Game Overview ::
By hilow >>
- The Texans and Colts collide in a divisional tilt with the second-highest game total on the slate.
- All three Texans wide receivers are in an absolute dream spot – the problem isn’t figuring out if one of these guys will pop off here, it’s figuring out who will pop off. “At least one Texans wide receiver” is very much on the table on this slate.
- We expect the Texans to find offensive success here, leaving the ultimate game environment largely up to the Colts to dictate. If they can keep up, look out.
- Jonathan Taylor should have one of the highest snap rates and opportunity shares in the league this season. This spot, however, is not the best on-paper matchup.
- I expect DeMeco Ryans’ defense to deploy heavy rates of zone from nickel and dime personnel groupings, likely utilizing a linebacker or safety spy on Anthony Richardson. In conjunction, look for Ryans to scheme away Richardson’s first read, forcing him to make it through progressions to beat them.
- This should result in heavier than usual secondary contributions from the Colts’ pass catchers.
How HOUSTON Will Try To Win ::
If you were with us last season, you know the drill with offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik by now. Slowik hails from the Gary Kubiak-Kyle Shanahan-Mike McDaniel coaching tree and his play designs are reminiscent of his pedigree. They are elite. That said, we continued to harp on his poor situational play-calling tendencies throughout the 2023 season. In case you missed it, Shanahan’s 49ers led the league in pre-snap motion rate (82.8%) while McDaniel’s Dolphins ranked second (75.4%) in 2023. Slowik’s Texans ranked 13th at 53.5%. Pre-snap motion helps quarterbacks diagnose coverages and confuse opposing defenders while helping to generate communication issues that lead to broken coverages, something that is highly beneficial against the ever-increasing zone coverage rates found in the league.
The NFL rules are clear – motion is not allowed upfield until the ball is snapped and there can only be one player in motion (without being set) at a time. These forward-leaning offensive play callers have pushed those rules to their limits, and I expect Slowik to follow suit at increasing rates moving forward. But in order to take this Texans offense to new heights, Slowik must improve upon his situational play calling, most notably his borderline asinine early-down rush rates from a season ago. For what it’s worth, both Shanahan and McDaniel also had extreme first-down rush rates, but the 49ers and Dolphins were far more efficient on those plays, averaging almost 5.6 yards per attempt (49ers) and 6.44 yards per attempt (lol, Dolphins) compared to just 3.67 for the combination of Devin Singletary and Dameon Pierce in Houston. Finally, the addition of Stefon Diggs is going to make covering the pass game a nightmare for opposing defenses.
Slowik’s run-blocking scheme is far from straightforward. As in, it isn’t as simple as saying “Slowik calls this percentage of man/gap principles and this percentage of zone principles.” There is a little bit of all of that mixed in. As such, we want a running back with above-average vision and patience running behind this blocking scheme. That’s why Singletary played over Pierce last year, the latter of whom is more of a one-read, one-cut, straight-ahead running back.
Joe Mixon has those traits. He also has robust experience running from shotgun in 11-personnel from his time in Cincinnati, something I presume he will be asked to do in Houston following the offseason addition of Diggs. Last season, the Texans ran from 11-personnel just 29.4% of the time (26th in the league), largely tipping off opposing defenses that they intended to pass from 11. This seemingly small change in the offensive design should provide fewer early-down stacked boxes due to the threat of Diggs, Collins, and Dell from 11-personnel, and will (hopefully) help Slowik’s play calling shortcomings from a season ago.
So yea, while most view Mixon as a kind of “meh” signing, I actually think he is just as important to where this offense wants to be as Diggs. And I am here for every second of it. Finally, I expect Mixon to be on the field as much as possible for Houston this year. After the team’s Week 7 bye in 2023, lead back Devin Singletary played 70% or more of the offensive snaps in eight of 13 games to finish the season, playoffs included. Finally, the Colts ceded a near-league-average 4.1 yards per carry in 2023 under the same coaching staff.
As was mentioned above, the addition of Diggs gives Slowik and quarterback C.J. Stroud three elite weapons at wide receiver. Furthermore, all three of Diggs, Collins, and Dell can play wide, slot, as the motion man, and run full and robust route trees. Yea, absolute nightmare fuel for opposing defensive coordinators. The Texans already ranked in the top half of the league in motion rate a year ago and now have three players capable of being the motion man before the snap. Now consider the intricate route designs, layered route trees, and elite scheme, and the ceiling is the roof for this team’s pass game. Oh yea, and Dalton Schultz is no slouch at tight end and Mixon is no slouch through the air out of the backfield.
The Texans also have some of the lowest personnel and coaching turnover in the league from last season to 2024, meaning they likely will avoid the standard “ramp-up” time most teams contend with and should be firing on all cylinders from the jump. That’s bad news for Gus Bradley’s Cover-3-heavy Colts defense. As you should also know if you were with us last year, Cover-3 is now the preferred zone coverage alignment in a league that has seen man-coverage rates fall for six consecutive seasons – and Bradley is one of the kings of Cover-3. He utilized that primary coverage shell at a ridiculous 48.5% rate in 2023. Cover-3 is great for its malleability and ability to “cheat” additional men into the box after diagnosing a run, providing a way to simultaneously limit downfield passing and add additional defenders to stop the run.
That said, Cover-3 typically is weak over the intermediate middle of the field behind the linebackers/in front of the secondary and to the deep perimeter, two areas of the field that Stroud should have no issues picking apart here. Check out the metrics of current Texans wide receivers against Cover-3 last season (stats courtesy Fantasy Points Data Suite):
- Nico Collins – 0.73 FP/RR (third), 4.1 yards per target over expectation (seventh – Noah Brown ranked first while playing for the Texans last year), 0.164 first downs per route run (FD/RRfourth)
- Tank Dell – 0.58 FP/RR, 0.117 FD/RR
- Stefon Diggs – 0.58 FP/RR, 0.132 FD/RR
These are not normal numbers, these are ridiculous numbers. In other words, any one of these wide receivers could completely pop off in this spot. Finally, the relative weakness of the Colts’ defense is their secondary, as they have a rather stout front six (remember, high rates of Cover-3 and it’s a formation run primarily from nickel alignments, meaning five defensive backs on the field).
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