The Houston Texans are in the playoffs for the second year in a row, and want to avoid last year’s fate when they were knocked out of the wild-card round by the Indianapolis Colts.
However, there may be one position group that could compromise their efforts to defeat the Buffalo Bills Saturday at 3:35 p.m. CT.
According to Doug Farrar of the Touchdown Wire, the Texans’ secondary is bottom tier and the one element he picks as Houston’s fatal flaw.
The Texans finished the regular season with the worst DVOA of any playoff team, and a lower DVOA than six non-playoff teams: the Rams, Buccaneers, Bears, Colts, Falcons and Steelers. Houston also has allowed the most touchdown passes of any playoff team with 33 — the Saints are next with 27, and only the Raiders, Redskins, Cardinals and Dolphins have allowed more overall. Head coach/de facto general manager Bill O’Brien and his crew have certainly tried to fix the problem, bringing Vernon Hargreaves III and Gareon Conley in during the season to augment a cornerback group that hasn’t done much.
The cornerback group faced injuries throughout the season with starters Johnathan Joseph and Bradley Roby missing time. Both are questionable against the Bills with hamstring injuries.
If Roby and Joseph can’t go, then the Texans will have to rely on Hargreaves and Conley to get the job done. Rookie cornerback Lonnie Johnson provided some relief for the Texans in the middle of the year as injuries hit the cornerback group, but has seen his playing time relegated to special teams after returning from a concussion along with the addition of Hargreaves, who the Texans claimed off waivers from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
John Brown and Cole Beasley are the Bills’ two receiving threats. If the Texans can shut them down, even with their fatally flawed secondary, it should be enough to lift Houston out of the wild-card round.