Film Room: Exploring Houston's Offensive Failure in Minnesota

Issues pile up for offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik

John Crumpler will break down the Texans and give his observations and thoughts on the team and what is working or in this week’s case what’s not working. Follow John on social media.

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The Houston Texans offense looks like a bad unit today. There’s no sugarcoating that.

Per NFL Next Gen Stats, Houston ranks 29th in passing success rate and 21st in rushing success rate. Offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik’s unit is struggling to find down-to-down success and those struggles came to an explosive failure in their 34-7 loss in Minnesota last Sunday.

Why exactly has one of the NFL’s most talented offenses, featuring multiple Pro Bowlers and one of the league’s supposed premier play-callers, faltered?

It’s complicated.

The film shows a unit that self-destructed between penalties and offensive line play despite the greatness of their quarterback. There are also some bigger structural trends happening around the league that are worth exploring as fans work to contextualize what are fair expectations for this unit.

Here are four observations, some within Houston’s control and some at a far more macro-level, and discuss how the Texans rebound up-front moving forward. Let’s dive into the plays.

1: We are at a Unique Moment in NFL History

Everyone who covers the NFL is exploring what is happening on offense this season - specifically how are defenses suffocating offenses in 2024? I’ve enjoyed listening to some of these various conversations in podcasts from Mina Kimes, Robert Mayes, Nate Tice and others over the last few weeks and would certainly recommend them. There are some common threads from those smart football people that are worth summarizing here (with some of my own beliefs):

• Offensive production and offensive line play is not exclusively a Houston Texans problem - it is a league wide issue.

• The league has evolved after years of suffering against the offensive revolution that Slowik comes from and many defenses, including Brian Flores in Minnesota, are landing on an answer that works. A little bit like the series of robot trials in The Incredibles as the antagonist works to find a model that could defeat Mr. Incredible.

The first staple was the concept of outside-zone running. Bill Belichick and the Patriots introduced a beautiful antidote: stuffing the line. The Shanahan passing concepts that evolved to kill the Cover 3 revolution that had emerged from the mid-2010 Seattle Seahawks defensive tree, were met with defenses that evolved in the last few years to play more Cover 2 and especially Cover 4 - DeMeco Ryans in San Francisco was a hallmark of this evolution. Motion took the league by storm over the last two seasons, notably the cheat motion in Miami, and defenses have finally had time to establish rules and tempered ways to respond and attack these late shifts of how the offense is aligned. 

All of that to say, the common offensive schematic origins and answers that Slowik employs and leans on have been met with fierce resistance. This offensive style no longer provides automatic easy answers to first downs and offensive momentum the way it once did. 

Brian Flores was probably the best-equipped coach in the NFL today to prove that and he did so emphatically. Whether that was Minnesota having a unique understanding of how to fit defenders against the zone run:

Or Brian Flores killing nearly any route concept by dropping 8 into coverage at a rate that previously would have been considered absurd:

How Slowik may individually evolve from here to better lean on Houston’s unique personnel talent, if at all, is worth monitoring in a league year where everyone is struggling to move the football. They won’t be banning Cover 2 anytime soon.

2: Minnesota was a Uniquely Bad (and unlucky) Matchup

Beyond Brian Flores sitting on the cutting edge of blitzing or new coverage combinations, this was a game that genuinely could not have gone worse for Houston.

The first play of the game saw C.J. Stroud work through his progressions and find his top receiver, Nico Collins, for a huge gain in the way that fans have come to expect. It was immediately called back for a penalty on rookie tight end Cade Stover - a play that probably stands if the rookie doesn’t tackle his defender.

Later that drive, Stroud has a ball tipped at the line of scrimmage that unfortunately lands in the hands of a Vikings defender. He made the perfect quick read and it would have been a fine throw for a first down to Tank Dell, that just wasn’t in the cards for Houston on Sunday.

Throw in some other things we’ll address, like overall sloppy play from the offensive line and a protection plan that the Vikings were ready to attack, but it’s hard to imagine these circumstances ever replicating themselves again. The Vikings are probably better than Houston right now, it’s worth remembering they aren’t 34-7 better.

3: All-Time Sloppy Effort from the Offensive Line

Beyond the actual execution of their responsibilities, the Texans offensive line looked like a unit that wasn’t ready to play in a hostile road environment on Sunday.

Franchise left tackle Laremy Tunsil was at the center of this, from his first false start on a run sequence in the first drive to contributing twice on an abysmal sequence of penalties that turned a promising third and four into an impossible third and 19.

There were even questions over his effort in the game, such as this play where Tunsil allowed his defender to waltz back into Cam Akers’s cut-back lane. It’s unacceptable play from one of the highest paid tackles in football and someone that Houston depends on to get above-average play from their offensive line as a unit.

Now… the false starts.

Seriously how does this happen twice?

Three times?

This is a correctable measure in practice and with better coordination between the offensive line and Stroud’s cadence. In fact, it’s something that Ryans has already said the team is working to solve in practice this week. 

It’s a little thing but it is something that has to be precise if the offensive line wants to give the team a fighting chance. Houston has to create more favorable third-down passing scenarios if they want to give themselves a chance against creative blitzes.

Of course, then there’s the matter of actually protecting on those third downs

4: This Unit Needs More Time Together

There was an interesting chart yesterday from Fantasy Points data that showed Stroud as the most sacked non-Will Levis quarterback on stunt maneuvers. In a way, this isn’t terribly surprising. This unit didn’t play together last season and is comprised of two very young players on the interior, Juice Scruggs and Kenyon Green, who are often tasked with handling those stunts.

However, that doesn’t mean that formula is acceptable.

Outside linebacker Andrew Van Ginkel starts on the outside before looping around Jihad Ward and Patrick Jones II. Kenyon Green is totally washed out of this play and Juice Scruggs is too far out of position to get Van Ginkel before he crashes towards Stroud for an easy sack.

This formula again works, albeit later in the play, when Harrison Smith is able to free former Texans defensive end Jonathan Greenard from the lockdown clutches of Laremy Tunsil. By coming across Tunsil’s face, he allows Greenard to switch onto Dalton Schultz where he once again finds his way to Stroud, this time for his third sack of the game.

Slowik’s protection schemes appear largely the same, if not less inspired, than last season and it’s given defenses time to learn how to attack them. Green, Scruggs and Stover have all had their moments of back-breaking play - whether that’s in handing off stunts or simply losing to their defender.

Even veterans like Shaq Mason were flat out beat at times on Sunday. Here Greenard made the former Pro Bowler look silly as he has a straight line to interior pressure on Stroud.

It will be up to Slowik and this unit to go back to the drawing board and work on their plan for stunts. Their rules may need a little tweaking but ultimately this is a matter of practice and communication if the offensive line is going to respond to what will be the new formula for how to attack Houston.

Make no mistake - every single defense remaining on the schedule will come working to attack the interior in delayed and unique ways like this.

It will determine how the season goes.

When it goes well, like this stunt pick up from the line late in the game on Sunday, there are major plays to be had. Here, after Mason is perfectly positioned to pickup the same stunt from earlier, Collins is able to get down field and show off not only great speed but his excellent hands on a huge chunk gain.

The Bottom Line

Sunday’s performance isn’t worth panicking about - not yet.

It was a multi-factorial disaster for Slowik’s offense and a recipe that will be difficult to entirely replicate for coordinators less talented than Flores. Not to mention it’s hard to imagine such poor luck in the turnover department and the penalties to stack like that once again.

If the Texans can find themselves in more manageable passing situations, improve on their response to stunts and delayed blitzes, and ultimately see the expected development of their younger players - there is ample reason to believe the offense will improve.

That’s before even considering that Slowik will likely find better answers that better fit his personnel as the season progresses.

We may see a different approach to the run game, more pocket movement, or simply more of the same from an offense that has multiple directions to go from here. Fans will have to see just how much they can fix in a week when they take on the 0-3 Jacksonville Jaguars in a get-right home game on Sunday.

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