Revamped Houston Texans Offense One of Biggest Surprises of 2016 Season

Two weeks into the regular season, the surprise team in the NFL is the Houston Texans. The Indianapolis Colts looked like a sleeper contender heading into the preseason with quarterback Andrew Luck returning from injury, and the Jacksonville Jaguars were one of the trendier sleeper playoff candidates, but anyone with a pair of eyes can tell you that the 2-0 Texans are the hands-down favorites to win the AFC South title.

Despite just a two-game sample size, only two squads have won both of their regular-season games by at least a touchdown. Those squads are the Pittsburgh Steelers and Houston.

Pittsburgh is one of the hotter teams in the league, as their offense seemingly runs through a dozen receivers and isn’t slowed down when their running back Le’Veon Bell is out with a suspension, but how are the Texans on par with them, ahead of every other squad in the league in terms of point differential?

The answer is simple: their last offseason.

Share Tweet Embed

In 2015, Houston lost to the Kansas City Chiefs by a score of 30-0 at home in the Wild Card Round with Brian Hoyer at quarterback, Alfred Blue at running back and star receiver DeAndre Hopkins posting a below-average performance in the AFC South’s participation playoff game.

Their offense was limited last season, and they made drastic changes. At quarterback, Hoyer and T.J. Yates were told to hit the road. Instead, Houston is now starting Brock Osweiler, a 25-year-old who led the Super Bowl champion Denver Broncos offense for a stint last season before Peyton Manning took back the reins late in the regular season.

Osweiler, one of those rare young starting quarterbacks to hit the open market, signed a four-year, $72 million contract to play with head coach Bill O’Brien, who has three years of Tom Brady and Christian Hackenberg’s freshman season on his resume. 

At running back, the Texans didn’t have a starting-caliber ball-carrier after Arian Foster went down for the season due to a torn Achilles tendon. Houston and the Miami Dolphins essentially swapped running back situations, as Foster, a 30-year-old coming off of a major injury, is playing in South Beach while Lamar Miller, a 25-year-old with a career 4.5 yards-per-carry average, has found home on the Third Coast.

The team’s No. 2 running back in terms of carries last season was Chris Polk with 99. He is now a free agent, as the team also let him walk.

Share Tweet Embed

At receiver, last season’s squad was simple to figure out. They had Hopkins and “JAGs.”

Hopkins had 111 receptions in 2015. The next two receivers on the squad were Nate Washington with 47 receptions and Cecil Shorts with 42 receptions. Washington is now a free agent after a failed stint with the New England Patriots, and Shorts landed on his feet with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after 53-man roster cuts at the end of the preseason.

Heading into the playoff game against the Chiefs, no defense in the league was afraid of anything the Texans could throw at them. Hoyer, now a backup in Chicago, wasn’t a threat passing the ball, Blue wasn’t a game-changing running back and the only receiver squads had to worry about was Hopkins, so teams started to roll coverage over his way no matter the formation.

Once teams started to take away Hopkins, Houston had no counterpunch. The splits between Hopkins in Week 1 through Week 11 and Week 12 through that playoff loss are incredibly stark:

…

continue reading in source www.bleacherreport.com