Landry Locker grades the Texans' performance. Here are the grades for the loss to the Cincinnati Bengals. Follow Landry on YouTube.
The week one loss to the Bills was unfamiliar. Sunday’s loss felt all too familiar.
The defense was good, the offense was bad (especially in the red zone), the head coach called out players for not making plays, and for the third time in four seasons, the team fell to 0-2 to start the season. It felt like 2025 all over again.
Whose fault is it?
There’s plenty of blame to go around, but it feels like head coach DeMeco Ryans goes into detail when blaming the players and saying they need to make plays. Then he mentions the coaches needing to do better as almost an afterthought or small, vague bullet point.
There’s plenty of blame to go around and some good things to take away as well. Here are the Land Lock week two grades…
Quarterback: A
C.J. Stroud played very well and made the most of the awful situations the coaching staff put him in.
He used his legs to extend plays and run when necessary. He made some throws that higher-quality receivers catch.
Jared Wayne and Xavier Hutchinson didn’t do him a lot of favors, but that’s to be expected.
With what he had to work with and the game plan that he had to execute, Stroud was great.
Running Backs: C
They bailed on the run game early. They were uncreative or foolish when they attempted to run the ball.
There were a few moments in the passing game from Woody Marks, but it again felt like the backs were underutilized in the pass game.
The running back production wasn’t great, but what were the backs supposed to do?
Wide Receivers: C-
Wayne and Hutchinson are clearly favorites of offensive coordinator Nick Caley. He couldn’t hide his love for them leading up to the game. They’re also limited players despite the fact that they deserve credit for maximizing all their abilities. They made a couple of plays, but failed to make more, which is about what you’d expect.
Jaylin Noel can clearly make plays, but isn’t maximized consistently, for whatever reason. There were some good moments for Kayshon Boutte, but it feels like he’s still getting implemented. Rookie Lewis Bond got on the field as a receiver before Noel, but was a non-factor.
Without Nico Collins and Jayden Higgins, the expectations are low for this group. With Caley in control of the offense, those expectations decrease even more.
Tight Ends: Incomplete
The most alarming statistic of the day was that Wayne (40) had as many offensive snaps as tight ends Foster Moreau (23), Cade Stover (8), and Marlin Klein (9) combined.
It was mind-boggling that the tight ends weren’t used more. It contradicts everything the organization has done, what we have seen, and basic common sense.
The incompetence was laughable.
Dalton Schultz had an impressive day statistically, but if Schultz is ever your most productive receiver, then you likely weren’t very good on offense. Defenses will live with that production from Schultz.
Offensive Line: C
This grade might be surprising to many, but the C is based on the standards I have for this offensive line and what they were asked to do based on realistic expectations.
Realistic expectations are often a factor in my grading system; I don’t expect much.
Furthermore, I think not having multiple tight ends on the field to help the flawed offensive tackles is malpractice by Caley. I will go in more depth when I give out the coaching grades.
Basically, Caley and the offensive staff asked intermediate students to perform at the level of an honor student. I am not going to hold that against them.
I am not saying the offensive linemen are good, and they were obviously AWFUL Sunday, but this grade is about a combination of two things.
The previously mentioned standard/realistic expectation principle. An over-emphasis on how pathetic the offensive game plan was on Sunday.
Defensive Line: B
Will Anderson Jr. and Danielle Hunter were better and played closer to the level that you’d expect them to play. The impact by the defensive tackles remains somewhat moderate, but was solid enough on Sunday.
I still don’t know how Joe Burrow didn’t fumble the ball when Hunter jumped on his back.
Linebackers: B-
Azeez Al-Shaair was fine. Jake Hansen was alright. It was nothing spectacular, but it was good enough.
Safeties: B-
Reed Blankenship still has a perfect opposing passer rating when targeted, but wasn’t as bad as he was last week and had some good moments tackling.
Calen Bullock was what you’d expect.
The Jalen Pitre impact hasn’t been as noticeable early on, and it feels like teams may be sniffing him out in coverage. He was also unable to come up with a potential interception that would have been a tough play. It could have completely changed the game. Maybe that was one of the plays Ryans was talking about after the game, which would make sense.
Overall, the safeties, like the linebackers, were fine, but not spectacular.
Cornerbacks: B
Kamari Lassiter bounced back and looked a lot more like himself.
Derek Stingley Jr. had a deep pass on an underthrown ball completed again with him in coverage, but I’m not sure what more he can do in those situations. Plus, the quarterback and receiver connections won’t be as elite as they have been the last two weeks. Definitely not this week against the Colts. He also had some nice moments.
The corners were okay despite a couple of plays being made by arguably the best WR duo in football.
Special Teams: F
The Texans kick return operation stinks. It’s bad. I don’t know if it’s the blocking, return men, coaching, or a combination of everything, but it’s just not good.
The kick coverage looks even worse when you watch it take place after they try to return a kick.
After an awesome start to the season, Kai Kroeger went back to looking like one of the worst punters in football, which he was last season.
For the first time in Kai’imi Fairbairn’s decade-plus career, the snap operation didn’t even allow him to get his foot on the football, giving away three easy points. This is the same snap operation that was praised and romanticized all offseason.
Fairbairn missed a 58-yarder, but I don’t really hold that against him and, quite frankly, I think he has spoiled the Texans offense and head coach by making those kicks look easy. Fairbairn also told me that there was a mental element to a first-ever botched snap and kicking a field goal afterwards.
I probably should have given the special teams an F- John McClain style, but I will save that for later.
Coaching: F-
I have no doubt Caley wants to win, but if he were trying to sabotage the Texans offense, he had the perfect game plan to do so.
Caley elected to line up in 11 personnel (one running back, one tight end) 87% of the time this week compared to only 58% of the time last week against Buffalo.
Think about this for a second.
The Texans invested a lot in the tight end position in the offseason. They have five tight ends on their 53-man roster. They are missing Nico Collins at wide receiver. However, the coaching staff decided to use multiple tight ends LESS, which leaves their limited offensive tackles on more of a one-on-one island and puts MORE wide receivers on the field more often than they did when they had their best player. This is borderline insanity.
Some would argue that the game dictated these percentages, but this was a close game most of the time. It’s very easy to argue that the Texans have a better chance at moving the ball and protecting their quarterback with more tight ends on the field, regardless of the score.
Confession: This could be an overreaction, but I am starting to wonder if Frank Ross is still a good special teams coach.
After a point-saving challenge on the first drive of the game, Ryans had a tough day.
This was the worst in-game coaching of his tenure. Just in case you were wondering, he makes fourth-down decisions. He made this clear when I asked if the decision to kick the long field goal on fourth-and-one was connected to the earlier inability to convert on fourth-and-one. In fairness, the non-answer may make sense because it didn’t appear there was a method to the madness.
The head coach also compared this week’s decision to kick a 58-yard field goal to last week’s. Let’s compare the two…
Last week’s Fairbairn 58-Yard FG Attempt situation:
Score: 30-28 Buffalo
Down/Distance: 4th & 4
Clock: 6:44 remaining in 4th
Yesterday:
Score: 10-3 Bengals
Down/Distance: 4th & 1
Clock: 7:33 remaining in the 3rd quarter
If your head coach feels that these two decisions are similar, that might be a problem.
It was a bad week for the coaching staff, maybe the worst one of the current Era. The good news is the team has been able to make the playoffs the other three times they have started 0-2, but the hope was that the trend wouldn’t continue this season.