Tag: pass-blocking

The Texans were horrendous in pass blocking in Week 1

The Houston Texans were almost dead last in the NFL in pass block win rate in Week 1. They will have to improve against the Baltimore Ravens.

The Houston Texans pass blocking was hardly top notch. In fact, it may not have been worthy enough to even record a notch.

Quarterback Deshaun Watson took four sacks as the Texans lost to the Kansas City Chiefs 34-20 in Week 1 at Arrowhead Stadium.

According to Seth Walder from ESPN, the Texans were the penultimate team when it came to worst pass block win rate, winning 37.9% of the time. Only the New York Giants were worse at 33.3%.

The results are enough to believe the offensive line needs a little more work together, even if they are the first line to return all five starters for the first time since 2011.

Pro Bowl left tackle Laremy Tunsil isn’t going to blame the Texans’ pass blocking issues in Week 1 on the lack of preseason games.

“Not having a preseason game, I really don’t think it mattered as much because we had training camp, but that’s just my opinion,” Tunsil said. “We’ve just got to come out there and execute the game plan. I don’t know. I don’t think the preseason really affected us as much. We’ve just got to come out there with a better attitude.”

Houston will need to fix their offensive line issues in a hurry. The Baltimore Ravens visit NRG Stadium in Week 2 blitzed 23 times last week, the second-most in the league.

Tim Kelly says the Ravens present ‘unique challenges’ for Texans’ pass protection

The Baltimore Ravens present a problem for the Houston Texans with the way they attack the quarterback. Tim Kelly is ready for Baltimore’s challenges.

The Houston Texans allowed quarterback Deshaun Watson to take four sacks in the Week 1 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, 34-20.

The pass rush won’t get any easier as the Texans face the Baltimore Ravens in Week 2 in the NRG Stadium opener. The AFC North club dialed up the second-most blitzes of Week 1 with 23. Only the Pittsburgh Steelers had more.

Baltimore defensive coordinator Don “Wink” Martindale’s philosophy is to get to the quarterback by any means necessary. His pressure did get to Watson in the Week 11 game last year with the Ravens sacking the two-time Pro Bowler six times in the 41-7 loss.

Second-year offensive coordinator Tim Kelly is well aware of how formidable the Ravens can be to the Texans’ pass protection.

“The Ravens are big,” Kelly said. “They’re physical. You look at [defensive end] Calais Campbell. You look at [defensive tackle] (Derek) Wolfe. You look at [outside linebacker] (Matthew) Judon. You look at [outside linebacker] (Jaylon) Ferguson, [defensive end] (Jihad) Ward. There’s a number of — [nose tackle] Brandon Williams on the inside. There’s a number of players — the rookie from LSU [Patrick Queen] is a really good blitzer. There’s a lot of different players that offer different skill sets and that will present their own unique challenges.”

With the threat the Ravens pose, the Texans had to quickly get over their disappointment in dropping the opener to the Chiefs.

“Our guys have been, like I said, as soon as we got back Friday morning, they were able to kind of put that Kansas City game to bed and be able to learn from it, clearly, but then really start to focus on their next opponent, which is the Ravens,” said Kelly. “We’re excited, like I said, to be able to go out there and see how much better we can go out and play.”

If the Texans can improve their pass protection against the Ravens’ blitz, then it should help their third-down conversions, which were 2-of-10 last year against Baltimore. The longer Houston can sustain drives, the more it keeps Lamar Jackson off the field.