Chiefs Scouting Report: Houston Texans – The Kansas City Chiefs have 8 days to get ready until they face off against the Houston Texans at Arrowhead Stadium on September, 10, at 7:20 PM CDT. Before the NFL’s premiere Season Opener pitting the Super Bowl LIV Champion Chiefs versus one of their playoff casualties, let’s take a look at the changes those victimized Texans have made this offseason in preparation for that Thursday Night Kickoff in K.C..
The big story in Houston this offseason was the trade HC/GM Bill O’Brien made with the Arizona Cardinals: WR Deandre Hopkins for RB David Johnson, plus a 2nd round pick in this year’s draft — they took Ross Blacklock (TCU) — and a 4th round pick in 2021. However, the evolution of their roster has been tailor made for their young QB, Deshaun Watson, beginning with adding more wideouts and re-signing TE Darren Fells.
Houston has added: WR Brandin Cooks, WR Randall Cobb, RB David Johnson, OT Brent Qvale, S Eric Murray, and DT Timmy Jernigan. All of those moves — with the exception of Eric Murray — were plus sized moves and they also re-signed: WR DeAndre Carter, TE Darren Fells, PK Ka’imi Fairbairn, CB Bradley Roby, QB AJ McCarron, OT Roderick Johnson, LS Jon Weeks, and LB Dylan Cole. The most notable re-signed players are: TE Fells, and starting CB Roby, and maybe PK Ka’imi Fairbairn.
The players Houston said goodbye to include: WR Deandre Hopkins, RB Carlos Hyde, DT D.J. Reader, RB Lamar Miller, and CB Johnathan Joseph.
Houston’s Offense vs the Chiefs Defense
If the talented QB, Deshaun Watson, can blend well his passing game in with the RB tag team of Johnson & Johnson (Duke and David), and hit his shifty WRs and TE on short routes – Brandin Cooks, Randall Cobb, Kenny Stills, and Darren Fells — it opens up the field and could take advantage of their long game weapon — WR Will Fuller, who has 4.33 speed — the Texans offense could be hard to contain.
What it really means is, their offense could be able to generate as many first downs as needed to tie up the clock and keep Patrick Mahomes and his high energy machine glued to the bench. Well, I’m sure that’s one of their plans.
During their playoff game with K.C., the Texans got enough turnovers to help their team race out to a 24-to-0 lead. It’s incredibly unlikely that we’ll ever see that happen again. Consequently, the Texans will have to hope they can score and control the clock early, and keep the Chiefs offense waiting and watching.
Charles Goldman has listed WR Keke Coutee as one of “11 NFL Veterans Who Could Be in Roster Bubble Trouble.” Still, with Deshaun Watson at the helm, the Texans have to think they can outscore any team in the league, including the Chiefs. The trouble they face in K.C. is that now Steve Spagnuolo and his coaches are so experienced, that they should be able to come up with a handful of stops and that’s all Mahomes and Company will need to run up the score and run away with this one.
Houston’s Defense vs the Chiefs Offense
The Texans Defense should be… nolo contendere, in most cases vs Reid’s brainy, high powered, zipline offensive weaponry. Sure, you have to take any defense that J.J. Watt is on seriously, but Andy Reid and Steve Spagnuolo have known how to scheme around players like him — such as Von Miller or Joey Bosa– and I’m sure they’ll do it again. It looks like the Texans have recently locked up one of their LBs for the next four years:
I like Houston’s front seven, including: DL Whitney Merciless, DL Charles Omenihu, ILB Zach Cunningham and LB Benardrick McKinney. However, their back end appears to have too many weak links… and their weaknesses just don’t match up well vs the Chiefs strengths, like: Travis Kelce, Tyreek Hill, Clyde Edwards-Helaire (as a receiver), Sammy Watkins, Mecole Hardman, Demarcus Robinson and Byron Pringle… and oh yeah, some guy named Patrick Mahomes.
Chiefs Offense vs the Texans Defense
As long as Travis Kelce, Demarcus Robinson, and Mecole Hardman don’t drop passes, or fumble the ball away like Tyreek Hill did, and if the Special Teams doesn’t give up a blocked punt for a TD (which all happened in the first quarter, back in January)… then the offense shouldn’t fall behind by three plus TDs. However, once the offense began to click, a healthy dose of Mr. Kelce, who had 134 receiving yards in that game, as well as spreading the ball around to all of the WRs and RBs, made the Chiefs attack too diverse for the Houston defense to handle. The same recipe should blow Houston out of the water this time around too. Remember, K.C. scored seven straight times in that game, once the floodgates opened, and they ended up with 51 points total. So, is any lead safe when playing Patrick Mahomes? I certainly doubt that, and until we see a Mahomes lead Chiefs offense lose by more than one score, there’s no reason to believe that any lead is safe. Certainly not one the Texans can mount.
Chiefs Defense vs the Texans Offense
Jordan Ta’Amu could play an important role for the scout team by providing an elevated practice performance in mirroring the skillset of a QB like Deshaun Watson. That should help Ta’Amu develop as well. The biggest challenge the Texans offense can present any opponent this year may come through their new wide receiver collective… but wait. From Patrick Morgan, of ToroTimes.com, he shares:
“Houston is set to trot out a starting receiver rotation that includes the likes of Will Fuller, Brandin Cooks, Kenny Stills, Randall Cobb, Keke Coutee, and DeAndre Carter. From 1-6, that’s one of the better-looking wideout depth charts in the NFL today … at least on paper. Yes, the Texans have their deepest platoon of playmakers ever, but they all come with significant baggage in the injury risk department.”
With no injury report showing that any of the Houston wideouts will be absent from the opener in 8 days, it brings up perhaps the one concern: the Chiefs DBs vs the Texans WRs. If Houston can flood the Chiefs defensive backfield with their talented group of wideouts, it might not only create a threat where K.C. will be most depleted — because of Bashaud Breeland’s suspension — but, an attack like that, if it’s initially successful, could also open up their running game. Chiefs DB coaches, Sam Madison and Dave Merritt have their work cut out for them and will need to make sure they’re finding a DB rotation that works best, and then sticking to it. Otherwise, this may be the one area where the Chiefs are most vulnerable.
While I can see that the Chiefs Defense could possibly have trouble early solving the Texans Offense, I have serious doubts that their Defense can put up enough of a fight against the fastest offense ever.
Andy Reid describes the myriad of Training Camp items for players to learn as a “menu” and says:
“You’ve got to prepare for a variety of things because you don’t know exactly what menu they’re going to present to you. So, you’ve got to make sure offensively, defensively, special teams that you have as many of the bases covered as you can, and at the same time get yourself ready with whatever you’re going to do. It’s always nice at the end of camp to be able to narrow it down. You have this huge menu that you’re working off with plays on both sides of the ball and all of the sudden now you can kind of focus it in, and it’s almost a relief to the players that they don’t have to memorize 1,000 plays, but you can narrow it down to the base stuff that you’re going to go into the game with.”
Preseason Gameless Covid Challenge
While many players who make the roster are glad there were no preseason games, it has left the Chiefs guessing about what kind of offense or defense their first opponent will be running because there is zero tape on them. “Zero Tape,” you ask? Sure, the Chiefs do have last season’s tape on the Texans and while some of that will be helpful, you can be sure that with the new personnel they added, they’ll be restructuring their approach, retrofitting it to suit those new players, and that new approach is filled with the unknown… mainly.
Tyrann Mathieu has become the spokesperson for the Chiefs defense:
“The expectation is to be one of the best defenses in the National Football League and obviously to start the season faster and finish even stronger.“
If the Chiefs Defense starts fast and is able to produce a couple of 3-and-outs, you would have to give this game to the Chiefs just based off of that opportunity. Now… to the game, for the answer.
Laddie Morse — ArrowheadOne
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