Is it investment, coaching, or scouting?
Obviously, the ultimate temptation is to watch the Super Bowl and try to gleam lessons from it. We saw two different teams that have been constructed in two different ways. One of them was wildly more successful than the others. Any Houston Texans fan would be forgiven if they suffered shell shock watching the Kansas City Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes try to find time to throw.
Mahomes was sacked six times, but it felt like twice that amount. Yes, he had three touchdowns and some decent passing yards, but most of that happened when the outcome wasn’t in doubt. When the game was in doubt, he was running for his life. The Eagles rushed four and only four all night. It didn’t matter. We saw some of the same lookout blocks that Texans offensive linemen have made so famous.
While the Chiefs got some pressure on Jalen Hurts and the Philadelphia Eagles, the situations were far different. The Eagles offensive line has been one of the best in football all season as they were second in rushing yards and Hurts has had time all season to punish defenses down the field. The temptation is to simply assume that the Eagles invest heavily in their line while teams like the Texans and Chiefs do not. Let’s compare the top six linemen in salary from the Eagles and the Texans. The numbers below are the official cap hits according to spoctrac.com
Philadelphia Eagles
RT Lane Johnson— 17.4 million
LT Jordan Mailata— 15.7 million
G Landon Dickerson— 6.5 million
C Cam Jurgeons— 5.8 million
G Brett Toth— 1.2 million
T Tyler Steen— 1.6 million
Total— 48.2 million
Houston Texans
LT Laremy Tunsil— 28.9 million
RT Tytus Howard— 23.1 million
G Shaq Mason— 14.7 million
G Kenyon Green— 5.1 million
C Juice Scruggs— 1.7 million
T Blake Fisher— 1.5 million
Total— 75.0 million
The whole concept behind the value of things got its start in discussions like this. All players have value. The teams that win are the teams that are able to use their cap money most effectively. It isn’t even a question of whether any particular player is good at football. They are all better than I’ll ever be and they are better than at least 90 percent of the best football players on the planet when we throw in college and high school players.
$27 million can go a long way in outfitting a team. The Eagles are able to afford Jalen Hurts on his second contract, Saquon Barkley, and two wide receivers on their second contracts as well. Think of what the Texans could do with an extra $27 million. On offense, that might be enough to throw their hat into the ring for any number of the big time receivers available through free agency or trade.
They might be able to afford Stefon Diggs AND another player at another position that could help on offense or defense. This is how the Eagles were able to do business. They were able to afford a few more key contributors on offense and defense because they weren’t paying top dollar for top end talent.
Where does the blame lie?
Again, I repeat my mantra about the value of things. If you looked at the salaries above and could tell me that the performance on the field matched the salaries then that would be one thing. At that point, it becomes a question of investment and what you want to invest your resources in. If the Texans had the best offensive line in the business then that would obviously filter out to the rest of the offense and the results would show that the investment was worth it.
The Texans don’t have the worst offensive line in football. There were teams that allowed more sacks than the Texans. There were teams that rushed for fewer yards and fewer yards per carry than the Texans. Tunsil was a Pro Bowler again. If you said they had the worst line in football you’d struggle to come up with the evidence to support such a claim. Mind you, I didn’t say there was no evidence of that. I would just say that there is more evidence that while they are in the bottom third, it is much more likely that someone else has a worse line.
Option One: Bad Scouting
Two of the linemen currently starting for the Texans were drafted by other organizations and were brought in via trade later in their career. One of those is the aforementioned Pro Bowler Laremy Tunsil. The other is starting right guard Shaq Mason. The reviews on both players is mixed at best and you could say they are among the most overpaid players at their position in the league, but they are not the main culprits in terms of suck.
The other five linemen that got the most snaps were all home grown. Tytus Howard and Kenyon Green were first rounders. The reviews on Howard are mixed. He is definitely not worth the $23 million he is being paid, but PFF and other scouting services have rated him in the average range. Green was the worst regular guard in football. We are in year three with him. I think it is pretty clear that he is a bust.
Scruggs is somewhere in between those two. He isn’t exactly a bust, but he also is not exactly proficient either. He is also only in year two. What seems pretty clear is that he shouldn’t have been a second rounder. Maybe a new coach and new offense unlocks something, but so far it doesn’t look good. That leaves Jarrett Patterson and Blake Fisher. Like Scruggs, Fisher has a lot to prove as a second round pick. Patterson was a sixth rounder, so his play actually matches his draft position.
Option Two: Bad Positional Coaching
There are two things to consider with position coaches. One philosophy is to just simply go out there and get the best coach at the position. The Texans clearly have not done that in quite awhile. They definitely did not do an exhaustive search for an offensive line coach. They didn’t talk to coaches outside the building that had experienced success in other places. They hired a guy that was already there.
The other philosophy is to get a guy that’s style fits with what you are trying to do as an offense. I could definitely see this philosophy reflected in the hiring. Maybe the new coaches are a better fit to what the new offense is trying to do. Maybe the current linemen will see more of their strengths utilized and enhanced. However, that is spilling into the next point.
Option Three: Bad Offensive Design
The problem at the NFL level is that you can’t always afford players that fit your system perfectly. Sometimes you have to adapt. It feels like the Texans have done a lot of round peg, square hole kind of things with their personnel. That probably stems back to the Bill O’Brien days when it seems a number of people were asked to do things they weren’t good at.
Obviously, you can’t completely tailor your offense around people’s talents because eleven different people will have eleven different skill sets. However, we do see patterns and coordinators that note those patterns and play to them will have more success. Some of that is in considering the linemen themselves, but it also considers the skill position players and what you ask them to do as well.
Overall Thoughts
I think all three are true to greater or lesser degrees. A large part of this is understanding strengths and weaknesses. The Texans have been fairly good at drafting defenders and secondary players in particular. We should probably lean into that some and lean on our collective ability to scout those players in the middle rounds. Scouting linemen might not be in their wheelhouse.
That might mean signing solid veterans that can fill in gaps immediately and using those draft picks on other positions where we have had more success. It might also mean being completely honest and transparent about what these linemen are capable of and crafting your offense around that. At least that is hopefully what will happen next season.