Houston's Defense Sacked Joe Burrow Five Times. The Texans Scored Six Points.
Dominique Foxworth says no quarterback could function behind this line. DeMeco Ryans says the coaching is the problem, starting with his own.
Houston has one of the best defenses in football and a 0-2 record, which is a combination that forces an argument rather than inviting one. Against Cincinnati the Texans sacked Joe Burrow five times, hit him ten, watched Cincinnati hold their own running backs to eighteen yards on fourteen carries — and scored six points. The offense went 0-for-4 in the red zone and did not reach the end zone once. When a team loses like that, the question is never whether the offense failed. It is whose failure it was.
Useful next steps
Two credible answers are on the table and they point in opposite directions. One says the supporting cast is so poor that quarterback play is almost irrelevant. The other comes from the head coach, who declined to hide behind the roster and put the blame on the coaching — including, explicitly, his own.
That Stroud is going to get a lot of negative attention because things aren't going well for them offensively, and he's betting on himself. And I know no one wants to hear people make excuses for him, but I'm going to make excuses for him. Because they can't run the ball, they can't protect him, his best receiver might be a tight end. This is a tall task they're asking for him.— Dominique Foxworth, NFL analyst, on ESPN's Get Up (via Toro Times, Sept 21)
The roster case has real support behind it, and Foxworth made it in plain terms: a quarterback who cannot run the ball, cannot be protected, and whose best receiver might be a tight end is being asked to do something close to impossible. But DeMeco Ryans, who could reasonably have pointed at that line, instead pointed at himself: "First and foremost, I have to coach it better. If I coach it better, we'll play a little bit better, train a little bit longer, find a way to finish a football game." He also refused to reduce the loss to one call: "We can pinpoint the one fourth down play, but to me it's many more plays in the game where we could coach it better and we can play it better."
Two diagnoses of one offense
Five sacks of Joe Burrow and 10 hits on him, while Houston's running backs were held to 18 yards on 14 carries — and a 20-6 loss.
0-for-4, no touchdowns.
"They can't run the ball, they can't protect him, his best receiver might be a tight end."
Houston moves the ball and cannot finish. The disagreement is only about whose fault that is.
"First and foremost, I have to coach it better."
Against Buffalo a week earlier: 381 total yards and 4-for-5 in the red zone, same personnel.
There is a statistical rebuttal to Foxworth that is harder to argue with than any quote. One week earlier, with the same offensive line and the same personnel, Houston produced 381 total yards against Buffalo and converted four of five red-zone trips. If an identical group can execute inside the twenty one week and go 0-for-4 the next, the variable is not the talent — it is short-yardage design and situational play-calling, which belongs to offensive coordinator Nick Caley rather than to the front office. C.J. Stroud's own account points the same way, at the twenty yards that keep costing them: "If you don't score in the red zone, you probably don't win the game. We get down there, but we got stuffed on a couple of short yardages. Those are really tough. We have to be able to convert those." Stroud has thrown for 627 yards without an interception across the two games, which is a genuinely good two weeks arriving inside two defeats. Worth keeping in view: this is the third 0-2 start of the Ryans era, and the previous two ended in double-digit win seasons and playoff berths.
A defense this good does not usually need many points. Houston's season now depends on whether six is a coaching number or a roster number.
Scheme Or Roster
An offensive line ranked last in the league at run blocking is not something a play-caller can design around in September.
The same line went 4-for-5 in the red zone against Buffalo seven days earlier.
Short yardage. Not total yards — Houston already moves the ball. Whether it converts inside the five.
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Sources: Associated Press via Spectrum News — Ryans owns the Texans' 0-2 start, HoustonTexans.com — The Texans are getting there. Now come the last 20 yards., Toro Times — ESPN analyst on the Texans' offensive mess, Pro-Football-Reference — Houston Texans season results by year