What could Nick Chubb do the for the offense?
Much is made of high powered offenses in the NFL. Usually, the focus for the Texans going from a mediocre offense to a good offense is focused on improvement in pass protection and the performance of the passing game. Those things can certainly be helpful and they will lead to a jump in performance, but few people in the mainstream media focus on the development of the running game.
The Texans had a better season on the ground by most numbers between 2023 and 2024. Joe Mixon became the team’s first 1000 yard rusher since the last time they went to the playoffs in the Bill O’Brien era. Considering he lost a few games to injury, he might have had the best season for a Texans running back since Arian Foster. So, obviously it is not an outhouse to penthouse situation.
Outside of Mixon, the results were not nearly as good. Yes, the Texans can get to where they want to go if Stroud performs more like a top five quarterback. Yet, they might also get there if the Texans can become a top five running attack. Is it possible? Let’s start by looking at the overall Texans numbers.
2024: 434 carries, 1909 yards, 15 TD, 4.4 YPA
Per Game: 25.5 carries, 112.3 yards, 0.88 TD
These numbers are quite important when we compare them with the top five rushing offenses in the league from last season. What is most stark is that the difference doesn’t look to be that much when we start looking at it from a per game perspective. We will look at both.
Ravens Season: 554 attempts, 3189 yards, 21 TD, 5.8 YPA
Ravens per game: 32.6 attempts, 187.6 yards, 1.24 TD
Eagles Season: 621 attempts, 3048 yards, 29 TD, 4.9 YPA
Eagles per game: 36.5 attempts, 179.3 yards, 1.71 TD
Commanders season: 526 attempts, 2619 yards, 25 TD, 5.0 YPA
Commanders per game: 30.9 attempts, 154.1 yards, 1.47 TD
Bucs season: 483 attempts, 2536 yards, 16 TD, 5.3 YPA
Bucs per game: 28.4 attempts, 149.2 yards, 0.94 TD
Packers season: 526 attempts, 2496 yards, 23 TD, 4.7 YPA
Packer per game: 30.9 attempts, 146.8 yards, 1.35 TD
The thing all of these teams have in common is that they simply had more attempts than the Texans. If they did nothing but carry the ball five times more per game than they would be in line with the attempts by those other teams. At their 4.4 yards per attempt, that would be an extra 22 yards per game on the ground. Suddenly, a team sitting at 112 yards per game would be up to 134 per game. That is not top five material, but it might be close o the top ten.
Three of those five teams have running quarterbacks, so there are some obstacles to overall success that the Nick Chubb signing did not overcome. Yet, the Bucs and Packers quarterbacks are more similar to Stroud, so it is possible to be a top five rushing offense without a running quarterback. However, it is not possible without two rushers getting 100 or more attempts.
Ravens: 325, 139
Eagles: 345. 150
Commanders: 187, 148
Bucs: 207, 144
Packers: 301, 103
The Bucs feel a little more like what we might expect from the Texans if they were to follow a blueprint. The Texans had two such runners in 2023, but Dameon Pierce did not have an effective season. When was the last time the Texans had two running backs with four or more yards per carry that also carried the ball 100 times or more? Deshaun Watson had 99 carries in 2018, but if we follow the rules explicitly we have to go back to 2016. Alfred Blue had 100 carries on the nose that season.
We’d have to go back to the days of Arian Foster and Ben Tate before we would come to a truly impactful one-two punch. In other words, we would have to go back to the Gary Kubiak era to see what that actually looked like. Let’s keep this simple. If Chubb can even go four yards per carry at ten carries per game while Mixon averages 15 carries a game at 4.5 yards per carry then they would combine for a little over 100 yards per game. Throw in the occasional Stroud scramble and the occasional wide receiver reverse or Woody Marks run and this team could easily average 130 to 140 yards rushing per game.
The league averaged 339.0 yards per game last season. Give the Texans an extra 20 yards per game strictly on the ground and assume their passing game remains the same and they would have averaged 339.7 yards per game. So, an improved rushing attack could elevate the Texans offense to league average. In terms of scoring offense, that is almost exactly one point per game. They obviously don’t have far to go.
In our Groupthink, we were asked what Chubb’s role will be. I can’t answer that definitively, but I know what I hope it is. I don’t want Joe Mixon carrying the ball 300 times this season. I don’t want him carrying the ball 250 times. If that is to happen then someone must step up to share the load. If that is a healthy Nick Chubb then this team could take another huge step forward. Maybe going from below average to above average offensively doesn’t look like much. An extra two or three points per game doesn’t look radically different. It could mean the difference in ten wins versus 11 or 12 wins. It could also mean the difference in keeping Stroud cleaner in the pocket and more healthy as the season wears on.