2011 Season Preview: Houston Texans

2010 Record: 6-10

2010 Rankings:

Total Offense - 3

Passing Offense - 4

Rushing Offense - 7

Scoring Offense - 9

Total Defense - 30

Pass Defense - 32

Rush Defense - 13

Scoring Defense - 29

Offense

Numerically, the Texans had one of the most prolific offenses in the league last year. However, when you look at their distribution of offense, it's pretty much just two people: Arian Foster and Andre Johnson. Foster put up over 2200 yards from scrimmage, leading the league in rushing and finishing 2nd on the team in receptions. Johnson was 5th in the league in receiving yards with 1215. Between the two of them, they accounted for over half of the team's offensive yards. Foster tweaked a hamstring in the preseason so there is some concern he might miss some time at the beginning of the year. 

Defense

If you need proof to the adage that "Offense wins games but Defense wins Championships," look no farther than the Houston Texans. To improve their league-worst pass defense was also 23rd in the league with 30 sacks last season. To change things up, Wade Phillips was brought in as the defensive coordinator and he is installing a 3-4 defense, which includes moving former #1 overall pick Mario Williams to outside linebacker. They drafted DE JJ Watt from Wisconsin and pass rusher Brooks Reed (Arizona) in the first two rounds. On the back end, they added CB Jonathan Joseph from Cincinnati in free agency to help their non-existant secondary.

Intangibles

The Texans defense should be better, but will they be good enough to stop an offense in the last two minutes when they need to hold on to preserve a win? This team was gashed through the air and on the ground last year, and they will need to be better on this side of the ball if they want to compete for the division crown. Every year is supposed to be "their year" to finally break through and make the playoffs for the first time. But we're still waiting on that.

If the Texans were a Beer, they would be:

Leinenkugel's

This seems to be growing in popularity as a "craft beer" when in reality it's very low on the taste spectrum. I've tried most of the offerings Leinenkugel's has and to be honest, they all pretty much just taste like beer. There seems to be a lot more hype around Leinenkugel's and their different styles/flavors than there is actual differentiation between their types of beer.