Jacksonville Jaguars vs. Houston Texans: Full Report Card Grades for Houston
The final week played out like many expected it would, but unfortunately for the Houston Texans that means they'll be sitting at home when the playoffs start next week. However, they did come away with a 23-17 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Most seasons are defined by whether or not a team makes the playoffs and then how they perform in the postseason, but that shouldn't be the case for this year's Texans team.
When a new coach is hired and they bring in a short-term answer at quarterback, most would expect for the team to struggle, but other than the game against the New York Giants, the team was competitive every week.
Feeling disappointed that they missed the postseason is understandable and natural, but this team overachieved, and Bill O'Brien should be given a ton of credit for the job he did this season. Brian T. Smith of the Houston Chronicle shared O'Brien's thoughts regarding his team:
"O'Brien positive. Said Texans are what their record says and fell short. But they finished strong and made clear improvements
— Brian T. Smith (@ChronBrianSmith) December 28, 2014"
Even if his starter from Week 1 had stayed healthy all year long, that guy was Ryan Fitzpatrick, so achieving a winning season would have been quite an accomplishment. Of course as we all know, however, his starter didn't stay healthy, and yet he still was able to pick up three more wins with backup quarterbacks.
This was only the fourth winning season in franchise history, so while they didn't win a championship or even a division title, it was still better than their average season.
Arian Foster had a great season, J.J. Watt dominated every offensive line he faced and DeAndre Hopkins emerged as a future No. 1 option at receiver, so there is a lot to be happy about that happened this year that will hopefully set up future success.
A team has to find a great coach and a great quarterback to win at the highest levels in the NFL, and I think the Texans have found that coach. We didn't get everything we wanted from the Texans this season, but there's still much to get excited about.
Quarterback
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Low and outside is a great location for a baseball pitcher to hit consistently but not for an NFL quarterback.
Case Keenum seemed to make progress last week from the previous season with his accuracy and getting rid of the ball on time, but after taking one step forward, he took two steps back Sunday.
Keenum wasn't late with every pass against Jacksonville, but when he was bad, things happened.
His first turnover was on a pass intended for DeAndre Hopkins on a slant pattern when his pass was both late and about five yards behind his target.
The second turnover from Keenum was a fumble and not a pass, but he held onto the ball for way too long which gave time for the defenders to swarm him and knock the ball loose. On that play Keenum had an option open in the flat, but it appeared like he never looked his way.
Maybe it's inexperience or maybe it's because he ran a spread offense in college that gave him easy looks, but Keenum really struggles with making reads at the pro level quickly and correctly.
For the game Keenum finished with a stat line of 250 yards on 25-of-35 passing with two touchdowns and one interception. His numbers are actually pretty good, but numbers can be deceiving.
Over his 10 career NFL starts, Keenum has thrown eight total interceptions and at least one in each of his last seven games.
My guess is Keenum will not be back next season with the Texans' three quarterbacks being Ryan Mallett, Tom Savage and a rookie they select at some point in the draft.
Grade: C
Running Back
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No Arian Foster on the field is a big problem for the Houston Texans. Missing your starting running back would be a problem for almost every team, but it's even more so for a team playing their fourth quarterback this year.
Alfred Blue and Jonathan Grimes are nice backs, but they don't have the same vision to find the cutback lanes or the explosion to exploit them that Foster has maybe more so than any back in the league.
You have to feel at least a little bad for Keenum that he's only played about five quarters with Foster over his 10 career starts.
Grimes and Blue combined for 84 yards on 28 carries against Jacksonville. Blue was once again held to a poor average—2.3 per carry—but Grimes' numbers were solid at 4.1 per carry.
For the season Blue rushed for better than four yards per carry just three times and will finish the season with a per-carry average of 3.2; expected a lot more from the rookie despite where he was drafted.
Like Ben Tate in this way, Blue has shown no vision for the cutback lane and little patience to let holes and creases develop. Instead he just runs full speed into a pile of blockers and defenders for a couple of yards a pop.
It not certain how much longer Foster has left in his prime, but I'm confident that his replacement is not on this roster currently.
Grade: C
Wide Receiver
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Is it just me, or does DeAndre Hopkins seem to disappear whenever Keenum starts?
I'm not complaining because a catch is a catch, regardless of the intended receiver is, but Keenum definitely looks for Andre Johnson first whenever he's in at quarterback.
Johnson had his first 100-yard receiving game of the season with 134 yards on 10 catches with one touchdown. My gut feeling is that Johnson will be back next season, but if this game was his last in a Texans uniform, he went out in style with a big performance in an important game.
Johnson was targeted 15 times against the Jaguars which was more than double the number anyone else on the roster received. In fact running backs Grimes and Blue received just as many targets as Hopkins and slot receiver Damaris Johnson with nine to each combo.
Once again grading on a curve here is necessary since the receivers were held back some by Keenum's issues. That is of course other than Johnson whom Keenum seems to lock onto quite often.
Grade: B+
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Tight End
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There was not much production out of the tight ends Sunday, but that note can't surprise you at this point.
For the game Ryan Griffin had one catch for eight yards, and that will conclude my rundown of the tight end stats from the game against Jacksonville.
It's uncertain as to what the biggest issue was for the tight ends this season, but obviously their production was awful. Going off what we saw from O'Brien offenses in the past, it probably wasn't the scheme, so that would make either the quarterback play or the tight ends themselves the biggest ones to blame.
The Texans have to get more out of this position next season.
Grade: D
Offensive Line
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This is another difficult position group to judge without the benefit of going back and watching the full game with the "all-22" angle. Judging the performance of an offensive line based only on stats is always difficult, but that job was made even more difficult when it's working with backups at quarterback and running back.
The Texans rushing stats weren't very good against Jacksonville with an average of only 3.2 yards per carry, but if Arian Foster had been healthy enough to carry the ball 25 times instead of only five after suffering an early injury, that number would probably be a lot higher.
Likewise in pass protection, the offensive line gave up three sacks which is too many, but Keenum also held onto the ball for way too long during most of the game. If a better quarterback who got rid of the ball on time was under center, its sacks allowed total would probably be lower.
I'm not saying the offensive line was without blame, because Ben Jones had another poor game and Duane Brown got beat for a quick sack at one point, but their teammates didn't help them out much.
Grade: B-
Defensive Line
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Watt else do you need to know about this defensive line?
Sorry, that was a terrible pun I know, but I couldn't resist.
I've accepted the idea that J.J. Watt won't win the MVP, but he should, and if he doesn't then it will be hard for any defensive player to make a case for the award in the future.
Seriously, what more could a defensive player do to make his case as the best player in football than what Watt did this season? The only additional thing that could have helped Watt would have been to be on a team with a better quarterback that also made the playoffs.
That's not his fault of course, but being on a playoff team is the only thing missing from his MVP resume for this season.
Watt finished second in the league in sacks, scored five touchdowns and was at or near the top of the league in tackles for loss, passes defensed, fumbles recovered, quarterback hits and quarterback hurries. ESPN's Trey Wingo noted another record Watt flat-out owns:
"Here's the entire list of players two have 2 20 sack seasons in NFL history : @JJWatt #MVP
— trey wingo (@wingoz) December 28, 2014"
No player has ever had two 20-plus sack seasons over their career, and Watt has now done it twice in three seasons; he's just incredible!
Other than Watt, Jared Crick also made an impact Sunday with one sack, one tackle for loss, one quarterback hit and one pass defensed. Important to note with that stat line, that tackles for loss and quarterback hits are kept as separate stats from sacks, so those are all different plays.
Grade: A+
Linebackers
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It was not a great day for the linebackers.
The Texans were able to hold Toby Gerhart in check, but the other running threats for the Jaguars had big days.
Blake Bortles broke off long runs several times with linebackers trailing behind him and finished with 61 yards on only three carries. Jordan Todman also didn't have many carries with only seven, but he managed to rack up 52 yards which comes out to 7.2 per carry.
The linebackers also had issues in coverage as Brian Cushing should have been on Todman coming out of the backfield on the touchdown pass from Cecil Shorts III. It was a trick play sure, but Cushing is a veteran and should know better than to abandon his responsibility while watching the action and motion in front of him.
Brooks Reed and Whitney Mercilus both put up decent numbers for the box score as bright spots for the position group. Those two guys combined for one sack, two tackles for loss, two passes defensed and two hits on the quarterback.
Grade: C
Defensive Backs
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The Texans' defensive backs dominated the Jaguars' passing attack, but it was Bortles they were playing against so this was the expected outcome.
Bortles completed just 14 of 33 pass attempts for 117 yards and no touchdowns. Bad rookie quarterback or not, that's a stat line the Texans' defensive backs should feel proud about.
Bortles' completion percentage of 42 percent is his worst of the season, while his 117 yards passing are just two better than his low of 115 which came last week against Tennessee; glad the Texans passed on that guy.
They weren't able to pick him off, but Johnathan Joseph and A.J. Bouye did combine for three passes defensed and rarely gave Bortles an open receiver to target. Joseph also finished second on the team in tackles with four.
Grade: A
Special Teams
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Randy Bullock essentially got the day off with the Texans not attempting any field goals, but punter Shane Lechler was busy and had a great game.
Lechler averaged over 46 yards on six punts and had four of those punts downed inside the 20-yard line. Despite being close to 40 years old, Lechler is still one of the best in the game and had another great season; hope he comes back for next year.
Unfortunately, the return game once again provided nothing.
Keshawn Martin in particular had an awful play in the second half where he had tons of room to run, but for some reason he ran right into the only group of blockers and defenders near him for only a seven-yard gain. It looked like he could have easily had 15-20 just by running straight and fast; he needs to be replaced next year.
Grade: A-
Coaching
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More than for just this game, O'Brien deserves an "A" for the entire season.
I've criticized him on more than a couple of occasions for his understanding of time and score in regard to when he should be aggressive or conservative, but he's still done an outstanding job. Hopefully, those mistakes mentioned in previous recaps are new-coach mistakes that will improve with time.
This team looked like it was headed into a rebuilding phase, and, somehow, while having to deal with playing four quarterbacks, injuries to Andre Johnson, Arian Foster, Kareem Jackson and Brian Cushing, he still managed to pull out nine wins.
A 9-7 record isn't anything to throw a parade over, but to win seven more games while getting basically nothing from the draft class or getting an impact free agent to improve the roster is impressive.
To this actual game, I had no real issues with the strategy used by O'Brien. He used many of the same ideas that were successful last week, but Foster got hurt, and Keenum didn't execute as well; that's not on O'Brien.
The only thing I didn't like was his quick challenge of the completion to Hurns on the very first play of the game. Maybe the angle he saw made him think Hurns was out, but it was just one 10-yard completion on the very first play of the game; he could have needed that challenge for something more important later in the game.
It wasn't like the catch was a scoring play or one that even got the team into scoring range; the pass put the Jaguars at their own 38-yard line. The Texans defense still had plenty of room left on the field to stop them, so that was not a crucial situation that deserved a challenge flag.
I understand that any play could lead to something, and if the call was wrong, it should be fixed, I'm just saying pick your battles. You're playing a bad offense led by a bad quarterback and your defense has been hot recently; a 10-yard completion on the first play of the game wasn't worth one of your two challenges.
Grade: A
Overall
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| Quarterback | C |
| Running Back | C |
| Wide Receiver | B+ |
| Tight End | D |
| Offensive Line | B- |
| Defensive Line | A+ |
| Linebackers | C |
| Defensive Backs | A |
| Special Teams | A- |
| Coaching | A |
| Overall | B+ |
Follow me on Twitter for more Texans analysis and live tweets during games: @sackedbybmac
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