How much has the defensive line room improved?
It’s hard not to feel excited about the Houston Texans these days. They are approximately 13 months into a new regime that has seen them go to the playoffs, win a playoff game, and seemingly get better in free agency. However, it is easy to get sucked into what analysts lovingly call “magical thinking.”
Magical thinking is fairly simply. It involves considering every positive that could come from a situation and ignoring every negative. Fans and football people alike get caught up in it quite often. It has its positives. It allows fans of all 32 teams to imagine themselves hoisting the Lombardi trophy every year. If this player breaks out and that player performs much better then we could win it all. Even if that is true, some players will take a step back or get injured.
This could not be more true then looking at the defensive end position. The Texans signed two players with 10+ sacks and they have Will Anderson ready to take a huge step forward. Obviously, this means the Texans will lead the league in sacks. Of course, we need to look at what is walking out the door to see if the team really is getting a whole lot better and what that might look like.
What’s Leaving
Jonathan Greenard: 697 snaps, 52 tackles, 15 TFL, 12.5 sacks
Jerry Hughes: 474 snaps, 32 tackles, 4 TFL, 3.0 sacks
The biggest mistake fans make is they assume that if a player leaves then all of his stats go with him. I suppose that is literally true except someone is going to play defensive end the next season. Someone is getting those snaps and they will make some plays. Obviously, the question is what quality those plays will have. Are they tackling guys ten yards down the field or in the backfield?
Hughes was a backup last season, so his numbers don’t necessarily jump off the page. Greenard did miss a few games, but it is also a fact that no single player had more snaps than Greenard at defensive end. DeMeco Ryans likes to rotate his guys in and out to keep them fresh. That means that we have to look at all of the numbers in that context because not every team uses their guys in the same way.
Who’s coming in
Daniele Hunter: 1,004 snaps, 83 tackles, 23 TFL, 16.5 sacks
Denico Autry: 767 snaps, 50 tackles, 12 TFL, 11.5 sacks
Both of these players had more snaps than any Texans defensive lineman. It is not likely that either will get this kind of opportunity and if they did then it would mean that the other guys would get far fewer opportunities. This is where casual fans do the casual math and assume that the Texans are increasing their sack total by 12 sacks because these two had twelve more sacks than their predecessors.
The truth is that we don’t know how DeMeco will use all of the players at his disposal yet, but it literally impossible for all four or five ends to get the same number of snaps they got a year ago. There just aren’t the snaps. So, we aren’t looking at the raw numbers, but a rough estimate where we look snap for snap.
Per 750 Snaps
Jonathan Greenard: 750 snaps. 56 tackles, 16 TFL, 13.5 sacks
Jerry Hughes: 750 snaps, 51 tackles, 6 TFL, 4.5 sacks
Daniele Hunter: 750 snaps, 62 tackles, 17 TFL, 12.5 sacks
Denico Autry: 750 snaps, 49 tackles, 12 TFL, 11.0 sacks
This seems like a more realistic expectation for those two guys. The key is not the totals but the difference between the guys coming and the guys going. If we add the two together we 111 tackles coming in versus 107 tackles going. We see 29 tackles for loss coming in versus 22 tackles for loss going. The big one is the 23.5 sacks coming in versus for the 18 sacks leaving. The team set a franchise record in sacks last season, but if you gave then five more sacks they would have finished in a tie for fifth.
Those five sacks seem more realistic than the twelve that the simple math would have us at. The increase in tackles for loss shows that the quality has been improved as well. Bringing back Derek Barnett also was huge to go along with Will Anderson. That gives the club a four deep defensive end room before even considering whether Dylan Horton makes it back from cancer or Myjai Sanders contributes again as he did last season.
Qualitative Numbers
Jonathan Greenard: 69.7 PFF Run, 72.9 PFF Pass Rush
Jerry Hughes: 58.5 PFF Run, 67.2 PFF Pass Rush
Daniele Hunter: 51.7 PFF Run, 79.1 PFF Pass Rush
Denico Autry: 52.0 PFF Run, 66.0 PFF Pass Rush
Will Anderson defends both the run and pass well, but he will likely be the only one. The rest of the defensive end room will be considerably better rushing the passer than defending the run. Still having four veteran defensive ends that can all get after the quarterback make the Texans look a whole lot different
Still, while PFF is only one stat source, it shows what the Texans have left to work on. As it stands now, their defensive front will struggle against the run and that might be more true now than even last season. Yet, they have the rest of free agency and the draft to address that. You’d have to imagine that a run stuffing defensive tackle is a top priority in the draft based on what we see here.