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Houston Texans can make it work at QB if running game steps up

By Kevin Parvizi

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Houston Texans head coach Bill O’Brien led his team to a 9-7 finish last season that nobody could have seen coming after the team’s worst-overall finish in the 2013 season, but he has his work cut out for him when it comes to having an encore performance. Not only is the Texans schedule more difficult after they came in second in the AFC South last season, but he won’t have the benefit of riding Arian Foster, who was one of two backs (DeMarco Murray obviously being the other) to have at least 20 rushing attempts per game last season.

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No running back- not even Marshawn Lynch– is more important to his team’s success than Arian Foster, so any chunk of time he misses is a huge blow for the offense as a whole. Foster looks poised to play in the second-half of the 2015 season after requiring groin surgery, but the 2013 season is all the evidence we need to see what could happen to the Texans offense without Foster on the squad.

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Current New York Jets starting quarterback, thanks to Geno Smith‘s broken jaw, Ryan Fitzpatrick had himself a successful 2014 season in Houston. That’s thanks to the excellent work from star skill position players DeAndre Hopkins, Andre Johnson, and Foster, but the man most responsible for his success may have been O’Brien.

A limited quarterback who makes too many mistakes when he goes into gunslinger mode, Fitzpatrick finished the season with a 95.3 QB Rating and 63.1% completion percentage with 2.6% of his passes being picked off. Those were all the best numbers of his career ever since he joined Buffalo back in 2009, and no quarterback had an easier task than Fitzpatrick did last season.

O’Brien and the Texans turned him into the king of all game managers, asking him to make high-percentage throws to two excellent wide receivers while giving him plenty of support in the backfield with Foster. Throw in Duane Brown, Chris Myers, Brandon Brooks, and an improved Derek Newton in front of him, and Fitzpatrick had everything he could have wanted around him.

I’m sure the Texans are going to do the same this season, even if Ryan Mallett continues the positive momentum and beats Brian Hoyer out for the starting job. Hoyer’s awful 55.3% completion percentage but league-leading 13.7 yards per reception show that he was a gunslinger for the Cleveland Browns, and those numbers are reminiscent of Fitzpatrick’s at his worst.

That means Hoyer is a prime candidate to be re-molded into a basic game manager by O’Brien, who will likely use Hopkins to his full potential with Cecil Shorts, Jaelen Strong, and the promising tight ends (I’m still waiting for them to break out) operating on higher-percentage routes.

Likewise, Mallett is a strong-armed, immobile pocket passer who was consistently inaccurate and showed little-to-no anticipation as a thrower during his preseason action with the New England Patriots, and yet he flourished in the Houston Texans preseason opener this year. Mallett, who completed just 54.7% of his passes in limited action last season before an injury, went 10-for-11 by making safe throws and following the Texans designed gameplan.

But for O’Brien to successfully use Mallett and Hoyer as game managers who are backed up by a potentially elite defense that now has a legit coverage safety in Rahim Moore to take pressure off of standout CBs Kareem Jackson, Johnathan Joseph, and Kevin Johnson, the Texans need their running game to be on point.

Feb 19, 2015; Indianapolis, IN, USA; Houston Texans head coach Bill O’Brien speaks to the media at the 2015 NFL Combine at Lucas Oil Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Trevor Ruszkowski-USA TODAY Sports

Alfred Blue will get the first crack at replacing Foster as the lead back during the superstar’s absence, and while Blue had a pedestrian 3.1 yards per carry last season, he did have one strong 156-yard performance- taking full advantage of a dreadful Cleveland Browns run D- and had an impressive nine carries for 59 yards.

The Texans offensive line is stocked with excellent run blockers like Brooks and Newton, so the opportunity is there for Blue, Jonathan Grimes, or Chris Polk to grind out some decent yardage by getting what’s in front of them. Foster isn’t out for the entire season either, so the Texans running game should be back to its elite self in the second-half of the year, which will be a huge boon to either Hoyer or Mallett, who will get the start in the Texans second preseason game after his impressive 2015 preseason debut.

Either way, it’s hard not to trust O’Brien, who did a great job of leading this team in his first season by letting the skill position players do the work for the quarterback. He put his guys in a position to succeed by using them correctly without trying to be too cute, and that same approach should elevate his questionable quarterbacks (though there’s hope for Mallett), as long as his running backs hold up their end of the bargain.

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