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Ben Arthur
AFC South Reporter
The Texans’ divisional-round playoff loss to the Ravens last season exposed their biggest offensive flaw.
Houston registered just 38 rushing yards on 2.7 yards per attempt in the game. At halftime, it looked even worse — 14 rushing yards, 1.8 yards per carry. Tailback Devin Singletary couldn’t make anything happen.
Baltimore ranked in the top half of the league in stopping the run, and Mike Macdonald, then the Ravens defensive coordinator and now the head coach of the Seahawks, threw some looks that befuddled the Texans. The bottom line was that C.J. Stroud, who’d just completed arguably the greatest rookie quarterback season in league history, didn’t have any help out of the backfield when it was needed most.
Stroud couldn’t carry the offense as he had most of the season — he had a 57.7% completion rate for 175 yards and no touchdowns against Baltimore — leaving Houston floundering.
“The running game will be significant for us to improve upon,” Texans coach DeMeco Ryans said at his end-of-season press conference in January. “As you go through this game, especially in the postseason, teams that win games, you have to be able to run the football.”
That brings us to this offseason. In an effort to improve a run game that tied for 22nd in rushing offense (96.9 rushing yards per game) and 28th in rushing yards per game (3.7), the Texans gave up a 2024 seventh-round pick to the Bengals for veteran running back Joe Mixon, whom they extended on a three-year, $27 million deal that includes $13 million guaranteed.
Mixon is the new RB1 for Houston, and the team let Singletary walk in free agency. He signed with the Giants for a three-year, $16.5 million contract worth up to $19.5 million.
On paper, Mixon provides the hope for more playmaking out of the backfield.
He played more than Singletary last season — the latter didn’t become a starter until Week 9 — and he registered…
Source link : https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/is-rb-joe-mixon-the-missing-ingredient-for-c-j-stroud-texans-offense
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Publish date : 2024-03-29 15:18:07
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