Texans Thursday: Is the offensive line fixed yet?

I feel like I've written this post 10 times over the past eight years

I am going to start with a stat that, when you read it without context, is upsetting: The Texans are tied with the Browns in allowing the most unblocked pressures this season. The number is 30, per PFF.

But, that part is actually kind of part and parcel of how the Shanaclan do business. The teams in the top five of this stat are the Browns, Texans, Packers, Commanders, and 49ers. And the Texans may be tied for the lead, but it’s mostly because they’ve passed more than the non-Browns teams. Green Bay has thrown 53 fewer times. San Francisco 39 fewer times, and the Commanders 38.

NFL Plus has the Texans with 88 pressured dropbacks this year. I’ve watched them all. Let's talk about it.

This line can’t handle stunts

This is a problem for the right side of the line. It’s a problem for the left side of the line.

If you’re unfamiliar with what a stunt is — sometimes it’s called a game — one rusher tries to set a pick for another rusher, the one who comes past the pick is called a looper. The Texans struggle mightily with loopers. They also sometimes, as they do above in this play, struggle with the pick man. Here’s the looper coming through:

I’m not all that surprised that the Texans are struggling with them because — and this is kind of crucial — they don’t have a lot of experience together at these positions outside of Tytus Howard and Shaq Mason’s one season together last year. Juice Scruggs played some last year, but at guard. Kenyon Green didn’t play last year at all. Laremy Tunsil basically took training camp off, to boot. (I know he was hurt.)

Defending these is about chemistry and teamwork. Of those 88 pressured dropbacks, I counted 12 of them that were caused by stunts. It was the second-most prevalent issue. The most prevalent:

Kenyon Green’s growing pains

Green had an abysmal rookie season before missing 2023 — his PFF grade was below 40, and the eye test backed that up. He’s improved some in 2024. But he’s still not what I’d call even an average NFL guard yet.

He’s the main culprit on the stunts — though hardly the only one fooled — and he doesn’t have great mobility either. That’s not to say he’s incapable of a good game here or there, because he did look decent against the Colts in Week 1. But he’s the clear weak link of the line right now.

I didn’t think Jarrett Patterson looked bad against the Bears in Week 2. I don’t think Kendrick Green has been awful as a sixth lineman. I’m not throwing the panic button, but I do wonder how much more development time can be spent on Kenyon Green. Like, to me barring an out-of-this-world improvement over the next two months, it’s a no-brainer to decline his fifth-year option. If the Texans are purely focused on this season and maximizing it, I think it’s hard to make the case that they should keep starting Green and expecting things to get better.

Brief C.J. Stroud Interlude

He’s fun, huh? I would like him to be less pressured, of course. But it’s hard to deny that even when he is pressured he just does things that normal quarterbacks would not do.

Laremy Tunsil’s no-good, very-bad day in Minnesota

You of course already know that the offensive line took the brunt of the blame for that Week 3 loss on behalf of all the penalties. I kind of take it for granted that penalties will come down, right? But watching these Vikings plays back, it was instructive to me how often Tunsil seemed unsure of the plan on the plays.

Check out this one where he gets chip help from a running back that uh, does not help:

You can see before the play he’s a bit unsure of what he’s supposed to do, and it takes him a second to settle into the stance. He gets a spin and does well against it, but then the back chips the rusher into escaping Tunsil.

Tunsil seemed to not be at his best handling the crowd noise. And it made me remember the Ravens playoff game, and if you’ll recall, he had a couple of false starts in that game too. I’m wondering if homefield advantage is going to become important for the Texans specifically because of that. This isn’t something I wield as like “Laremy Tunsil is shit!” — because no, obviously, he’s not — but if I can pick up on this just from watching the tape, NFL coaches surely can too.

I don’t trust anybody on the interior of this line to block over a gap in a play-action fake

Particularly with the Jaguars and Vikings alignments, sometimes the Texans pass protectors would be asked to grab a guy who wasn’t lined up directly next to them. And I gotta say, I don’t love that for this unit:

You’d only normally see this on play-action fakes because reading the offensive line is part of the action, right? Here’s Juice Scruggs trying to get a gap over while Shaq Mason pulls. Stroud is in trouble before the fake is even over.

So … is the offensive line fixed yet?

I don’t know that I’d say it’s downright bad. I think it’s become an easy thing to point to with the Texans because a) it was fairly obvious that it let them down in their only loss and b) the running game struggled while Joe Mixon was out. And to be fair, I don’t think the Texans line is above reproach or anything, it’s certainly one of the reasons that the team isn’t playing consistently good offense. I just don’t think it’s the only one.

I have some belief it can turn into a solid/good one with more reps as long as Shaq Mason doesn’t completely fall apart. (He’s looked his age at times.) I think they’d benefit from using fewer zone blocking plays just on account of I don’t love the mobility the interior gives them. I also think at this point I’m willing to concede that they probably miss Andrew Beck, and I don’t think 12-personnel is the ideal answer for this offense with these tight ends.

The line could be better. There’s still a chance it can get better. But I think to this point the penalty issues the line have created are a bigger culprit for the inconsistency on offense than the actual line play.

The unscientific data

I watched all of those pressured plays. I then counted who I believed was “most” at fault for a pressure. I split the credit if I thought it was multiple players. That’s super subjective and sometimes I even disagreed with NFL’s listing of the pass play as pressured. One of the very first pressures from Week 1 is Stroud throwing as Mixon steps up into a free rusher and delivers a great block. Is that pressure? Perhaps technically. But there was no missed block or anything.

Anyway, my count:

Tytus Howard x5.5
Shaq Mason x10.5
Kenyon Green x17.5
Laremy Tunsil x4.5 (1 iffy)
Juice Scruggs x11.5
Blake Fisher x6.5
Jarrett Patterson x2
RB x8 (1 iffy Mixon)
TE x7.5

Stunt Not Picked Up x13
Coffee House x2
Completely Unblocked x10
Bootleg x2