The Houston Texans had been intending to trade defensive end Charles Omenihu leading up to the Nov. 2 deadline, and they finally found a willing partner with the San Francisco 49ers.
As part of the rebuilding process, the Texans parted ways with their former 2019 fifth-round pick from Texas, sending Omenihu to the NFC West club.
Omenihu had a decent track record coming into 2021. In his rookie season, he produced 3.0 sacks, two tackles for loss, five quarterback hits, two forced fumbles, and two pass breakups among his 13 combined tackles in 14 games. Recall some of this was done without J.J. Watt on the field, who tore his pectoral just before halftime against the Oakland Raiders in Week 8.
In 2020, Omenihu followed up with 4.0 sacks, 17 combined tackles, five tackles for loss, and a whopping 16 quarterback hits.
Albeit the Texans went from a 3-4 to a Tampa 2 scheme under new defensive coordinator Lovie Smith, Omenihu’s progress stopped. The third-year player had 11 combined tackles, a tackle for loss, and three quarterback hits in six games, two of which he started.
However, it is the two games Omenihu wasn’t active that tell the tale.
Omenihu was inactive from Weeks 5-6 with defensive coordinator Lovie Smith saying after the New England Patriots loss that it was simply practice that influenced them to dress defensive end Jordan Jenkins and not Omenihu.
“Each week, it’s a different combination that you’re going with,” said Smith on Oct. 13. “Sometimes the numbers, we keep track of the plays. If you dress, we want you to get about — all players get about the same amount of plays. The situation kind of dictated a little bit. But Chuck (Omenihu) has been doing a good job. It’s just the numbers hadn’t allowed him to play.”
The numbers — just a luck of the draw. Lady luck just didn’t favor Omenihu that week in a cosmic game of musical chairs in the defensive line room.
Even when the club released Whitney Mercilus, an outside linebacker turned defensive end that wasn’t adapting to putting his hand in the dirt, Omenihu’s playing time was still subject to practice.
“It’s just practice, and how they practice,” coach David Culley said. “We always make that decision after a week of practice, especially when you have that many guys rotating throughout the year. We basically, on Friday make a decision based on how we do in practice of who is down and who is up. And for us at that position, we’re always having someone down who could be up, deserves to be up but because of the room and the space we are always going to have one guy down that maybe should be up.”
Jenkins provided Houston with six combined tackles, a tackle for loss, and a quarterback hit in place of Omenihu during Weeks 5-6.
The real star of the Texans’ defensive line is defensive end Jonathan Greenard, who leads the team with 7.0 sacks after producing just 1.0 in his rookie year in 2020.
The Texans had one of the steals of the late rounds in the 2019 draft. General manager Nick Caserio and assistant directors of player personnel James Liipfert and Matt Bazirgan better produce a player as good or better than what they had in Omenihu.
