Meet Me at The Quarterback - The Houston Texans Defence is a Problem
By Lee Wakefield
I need to begin this week’s article by admitting something. I made a mistake.
It should not have taken me until after week 14 of the NFL season to write about the Houston defence.
I’ve covered the Broncos and the Seahawks, who are both top-5 fronts, and top-5 defences overall, but so are the Texans. They have the star power up front with a dominant defensive line, they have the play caller who channels their strengths incredibly well, and they have the back seven who allow the front the time needed to do its work.
Houston isn’t without issues, their offence has been kind of stop-start for portions of their season, but as we all know, we’re not here to talk about offence.
The Dominance, and What That's Meant for this Season
With the Houston defence, offences around the league, have a problem. There’s a synergy between individual players, and units within the defence that has really meant that the offence’s inconsistencies have been migrated.
The most impressive thing being that they’ve been migrated to the point that they’ve been able to drag this team from the point where the season was looking like it was going to be lost, to a point where this team is on the brink of the playoffs.
The Broncos and Seahawks have defences that have powered their teams to the top of their respective conferences, and have fully deserved their individual write-ups, but the Texans’ defence has completely changed the fortunes of their team.
In the interest of balance, the Texans probably owe some credit to Davis Mills for holding the fort but it’s been a dominant run by the defence, and I’m here to give them credit.
The team began the season terribly with a 0-3 start that was only arrested by a big win against the Titans in week 4.
By week 9, the record was on the edge at 3-5 after a closely fought loss against the Broncos.
Since then, it’s been five straight wins, and crucially, within those five weeks, the Texans have won three divisional games, and two more against AFC opponents, which gives the Texans the edge when it comes to a whole host of tie-breakers for what has become a wild AFC playoff race.
Not that it means a whole lot at this stage of the season, but after week 1, Harold Landry is the current NFL sack leader with 2.5 sacks. Landry got off to a red-hot start against the Raiders as he disrupted Geno Smith all day, racking up eight total pressures, with an impressive 17.5% pass rush win rate. Landry also managed to run the Raiders’ run three times across Sunday’s game, only adding to what was an impressive debut after he signed a three-year deal with the Patriots at the beginning of free agency.
It’s worth noting that this death reunited Landry with Mike Vrabel, his former Head Coach from their days in Tennessee.
Probably why he was able to force big-time sacks, working with cohesion like this with his new teammates.
In the past three weeks, the Texans have either dented or killed off the playoff chances of three of the AFC rivals aided by their dominant defensive unit.
The Bills’ chances of winning the AFC East took a hit on November 21st. The Texans then won an almost must-win match with the Colts a week later. The now Daniel-Jones-less Colts are the Texans’ final opponent of the regular season. With the Indy QB’s absence making that a decidedly easier-looking task on what will surely be a pivotal week in the playoff race.
Then this past Sunday night, the Texans went into Chiefs Kingdom, against Mahomes, Kelce and all of the mystique that they’ve held for many years in that building (although I’d argue that this has evaporated this year, it’s just that media members have been slow to admit this), and they won.
This has all but killed off any chance that Kansas City has to make the playoffs, whilst seriously boosting their own chances.
Houston currently has a 7-2 record against AFC opponents, with wins against the Chiefs, Ravens, and Bills. They have a game against the Chargers, which no Chargers fan is looking forward to due to the mismatch between defensive and offensive lines, and they have a great chance of sweeping the Colts.
The Defensive Front
The Texans have built their defensive front around their two star pass rushers, Will Anderson Jr. and Danielle Hunter.
The pair make up one of the most feared and effective pass rush duos in the league, and were both acquired in a way that initially made people outside of the organisation ask questions.
Anderson was, of course, selected a pick behind C.J. Stroud with the third overall pick of the 2023 draft. The analytically minded thought it was foolish to trade up so aggressively for a non-quarterback. To others, it was just an unusual move up in order to make back-to-back picks in the top five of the draft.
Hunter was brought over in free agency. The Texans’ decision makers opted to allow Jonathan Greenard to walk, and they signed Danielle Hunter, with the two players replacing each other in Minnesota and Houston.
Hunter is a few years older than Greenard and didn’t have the organisational familiarity that any homegrown player enjoys.
Both swings have worked a treat, giving DeMeco Ryans and Defensive Coordinator, Matt Burke the edge defenders that they need to bring their defence to life.
This year, both Anderson Jr. (76, 2nd in the league) and Hunter (64, 5th) are in the top five for pressures. Both are in the top ten in pass rush win rate, with Anderson at 27.2%, which is only 0.5% back from Myles Garrett, which gives him the second-best rate in the league to date. Hunter is clocking in at 21.8%, which is good for the eighth-best rank.
Both of these players have translated those underlying numbers into sacks, with 21 between the two. This means that between two players, the Texans have as many sacks as the Cincinnati Bengals have all year, and they have more sacks than the Baltimore Ravens (19), Carolina Panthers (18), and San Francisco 49ers (16) have as an entire defence.
Perhaps I had both of these players too low in my, quarter-way, top-10 pass rusher rankings. A mistake I won’t take twice when re-doing that exercise when the session is over.
On the interior, the Texans have built through cheaper, veteran free agent signings.
Guys like Sheldon Rankins, Mario Edwards Jr., Tommy Togiai and Denico Autry aren’t star players, and aren’t getting the plaudits of their most esteemed defensive line colleagues. However, they are effective in their roles and don’t cost a great deal of money. Money that Houston can use to re-sign Danielle Hunter, like they did this past offseason, so they can remain as dominant as they have been this year.
Houston are also always on the lookout for an advantage around the back end of the roster, too. Evidenced in moves like picking up former first-round pick Derek Barnett after he was waived by the Eagles.
All of this depth and talent adds up to games like Patrick Mahomes experienced on Sunday Night Football.
Mahomes ended the game with -0.54 EPA per dropback, which was the worst start of his career. He also ended with a completion percentage of 42.4%. Also, the worst of his career. Lastly, he ended the game with a 19.8 passer rating. You’ll never guess, but that’s also the worst of Mahomes’ illustrious career.
The Back Seven’s Impact
The scheme that the Texans have decided is made to centre around those two rushers. Perhaps this is why we see such gaudy numbers; the combination of scheme, talent and athleticism meets at a wonderful tripoint, and hats off to Ryans and Burke for constructing the defence, roster and scheme in this way.
However, let’s not forget that the back seven of this defence is also super talented and the coverage that they play behind that dominant unit up front, allows them to thrive.
The corners are some of the best in the league – Derek Stringley Jr., another top-5 selection, and Kamari Lassiter, form a lockdown duo on the outside. Lassiter, who was seriously undervalued by the rest of the league, potentially due to his combine numbers, when he was left until the second half of the second round before being selected, is really proving that the underwear Olympics really aren’t the be-all, end-all for prospects.
It’s interesting that teams overthought a guy who was a two-time college football national champion. Are teams just unwilling to see past a poor 40 time? Is too much information a hindrance? I guess we’ll never know.
In the middle of the defence is Aziz Al-Shaair, who is the general in the middle of the unit and wears the green dot for the side.
Al-Shaair is a veteran of the scheme having spent time with DeMeco Ryans and his predecessor, Robert Saleh, in San Francisco.
Lastly, my favourite player on the back end and a player who I think stirs the drink both as a coverage player and in the run fit is Jalen Pitre at nickel.
Pitre was another early round investment into the secondary, taken out of Baylor in the second round of the 2022 draft. He, like Stingley Jr. and Lassiter, is able to play sticky coverage when covering the slot, but is a player that really brings the violence too. As Rashee Rice found out first hand on Sunday night.
Pitre has four interceptions on the year, has allowed a passer rating of only 54.4 and has added 7 pressures when blitzing from his nickel position. A true all-around player who can be used in multiple ways by the play caller.
If the pass rush doesn’t get you, then good luck finding somewhere to go with the ball because this unit is sticky.
The Play Caller
This unit is of course led by Head Coach, DeMeco Ryans. He and Matt Burke are the architects of the unit, but Ryans typically calls the games on Sundays.
Ryans cut his teeth in San Francisco under Kyle Shanahan, with Burke providing influences from outside of that particular coaching tree, as someone who has coached defence in the NFL in some form or another for the best part of 20 years.
Ryans followed on from Robert Saleh in San Francisco as Saleh took his opportunity to take the Head Coaching role with the Jets.
Ryans was an up-and-comer, but also the continuity hire. Running pretty much the same scheme, with the same ideas. And why not? The 49ers had been successful with Saleh.
The Niners continued to have success on defence, which brought Ryans the opportunity to go to Houston in January 2023.
Ryans runs a defensive scheme built on aggressive players, like Pitre, Al-Shaair and those guys on the defensive front, but not over-reliant on man coverage or blitzing. The Texans have blitzed at 26.6% through week 14, which is pretty much smack bang in the middle of the road.
So the defence isn’t necessarily called or schemed in an overly aggressive manner.
Ryans installs a “swarm mentality” into the players on his side of the ball. He wants as many players around the ball carrier, and wants to force turnovers when possible, by slowing down players in tackles and then attacking the ball. Or just getting the whole gang involved in the tackle.
The philosophy of the defence is to play the run on first down, keep the opponents behind schedule, and by doing so, earn the right to rush the passer on second and third down when the offence has to pass the ball.
It’s a simple formula which revolves around being organised, playing sound coverage on the back end, and that allows the front to firstly, stop the run and then attack the QB.
Looking at the numbers and results, they’ve achieved mastery across the board from top to bottom on the unit.
The Final Word
Barring an absolute collapse equal to, or worse than, the comeback they’ve made in the past few weeks, Houston is making it to the dance.
And who on earth would fancy their chances in a one-off game against this defence and a healthy-again C.J. Stroud?
Not many. Especially with this untrustworthy AFC playoff field.
Am I saying the Texans win the Super Bowl? No.
I’m not even saying they’ll make it there. But nobody will look forward to facing this unit, and in recent weeks, the offence is able to clear the low points target that the defence sets them, and barring injuries to key players, there’s no reason why that can’t continue to be the case.
First things first though, Houston has to keep up their pace and win two or three more games at least.
Their remaining games are Cardinals, Raiders, Chargers and Colts.
There’s no game that would scare me amongst that lot if I was in Houston. Those teams are either out of playoff contention, are in playoff contention despite having a poor and broken offensive line – Check out how much Justin Herbert was under pressure on Monday Night – or there’s the Colts, who will be starting Riley Leonard or recently unretired Philip Rivers at QB.
Last year, I saw first-hand how this defence can destroy a team’s playoff hopes. With the way this unit is playing, I’d back that to happen again this January.
Lee Wakefield
NFL Content Lead
Lee Wakefield IS A defensive line enthusiast, Chargers Sufferer, and LONG-TIME writer and podcaster with a number of publications. @Wakefield90 on twitter/X.