The Land Lock Texans Week One Grades
How did the Texans do on their week one report card?
I am excited to welcome another writer to the site. Landry Locker is one of the best sports minds I know and after dominating sports radio in Houston, he has exploded digitally. Follow him on YouTube at this link.
He will post the Land Lock Grades the day after each Texans game.
Here is the installment for week one.
My biggest takeaway from the win in Indy is that the margin for error with this team is much higher than I can remember it ever being. What were once game-costing mistakes can now be overcome en route to victory. This is made possible because of the coaching staff’s ability to coach up players, a talented roster, and most importantly, an elite quarterback.
During the post-game show, I said it didn’t feel like this team even played that well. Joe Mixon and Stefon Diggs said the same to the media after the game. The margin for error has increased and the team’s ceiling (full potential) is higher than Snoop Dogg.
Here are the Land Lock week one grades.
Quarterback: B
CJ Stroud made plays few quarterbacks, if any, could have made. It was just his first game of 2024, but I’m willing to bet two third and long connections with Nico Collins in the second half will be on his end-of-season highlight reel.
Beyond the box score, Stroud could have made an extremely costly mistake early in the second half with an INT deep inside Texans territory, but the defender was unable to get both feet inbounds.
There was also an issue with footing, which wasn’t mutually exclusive to him. On one of the plays where Stroud slipped and fell he was able to find Brevin Jordan on a fourth down of the first drive that led to a field goal.
Honestly, the Texans don’t win this game with most quarterbacks, but CJ Stroud isn’t most quarterbacks. He’s elite. The only reason this is a B grade is because of the elite standard he has set.
Running Backs: A+
Mixon was the player of the game with 30 carries for 159 yards and a touchdown.
He allowed the Texans to possess the ball for 40 minutes and provided them with an element of physicality and effectiveness they’ve been starving to have for a long, long time at the running back position.
Dameon Pierce also gave Mixon some rest late in the game, coming into the game and moving the chains on two carries, which is all he was asked to do.
It’s a heavy workload for Mixon. Is it sustainable? It doesn’t matter because these are grades based on what happened in Indy where he was nothing short of amazing.
Wide Receivers: A
If Nico Collins keeps this up then Colts fans are going to start looking at him the way Texans fans used to look at T.Y. Hilton. He was a killer with three MASSIVE plays en route to six catches for 117 yards.
Diggs caught both of Stroud’s touchdowns, including a fourth down and goal touchdown in the fourth quarter.
Tank Dell chipped in with three catches for 40 yards and a 17-yard run on a Bobby Slowik reverse.
This trio was hyped up as one of the best wide receiver trios in the league all offseason and played like it right off the rip in Indy.
Tight Ends: B+
The tight ends only had a combined four catches for 19 yards. However, if you’re expecting this position group to light up the box score weekly then your expectations are unrealistic.
Beyond the box score, Brevin Jordan had a big chain-moving fourth-down catch that led to a field goal on a play in which Stroud slipped. Jordan was also open on a screen where he and Stroud failed to connect.
The overall effectiveness of the tight end blocking will be more clear after tape-watchers break it down, but Mixon made it a point to shout out Cade Stover’s blocking after the game and said he loved the blocking from the fullback position, which was handled by the tight ends. I’ll take Mixon’s word for it.
The tight ends didn’t make noticeable mistakes and did everything they were asked to do.
Offensive Line: B-
Stroud was sacked four times and extended a lot of plays when under pressure. He also bailed out a Kenyon Green false start after the two-minute warning with a game-clinching third down connection with Collins.
Pre-snap penalties are always frustrating. Green’s false start on the first play after the two-minute warning was maddening.
Beyond the box score, one of the false starts called on Laremy Tunsil was going to be a delay of game, you can argue he was actually the only one on time. Another one of Tunsil’s false starts looked like it could have been called on everyone except Juice Scruggs, the center.
There were likely other factors that could have contributed to the sacks including the previously mentioned poor footing on the field. I’ll leave that to the tape-watchers, but there’s no doubt the pass-blocking needs to be better.
That’s the bad and uncertain, now for the good. The REALLY good. The often scrutinized run blocking appeared to be really, really good.
In a loss, this grade might be harsher, but after a rushing performance like this, you cannot give out a C to the offensive line.
In the words of Diggs, the offensive line dropped their nuts when they needed to.
Defensive Line: B+
Colts running back Jonathan Taylor had 16 carries for 48 yards. Defensive tackles Mario Edwards and Foley Fatukasi each had sacks and Anthony Richardson never looked comfortable.
Edwards described his camp as dominant, which was proportional to what most folks at practice observed and he looked good against a different team.
I anticipate this being one of the weeks when DeMeco Ryans and the defensive staff praise Will Anderson for his run defense.
One of the difficult things about evaluating a ballgame in which the opposing offense only has the ball for 20 minutes is fully grasping how well the defense played. The defense’s biggest issue was big plays, which I don’t believe fall on the defensive line. They kept Taylor in check.
Linebackers: B-
The linebackers contributed to containing Taylor and did so without Christian Harris. You can tell that Henry To’o’To’o is in better shape, which he spoke about with me earlier this week.
Outside of a few runs by Richardson, which is expected, the Colts run game was a non-factor. In just 20 minutes on the field, the linebackers did what they needed to do.
Defensive Backs: D
Explosive plays kept the Colts in this game.
The Bad: There was a 60-yard touchdown to Alec Pierce, a 54-yard touchdown by Ashton Dulin and a 57-yard Randy Moss-esque grab from Pierce over Jimmie Ward. This was perhaps Ward’s worst game on the Texans.
The Good: Calen Bullock had an interception in his first career game and Eric Murray tackled Taylor on an Indy two-point attempt that would have tied the game. The safeties also helped contain Taylor.
Beyond the box score, before the Bullock interception Richardson missed a wide-open Adonai Mitchell, who mixed Derek Stingley on his route for what should've been an Indianapolis touchdown. Most high school quarterbacks could have made the throw Richardson missed on that play, but that’s the Richardson experience. The spectacular often looks easy and the easy often looks bad. It wasn’t the only time Richardson missed Mitchell on potentially big plays.
This wasn’t a great performance from the secondary with too many costly big plays and they should be better moving forward.
Special Teams: C-
Ka’imi Fairbairn was 3-3 from 50+ yards, you don’t win without his leg, and there was no damage in the return game for the Colts. The blocked punt inside the five was beyond costly and gave Indianapolis life.
Special teams coach Frank Ross will have to figure out what happened on the blocked punt because just like the big plays, that’s as costly of a play as you can have.
Coaching: B-
There was no excuse for what happened at the end of the first half, regardless of how goofy the referee was and how unclear things were. Running a play with five seconds left instead of kicking a 55-yard field goal with a kicker like Fairbairn is a bad decision no matter what.
We saw the Texans kick 50+ yard field goals on fourth and short, that’s how much they trust him.
Was the situation criminally underexplained by the official? Absolutely. The field goal team should have been out there or the ball should have been spiked.
Chalk this down to a learning experience for the Texans staff. The goofy-ass ref, who was more focused on trying to work the crowd than doing his job and making things clear, should probably use this as a learning experience too.
That’s the bad, the good was good, really good.
Ryans’s defense kept the biggest threat in check. Bobby Slowik called an excellent game and Ryans did a good job of balancing his aggressiveness, which was capped off with the decision to go for the touchdown on fourth and goal in the final quarter, which led to a Diggs touchdown.
Ryans and his staff coached their players up and besides the end of the second quarter, they were solid.
Great article Landry.
I wonder if the field may have had an effect on Strouds passing. I don’t think his accuracy was up to his usual level. ( it was still good)
It certainly affected Mixon. There were a couple of runs that he may have gone the distance but slipped on his cutback.
I agree the end of the half could have been handled better, but I’m sick of the slip shod referees. You needed a road map to realize what was going on. Overall good game.
Mixon got the game ball........and he deserved it!!
We may already have a British Bulldog on the roster......but Mixon ran the ball like a hungry Rottweiler!!
If not for him chomping up yards and clock like a STARVING DOG at a food bowl for close to 2/3 of the game we could have lost.
What is that old saying??..."Even a blind squirell will eventually find a pecan".........Given another 10 minutes or so of possession time and Richardson could possibly have hit one or two more of those deep, Hail Mary balls he likes to throw.
Thank You Joe Mixon.
KEEPING THE FAITH!!!
GO TEXANS!!!