (13.6 average) and five touchdowns.
It’s up to first-year defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver, who continues to coach the defensive line, to devise a plan for Kelce. Then it’s up to his players to carry out that plan.
In the playoff game, the Texans were at a severe disadvantage because starting safety Tashaun Gipson Sr. and backup Jahleel Addae didn’t play because of injuries. They weren’t missed when the Texans were making big plays and building a 24-0 lead early in the second quarter.
Then, Mahomes and Kelce dissected the defense in embarrassing fashion. Trailing 24-7,
Mahomes threw touchdown passes to Kelce on three consecutive drives in the second quarter. They connected on touchdowns of 5, 6 and 5 yards, giving the Chiefs 28-24 halftime lead.
Without Gipson and Addae, defensive coordinator Romeo Crennel tried everything to contain Kelce – man and zone coverage, double-team coverage, combination coverage and press coverage. Inside linebacker Zach Cunningham, safety Justin Reid and rookie cornerback Lonnie Johnson Jr. had a shot at Kelce at one time or another, and nothing worked.
Now the Texans are returning to the scene of their humiliation, and they better not repeat their performance against Kelce.
“Obviously, he’s an incredible talent,” Weaver said Tuesday on a Zoom conference call. “I think the teams that have had success against him have always tried to keep him uncomfortable, whether that’s chipping him with an extra guy, putting multiple guys on him in man so he can’t get used to one guy and how he’s going to attack him.
“That’s going to be our goal – how best we can make him feel uncomfortable throughout the game so he just doesn’t go out there and feel like he’s running through the defense and can do whatever he wants.”
Nobody could blame Kelce if he feels that way considering how he mortified the Texans in January.
The defense did a good job on Kelce in regular season, limiting him to four catches for 58 yards.
Weaver, Crennel and their players know what to do, but actually pulling it off is something else.
The best job the Texans have done on Kelce was in 2016. In two games in 2015, both Chiefs victories, including a 30-0 shutout in the playoffs, Kelce had 14 catches for 234 yards and two touchdowns.
In the home opener the next season, Crennel primarily used cornerback A.J. Bouye on Kelce. Bouye helped limit Kelce to five receptions for 34 yards.
In their nationally televised opener, the Texans need another Bouye-type performance.
“I think if you can attack him in multiple ways — multiple coverages, multiple people — you have a better chance,” Weaver said.
And then there’s Andrews and Minnesota tight end Kyle Rudolph two weeks later.
“Everybody has a different skill set, but those guys who are excellent route runners and pass catchers, you can’t just give them a single look because they’ll know how to attack you,” Weaver said. “They’re too good. I think that’s the method to try to get them stopped.”
Weaver won’t disclose specifics about his game plan, but it’s a challenge for his first game as a coordinator. It’s also a challenge for players like Cunningham and Johnson, each of whom should get another shot at Kelce.
Cunningham is the team’s best linebacker in coverage, which is one reason he got a new fouryear, $58 million contract this week. Johnson has progressed enough mentally in his second season to play cornerback and safety.
“Can’t say enough about those guys,” Weaver said. “In the defense we’re trying to implement, position flexibility and multiplicity (are) extremely important. When you have guys that can do multiple jobs, it makes it very hard on an offense to eliminate any particular player because you don’t necessarily know where they’re going to be.
“When you have guys (like) a Lonnie Johnson (or) a Zach Cunningham, it gives you some flexibility to do more on defense and be more creative. They’re really bright, and they have so much value for our defense.”
That value better be sky high at Arrowhead Stadium, or Kelce could help doom the Texans to another defeat.