Stephanie Stradley's Texans 2019 training camp preview

PHOTOS: How Texans players spent their 2019 offseason Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson (4) lines up under center Nick Martin (66) during training camp at the Methodist Training Center on Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2018, in Houston. >>>See how the Texans spent the offseason, according to their Instagram accounts ... less PHOTOS: How Texans players spent their 2019 offseason Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson (4) lines up under center Nick Martin (66) during training camp at the Methodist Training Center on Tuesday, ... more Photo: Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle Photo: Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle Image 1 of / 84 Caption Close Stephanie Stradley's Texans 2019 training camp preview 1 / 84 Back to Gallery

By year six of the Bill O’Brien era, avoiding self-plagiarizing challenges me like no other task. How many times can you write about the same team, with the same issues, and not say the same thing or tell the reader stuff you don’t already know?

The no GM thing is a new twist, but let’s find out:

Deshaun Watson. You should say his name like a mantra. Whenever you get frustrated with things you do not control, you should say his name and embrace his energy. He has this sense about him that nothing is impossible.

In OTAs, he clearly was ahead of where he was last year coming off of his knee injury. That said, what makes him remarkable does not show up in camp, where the quarterbacks wear red jerseys and cannot be hit. What he does best is deal with chaos when a play breaks down.

Which he has had to do a lot. I sometimes wonder what his short career would look like if Watson went to Kansas City with Andy Reid and his scheme.

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Really, Watson is the biggest hope I have for the team. Maybe he can do magical stuff that overcomes all the inherent issues with roster composition. I’d prefer for him to be in an offense that doesn’t require magical individual effort of its star players but here we are.

Optimism, pessimism, realism. The Texans in 2019. Typically, I don’t like labeling ideas as optimistic or pessimistic. Because usually there is an egocentric view that the way you see the world is realistic, and those who see it differently are either too optimistic or pessimistic.

That said, sometimes just the simple collective view of the Texans is the right one. The 2019 season looks to be (kind understatement) a serious challenge, and the choices already made may doom it to failure.

Projected much tougher schedule strength + young offense + bad offensive line + bad secondary = likely bad news

The Texans face one of the projected toughest strength of schedules in 2019 after wasting one of the easiest strength of schedules last year (29th per Football Outsiders). In the relative short seasons of the NFL, schedule strength often explains why a team out or underperforms their previous year and can be a difference maker in getting to the playoffs in home field advantage.

If you look at many of the teams that have got to the Super Bowl or have won it over the years, many have had an easier strength of schedule.

The Texans possible starting offense may be one of the youngest in the league and younger than last year. Per snap, the Texans were tied with having the second-youngest offense in 2019.

I sometimes ponder whether they did that on purpose because they always have a built-in excuse for being bad when few players know what they are doing and have the experience to question dumb coaching decisions.

The Texans offensive line is so bad in so many different ways, I am going to give them their own overly long section.

They face much better quarterbacks as a group in 2019 and have a cornerback group that is too old, too young, and/or projected to be based on previous performances too bad.

My training camp preview last year was spot on, and frankly, most of the same issues remain or are worse because they were punted down the road.

Not that I deserve a cookie for being right. These are what seem to be obvious issues. And yet, they remain.

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But if this preview isn’t long enough for you, read last year’s because I’m not going to repeat myself and so many of the issues are the same or worse.

And now for some MacGruber. The movie, MacGruber is a poorly-reviewed, vulgar comedy that I enjoy far more than I should and answers many of life’s important questions. You should see if you like awesomely dumb action comedies, and Val Kilmer giving the perfect performance.

Without spoiling it, MacGruber is a parody of the MacGyver TV show, where the main character is very 80s and though he is a trained killer, he often does things in the most difficult and counterproductive way possible.

For example, he prefers not to fight gun-wielding bad guys with guns. Instead, he likes creating weapons using ordinary household goods and distractions using celery in a way that is actually pretty distracting. He is also good at ripping people’s throats out with his bare hands.

Sometimes I will be watching what the Texans are doing, and it will feel like MacGruber:

Very 80s feeling in the modern NFL with abundant inefficient running. (eighth in total yards, 26th in Football Outsiders efficiency numbers).

Drafting extremely developmental players high in the draft for positions of dire need. No acquisition of experienced good vets on the offensive line. I guess they avoid these things because that might make the coaching staff’s job easier.

Staying pat at running back and wide receiver, and I guess assuming injury is not going to be an issue, and then only dealing with it too late and as a crisis. Again.

Hope that the secondary play can be protected by the pass rush despite knowing accurate quarterbacks feasted on a better cornerback group last year.

Maybe you add some pieces as other teams drop players late in the preseason like you often do but they will be behind in their learning and chemistry and likely won’t contribute unless there is an emergency.

Deciding to go without a GM and not signing one of your best defensive players without having a future young replacement.

Okay, you have a throat ripper in Deshaun Watson, but ultimately, it is not ideal to go to a gunfight armed with celery.

Setting Texans rookies up for failure? This year, compared to some, there aren’t any rookies that stood out to me in OTAs but by the nature of some of their positions, that is not unusual.

It’s always nice when there are a few rookies you see who obviously belong but that is not dispositive of their future.

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Philosophically, I think that the NFL is all about fit. That there are very few players that are so good, they would probably succeed even if their coaching, position, opportunity fits were bad.

As individuals, I do not think this rookie class is bad but I do not think that they are great fits for the current roster composition.

I dislike taking developmental players with high draft picks when you have a desperate need at a position and have had challenges developing players in those spots. In particular, positions like corner and offensive line are more exposed and harder to perform well quickly, so developmental players can have a hard time maintaining their confidence.

If you have looked the most successful players the Texans have chosen in the draft, most were successful in solid college programs and already had fairly developed skill sets. They were also drafted in positions of opportunity, stayed healthy, and succeeded.

For me, developmental players taken high in a draft should be for very specific roles with great vets and coaches to help develop them.

If you are looking at NFL trends under the current CBA, teams want their rookies to be able to contribute at a high level right away. Then teams want to hold on to their rights as long as they want to, and if their second contract is too high relative to their replacement value, let them walk and get compensatory compensation.

After the GM was fired after the draft and after some practices, I asked Bill O’Brien if the rookies should feel any negative messages from that. He answered (predictably) no, but it can’t be a good feeling.

About that Texans offense. When talking about the passing game last year, Bill O’Brien made it clear that he doesn’t care about stats:

“I feel fine where the passing game’s at. I think we have to do some things better relative to route-running, reads, protection, design of the play. I’m not worried about 300-yard passing games. I’m not worried about 150-yard rushing games. I’m just – and I think we all are – we’re just worried about winning. Whatever it takes to win. Not really into the stats. Never really cared about stats unless – the biggest stat that I really care about is the takeaway-giveaway stat. I think that’s one of the biggest stats. We’re tied for fourth in the league right now. I think we’ve got to try to keep that going. We’ve done a good job of taking care of the ball. We’ve got to take the ball away even better than we do. But, that’s really the only stat that I’m totally concerned about. The biggest stat is winning.”

I might not be into stats too if the side of the ball that I was in charge of dragged the rest of the team down.

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Per Football Outsiders measures, the Texans offense’s efficiency has been ranked under the O’Brien years as 21st, 24th, 30th, 24th, 21st. That’s abysmal.

Their overall team efficiency in 2018 was their highest ranking since 2012 at 11th. The defense with a proven defensive coordinator had a defense ranked seventh. The special teams with a proven special teams coordinator had a group ranked fifth, a leap from 26th and substantially better than most years since the seventh they saw in 2009.

Seeing a perpetually underperforming offensive unit like that would usually lead to firing the coordinator. The Texans have arranged the deck chairs of the offensive coordinator position in different ways, but it is Bill O’Brien’s offense.

But there’s always reasons for the bad offense: Young offense, new quarterback, quarterback coming off of injury, chaos in the offensive line - some out of circumstance, some out of the coaches own doing, when does it end?

Are we supposed to give him credit in doing a pretty good job in managing all the different quarterbacks and offensive lines and the less than ideal non-Hopkins receiver targets? I mean, actually, manufacturing offense with some of those lineups was hard—but how long does it take to put together a roster that makes sense if you know what you are doing?

And to be fair, not all the statistic measure on offense are bad, despite such a young offense. As Avery Duncan of The Texans Wire writes, “Pick your metric: Texans QB Deshaun Watson is an analytical hero.”

If everything were completely bad, he wouldn’t still be around.

The Frank Bush Rule: Why hire from within if you don’t have proven success and couldn’t fix things within your role?

A Texans story as a shared reference: After three years of bottom of the barrel defensive performances, the Texans finally fired their defensive coordinator, Richard Smith. At the time, Texans fans wanted the team to hire an experienced defensive coordinator. Instead, they promoted senior defensive assistant Frank Bush.

My thought at the time was: “If you are so good, Frank Bush, why as senior defensive assistant could you not make that defense any better than it was?’

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Bush lasted a few years with more bad defense and eventually, the Texans got an experienced defensive coordinator in Wade Phillips who improved the offense from 31st to sixth in efficiency per Football Outsider measures. Part of his role was identifying what the defense needed in free agency and the draft. Part of his role was being able to coach his system quickly.

So, this trip down memory lane is to suggest that I’m not sure that the promotion of Texans offensive coordinator, Tim Kelly, is going to be any kind of difference maker to improve the offense.

His background before the NFL was primarily on the defensive side of the ball. His NFL experience has only been with the Texans. The main reason he was promoted, as shared by Bill O’Brien, is that he is a hard worker, is smart, good with people, and knows what O’Brien wants to do.

Some experienced pieces. It surprised me how many members of O’Brien’s offensive staff had no NFL coaching or playing experience before joining the staff. It isn’t unusual to gravitate towards and trust people you have worked with before.

This year, they added some staff members with more NFL experience. With 30 years in the league, Carl Smith joined them to work with quarterbacks.

I’m also intrigued with the addition of former quarterback T.J. Yates as an offensive assistant. When he was made available to the media, he talked a bit about helping the offensive line coach, Mike Devlin in the practical teaching helpful for the line.

Things you might not know about the Texans' offensive line

What more is there to say about the Texans offensive line other than it is bad, it has been bad, boy howdy, how is possible to keep your job as a GM/head coach/offensive coordinator with such little progress on the offensive line?

A sort of media meta OTAs story: When the position coaches were made available to talk to the media, it happened all at the same time and not in front of the podium.

For me, the sole person I really wanted to talk to was offensive line coach Mike Devlin. I wanted to know more of his thinking, though most team decisions are collaborative.

He gets a lot of criticism with the most creative of this criticism Battle Red Blog’s “The Texans Offensive Line Trail.”

The Texans PR staff does a great job of putting transcripts together of Q&As, but in particular, in times when coaches are talking all at once in different areas in the media room and not at the podium, they don’t get transcripts of everything.

So what I am telling you are things that weren’t on the official transcripts but happened.

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At that moment, there were just a few of us talking to him, so I got to ask a lot of specific questions, like:

Clearly the sack totals last season were far too high to sustain. How much of this was due to the offensive line, running backs, tight ends, or play of the quarterback and how can you work together to get that number lower?

He acknowledged that the number is too high, that he understands why the offensive line is focused on in those circumstances. He said that a good portion of the offseason coaching staff work was dedicated to fixing these issues.

“These are great questions.”

I then asked the following to Mike Devlin which led to an interesting general response:

Position versatility is certainly valuable with limited roster sizes and increased attention to concussions, but do you get concerned about a player being a jack-of-all-trades, master of none?

Versatility is highly valued by the Texans, but some teams take the approach that they are high specific on what they want in different parts of the line. For example, some teams do not like acquiring tall guards. What is your philosophy about this?

How can you teach position versatility to rookies without getting them confused and thinking too much at a position?

Given that OTAs are not full pads, how long do you have working with players at different positions until you settle them down? At what point do you choose so you don’t put them in a disadvantage where they are thinking too much?

Defenders are spending their entire practices perfecting their pass rush moves and stunts. They know what their role is. Doesn’t that put them ahead of offensive linemen who have been moving around?

Some teams struggle to incorporate one rookie into their line. At this point, few of the players are settled in a spot. What kind of unique challenges does this present to you?

A lot of the preseason preparation does not involve complex defenses or quarterback hits. What is the challenge like not knowing if you have a big problem with a position on the line until when the real games happen?

For most of these answers, he gave fairly general responses and acknowledged that these issues are hard. With the tallness of guards, he said he just wanted guys who can compete and play and that he felt fortunate that he could play in the NFL despite some thinking he was too short.

The most remarkable thing about this exchange was how many times he repeated that these were really great questions. He was telling other people how many great questions I was asking.

A lot of these questions are ones that fans are asking. I get that they want their best five players on the field. Maybe that is how New England does things. Unlike the Patriots, the Texans do not have a quarterback that gets rid of the ball quickly or one of the best all time offensive line coaches like Dante Scarnecchia.

My Expertise: Bad offensive line play

I am certainly not an offensive line expert. I am an expert in bad offensive line drafting and coaching and its interaction with the rest of the offense as I endured the David Carr era and its finger pointing.

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This is what I know:

If you talk to offensive linemen who can speak freely (as opposed to “I’m going to be the best teammate I can be”), most will talk about how difficult it is to get comfortable with solid technique as a swing tackle--a tackle who can play both right tackle and left. And how different it is to play both tackle and guard or guard to center.

If you talk to NFL players generally, they will discuss how hard the transition is from college to pros.

That if you talk to many coaches with very good offensive lines, they have very specific things they are looking for tackles, guards, centers. These attributes have some obvious overlap but are not interchangeable.

Since O’Brien has been Texans coach, some tackles they have tried out at guard seem too tall and too light in their lower half to play guard. Watching them play guard feels a bit like watching a Star Wars All Terrain Armored Transport Walker tip over because the center of gravity of those vehicles made no tactical sense.

If most talented lineman on your roster are either swing tackles or guys sort of too tall/lean to ideally be a guard, that feels like strange way to create a successful offensive line. Yes, being able to do more things is a way to stay in the league but so is being above-average starter at the position you excelled at in college and projected well to play in the NFL.

The current Texans offense reminds me of the old ESPN ad with the Texans lined up behind no offensive line.

More shared experience story time: The Texans had a good offensive line years ago.

But it had to be built from the all time terrible offensive line of 2005 that had its starting left tackle cut in-season, and most of the positions rearranged right before a Seattle road game resulting in a 42-10 dismemberment. (“Texans shuffle offensive line for Seahawks game” is a brutal Chron.com time capsule read).

The new staff in 2006 had a O-line plan you could see immediately.

They determined quickly which positions would be best for which players based on size and athletic attributes.

Got rid of players who were too developmental and/or bad.

Drafted players for specific positions, and had a scheme friendly for offensive lineman.

After the 2006 season:

They dropped their old quarterback who held on to the ball too long and whose name I don’t want to type again. That cut sacks by about half.

After the 2007 season:

They drafted another left tackle who some thought was developmental but was from a major conference, was a captain, had good feet, projected well to how they played that position in their scheme, and had a specific plan to develop him.

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They acquired a new very experienced accomplished offensive line coach who worked well with the system and paired him with an assistant to help and learn. Once they did that, there never was a time where I thought the offensive line did not mesh well with the rest of the offense.

Eventually, the biggest issues with the line were maybe a few spots or a few injuries but normal NFL issues. Often, the Oline was strength for the team.

The lack of any discernable development plan for the Texans offensive line is probably the most disappointing aspect of Bill O’Brien’s time as coach.

Every year is a do over

It reminds me of parenting small children. When kids do things they are not supposed to do, and it creates an emotional spiral, one technique parents can use is to say the words, “Do Over.”

And you tell the child that when either they or the parent say those words, it is like a reset button that stops the emotional reaction, acts like a pause, and signals that everybody would like to do that moment over.

In small doses, it is actually pretty helpful.

Every year for the Texans offensive line, it feels like Do Over time. Given that continuity is one factor that can help with offensive line play, this isn’t helpful. As much as I was frustrated with the 2013 and 2014 offensive lines, it is hard not to think about how they have regressed since then and wasted opportunities to improve.

Looking to the Colts for offensive line and sacks allowed optimism?

Usually, with an offensive line, you want everything the Texans have not shown: Continuity on the line, talented veteran ability, offensive lineman staying healthy, putting rookies at their obvious positions, great blocking tight ends and running backs, a scheme that helps them be better, a quarterback that gets rid of the ball quickly.

Well, the Colts had many of these problems in abundance. And Frank Reich in one year vastly improved their pass protection. In the article, “Colts Rare Pass Protection Success Comes From Intense Preparation,” Reich and others talk about some of the ways they were able to do this.

In 2017, the Colts led the league in sacks allowed with 56, with the Texans right behind them at 54. Last year with their new coach, change of approach, and with many predicting more disaster, they allowed the fewest sacks with 18.

The Texans led the league with 62 sacks in 2018, with the next worse being the Cowboys at 56. What makes the Texans number even worse is they accomplished it with the sixth fewest passing attempts.

Now you might wonder that if you have as few as 18 sacks, maybe that means that the offense is too conservative. Well, the other teams with fewer sacks than 30 and more attempts are the Saints, Patriots, Steelers, Chiefs. Actual functional, consistent offenses.

Sixty-two sacks isn’t sustainable. The Texans know this. Texans fans have waited too long for a quarterback worthy of buying a jersey for to get him killed.

Devlin says that they focused on helping the entire offense stop that from happening again with their work in the offseason.

Theoretically, they could improve this by the young quarterback, tight ends, and running backs getting another year of experience. And adding new offensive coaches. And getting more physical play from young talented players. And having vets actually stay healthy.

I’m not buying it until I see it.

The Jadeveon Clowney contract

Keeping a player on your roster who is not being paid what he believes is his market value is not easy. I expect him to do the Dunta Robinson thing: Not show up until right before the season begins because why expose yourself to injury risk and waste your time, if a team doesn’t value you enough to pay you your value.

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This is what I know:

1. The Texans know his injury history as well as anyone.

2. The parties know what offers were made and not made, and the relevant reasonable of both. It is easy to say you should have come to an agreement if you don’t know the numbers and issues involved.

3. Sometimes you cannot come to an agreement if you know the number is so high, there is no way it can happen.

4. With Whitney Mercilus’ contract situation and J.J. Watt’s age and injury history, I’m not sure what the Texans d-line plan is in a post-Clowney world. Romeo Crennel has done a good job with the defense but you need to have players, and one of the hardest skills in the NFL is developing replacements for top players.

5. I am guessing the Texans will try to get some value for Clowney next year in a trade as the rumors were that the Texans tried to get value last year.

6. The Texans defense would be substantially worse without Clowney in it, and you might want J.J. Watt wrapped in bubble wrap.

7. Though he had a slow start last year and finished strong, I think part of that was dealing with injury things in that offseason.

8. I do not like the number 8 and prefer not to think about this topic any more.

Various Texans thoughts, also relevant to Fantasy Football.

Running back. I wanted the Texans to add running back last year. And they didn’t this year either.

The only rushing option with a positive Football Outsider’s efficiency measure was Deshaun Watson for 550 yards and had the most rushing touchdowns at 6.

D’Onta Foreman in OTAs looked to be in great shape. If you didn’t know he had been injured, you would not know by the looks of him. I am certain that the Texans have data that can measure that more precisely than eyeballs.

My view is for players coming off of injury, you should push them with more real competition and not just hope that they will be back to where they were. This is particularly true for a high use, injury-inviting position like running back after suffering an achilles injury.

I expect the Texans to rely a lot of Foreman and Lamar Miller. In Texans training camp: 10 questions, the Chronicle's Aaron Wilson writes:

“(Texans offensive coordinator) Tim Kelly is expected to emphasize an approach that features Deshaun Watson's multidimensional game and DeAndre Hopkins' pass-catching skills while incorporating the running game enough to keep defenses honest.”

For me, I have a hard time thinking the offense is going to look substantially different given all the young players they will be relying on, particularly on the offensive line.

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Running back conclusion: This is a hard prediction that depends on how bad the offensive line and secondary are.

Reflexively, the Texans have demonstrated they will training wheel their offense into running a lot even if they are not effective just to keep Watson from getting hit too much or turning over the ball forcing a pass under pressure.

If the defense also struggles with a poor secondary against tougher quarterbacks, Watson may have to play less conservatively, and the running backs may have less touches. In the red zone, Watson passing or running complicates things for defenses.

Shoot out games are not a type of offense I think they can sustain well with their roster. Young players make mistakes, and it is hard to open up the offense when you don’t trust players to pass block and not be penalized.

Tight ends. In a passing oriented OTAs, and in the limited time and area where media could watch up close, the only player that really flashed to tme was TE Jordan Thomas.

In practice, he catches the ball smoothly in stride and grabs it out of the air instead of waiting for it to come to his body. Good catch radius. Drops are uncommon even when contested. A saw a couple of catches where he sonned defenders hard. His physical size is good for the position and demonstrates confidence in his play. I think Watson clicked with him as well.

Given the roster and previous use of the position, I don’t think the TE targets will go to one target. The other Jordan, Jordan Akins received roughly the same amount of targets as Thomas did, and his yards per catch and yards after catch were higher.

Their combined targets were 52 which compares well with the 2006 breakout season of Owen Daniels with 51. Combined targets aren’t great for fantasy football purposes but too bad.

Wide receiver targets

The Texans, so far, have stayed pat with WR and a lot of attention will be paid to DeAndre Hopkins and Will Fuller coming off of injuries. According to the 2019 Football Outsiders Almanac, the Texans “threw to DeAndre Hopkins on 33 percent of passes; no other offense threw to a single receiver on more than 30 percent of passes.”

I expect them to continue targeting Hopkins because he is good at catching footballs. Fuller improved his hands over the years, and it would be great for him to have an entire healthy season.

Watson throws a very catchable ball and also according to FOA, “The Texans had a league-low 12 dropped passes.”

Does that continue? Well, watching wide receivers at OTAs without Hopkins and Fuller participating was sometimes miserable. So many dropped catchable balls when defended by air.

An observation I’ve made from going to various practices over many years: If a player in an unpadded practice sometimes covered, sometimes in just drills drops catchable passes, it is hard to count on them during a real game.

Keke Coutee was the best of who remained due to his movement skills, but I would like to have more real competition at these positions given the injury issues of last year.

The only dependable healthy option the Texans had at times last year was Hopkins. And even if the Texans had beaten the Colts at home for the playoffs, they would have likely had to play without him due to his injury that game.

Finally, a few words about Cal McNair

Texans CEO Cal McNair was recently in the news for an interview he did with Sports Radio 610 with Marc Vandermeer. He talked about the new management structure and changes to the physical building.

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To me, some of the answers beg more questions than they answer, and the jargoned view of the organizational structure sounded confusing. If the organization is flatter and faster, does that suggest there have been times where this has been a problem?

I do not know McNair well but we have talked very briefly. It seems to me, like many people, he feels more comfortable in one-on-one casual conversations versus the overly parsed communications that happen with public speeches and media appearances.

Personally, I generally want team owners not to say much. And I was always fine with the Head Coach forward media approach because I dislike when owners/GMs say stuff publicly that is counterproductive to leadership.

I can’t say I am a big fan of the no-GM approach for this team because I rightfully believe great GMs are difference makers (Hi other Houston sports teams!) That said, I also wasn’t a fan of the idea of giving draft compensation to the Patriots for Nick Caserio.

The brief glimpse of behind the scenes at Hard Knocks was not encouraging in the no-GM world with Bill O’Brien.

I guess we will find out.

Finally camps are starting

Congratulations for getting this far. If you have any questions, comments, or things you want to add, you can leave them below or contact me on Twitter @StephStradley.

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