Texans vs. Bills: What's the Game Plan for Houston?

Offensive Game Plan

There isn't one thing they have to do to win this game, but the Houston Texans should take a few shots down the field against the Buffalo Bills.

Strong safety Bacarri Rambo has the second-worst pass coverage rating from Pro Football Focus on the team this season and ranks 77th out of 83 eligible safeties in the league for that same stat. The Bills' other starting safety, Corey Graham, ranks 44th out of 83 eligible safeties in that same pass coverage grade.

Most defensive backs that play safety do so at least in small part because they don't cover well enough to play corner, but the back end of the Bills defense is vulnerable.

Last week against Kansas City, Alex Smith—who ranks 29th in deep pass attempts, according to Pro Football Focus—completed four of five passes for 126 yards and a touchdown on deep passes against the Bills. There's a good reason why Smith doesn't often throw the ball deep, yet he had great success testing Buffalo down the field last week.

David J. Phillip/Associated Press

Houston receiver DeAndre Hopkins ranks inside the top five for receiving yards and first for touchdowns on deep passes, so this particular matchup appears to feature a strength going up against a weakness.

The Texans should of course try to establish the running game and do all the other normal stuff an offense needs to do to win, but head coach Bill O'Brien and quarterback Brian Hoyer need to be willing to take a few more deep shots than is normally apart of the game plan.

Defensive Game Plan

If the Texans are able to keep Tyrod Taylor contained inside the pocket, they'll shut down the Buffalo offense. If the opposite happens, then Taylor's athleticism could cause a problem.

Taylor ranks fourth in rushing yards, fifth in number of scramble rush attempts after dropping back to pass and sixth in the run rating among quarterbacks from Pro Football Focus.

Charlie Riedel/Associated Press

Keeping Taylor inside the pocket is about more than just stopping the threat he poses as a runner, however. Keeping Taylor inside the pocket will also help prevent big plays created by escaping pressure and giving the wide receivers more time to get open downfield.

The Texans struggled with lane integrity on their pass rush earlier this season, which allowed quarterbacks to escape the pocket, buy time and find an open target. Even a secondary filled with a Hall of Famer at every position will give up completions if forced to cover for too long, so they must keep contain.

Much of the credit for the turnaround on defense has been given to the pass rush, which in a way implies that the pass rush was poor before the winning streak. While it has improved, their pass rush wasn't as bad as the stats may have suggested.

Houston defenders—mostly J.J. Watt—got pressure, but because the other defenders along the front seven rarely stayed in their lanes and got out of position by taking bad angles, the quarterback was too often given an easy path to escape the pressure and still get off a pass attempt.

What we're seeing now during this improved period of play is not just a better pass rush but also a better job of keeping contain, playing with good gap integrity, setting the edge and not jumping out of position, which has then in turn led to more sacks since the quarterback can no longer escape the pocket.

Along with focusing on keeping contain, the Texans defense will also have to make sure they stop the run.

Stopping the run is important in every game, of course, but the Bills rank inside the top five for rushing attempts, rushing yards, rushing touchdowns and number of runs over 20 yards, so to stop their offense, you have to stop the run first.

Committing an extra defender to stop the run is a bit risky with Sammy Watkins at wide receiver, but Taylor has struggled to throw the ball since injuring his shoulder, and Rex Ryan teams are always run-heavy, so it makes sense to try to take that away and hopefully make them one-dimensional.

Key Matchups

Sammy Watkins

The former teammate of DeAndre Hopkins at Clemson tore up the Kansas City secondary last week for six receptions, 158 yards and two touchdowns. 

Watkins' quarterback might not be regarded as a polished passer by some, but he has shown an ability to beat teams deep. Of Taylor's 14 touchdown passes this year, 10 have been on passes 20 yards or more downfield.

Sammy Watkins ran a 4.43 40-yard dash at the 2014 NFL combine and is able to get in and out of his breaks faster than most wide receivers in the NFL, so keeping everything in front and not giving up big plays to Watkins will be a difficult task.

LeSean McCoy

The Texans will catch a lucky break and won't have to face Karlos Williams, but veteran back LeSean McCoy is obviously a dangerous offensive weapon.

From Pro Football Focus, McCoy ranks seventh in the NFL in breakaway percentage—the percentage of yards that come from runs of 15 yards or more—so he's a constant big-play threat. He ranked seventh in the same stat last season as well.

The Texans gave up several long runs to Lamar Miller and Devonta Freeman earlier in the season, but they have improved in that area over the last month.

McCoy is a dangerous runner with very shifty moves, but maybe the bigger threat he'll pose to Houston is his ability as a receiver out of the backfield. The Texans played the screen passes used by New Orleans really well in Week 12, but it was a big problem earlier this year.

Prediction

To put it simply, if the Texans defense continues to play at the level it has during this four-game winning streak, the Bills offense isn't good enough to win this game.

Playing in Buffalo is never easy and the Bills defense is solid, so this game won't be a cakewalk by any means. But the Texans appear to have more talent on both sides of the ball and have definitely played better as of late.

Prediction: Texans 17, Bills 13