The Land Lock Week Four Grades

The Texans squeak out another one and the grades are in

Landry Locker will post his grades for the Texans the day after the game each week. Here are the grades for week four. Follow Landry on YouTube.

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The Texans are 3-1 and have won three ballgames that they could have easily lost. You’ll never apologize for wins in the NFL, but the standards around here are suddenly high.

There’s also legit concern that this type of play won’t work against better competition. Buffalo will be a great measuring stick and the toughest team this team has faced. There was some good and some familiar bad against the Jaguars on Sunday.

Here are the Land Lock week four grades.

Quarterback: A

C.J. Stroud saves all butts.

He makes the offensive line look better, bails out lackluster efforts with late-game heroics, and is why you always feel you have a chance.

It’s not a formula you want to rely on all the time, but that’s what it is. There were a couple of missed throws by Stroud, but when the team needed him to prevail, he did. 

The craziest thing is there’s a feel that he can be even better, but he has the skill most great quarterbacks have which is the ability to prevail in the end, no matter what it looked like leading up to that point.

Running Backs: B

There was hope that Joe Mixon would play, but he was inactive.

Realistically, expectations shouldn’t be high from the backs when Mixon isn’t on the field.

Cam Akers had 15 carries for 53 yards and Dare Ogunbowale had the offensive performance of his career, mainly in the passing game, highlighted by a 31-yard reception on third and 18 as well as the game-winning touchdown.

Ogunbowale had a costly holding penalty in the open field that killed a drive, but he more than made up for it.

A lot of the time it appeared there was nowhere for the running backs to go. Again, we are grading on a curve here.

Wide Receivers: A

Nico Collins is the No. 1 on this team, is playing like an All-Pro, and is making the Texans front office look very smart for locking him up in the offseason. 

Stefon Diggs had the first rushing touchdown of his career.

The wide receivers did everything they needed to do to.

Tight Ends: B+

The tight ends did everything they were asked to do.

Dalton Schultz had three catches for 34 yards and a couple of big plays in Jacksonville territory.

Cade Stover had a 27-yard reception that moved the chains and avoided the costly mistakes he made last week.

Offensive Line: F

They didn’t line up illegally, but they still committed extremely costly penalties, didn’t block consistently, and were saved by Stroud a few times.

The one positive is that they weren’t as bad as last week…maybe. 

I don’t expect this offensive line to be elite but I have a slight hope they can eventually develop into a decent unit. I might have to start grading them like I do the running backs without Mixon and lower expectations even more than I have, despite how much is invested in them.

Maybe they are dependent on Mixon to look good, which isn’t the ideal scenario, but could be reality. His return should help, but how much?

Defensive Line: C+

The Bad: Jaguars running backs had 158 yards on 24 carries and the only sack of the game came from safety Eric Murray. 

The Good: There was a massive goal line stand and some key stops that contributed to the win. 

The defense also got kicked in the junk by Steven Sims muffing a punt early in the game. 

The guys on the edge, Will Anderson and Danielle Hunter can elevate their play significantly and unlike the offensive line, I believe they will. They are also playing better than their sack production. 

It wasn’t an awful performance, but they can be better.

Linebackers: B-

The linebackers were fine and there were only two to grade.

Henry To’o’To’o led the team in tackles with seven. Azeez Al-Shaair had a blitz that forced a punt and was swarming to the ball consistently. It wasn’t phenomenal, but it was good enough. 

I do have a fear that opposing tight ends could cause trouble for this unit later on in the season.

Defensive Backs: C

Trevor Lawrence is a wild mix of looking elite and awful. It’s an inconsistent, consistent mix that must drive his fans insane. The secondary was the beneficiary of it on Sunday. 

Lawrence is a more glorified version of the offensive line of the Texans: highly paid with a limited performance ceiling and inconsistent play that can cost you a game on any given Sunday. 

Jalen Pitre was sniffed out in coverage and there were times when Lawrence took advantage of it and other times where he was unable to connect with an open receiver. Pitre did have a key pass break up in the fourth quarter when the Texans needed to get the ball back in Stroud’s hands. Pitre also had some nice plays close to the line of scrimmage.

Murray had a pass breakup on the play after Pitre’s and also had a sack on a blitz. He was solid overall.

Kamari Lassiter was beat badly by Brian Thomas Jr. on a should be touchdown, but Lawrence “Lawrence’d” the throw. Derek Stingley had a big whiff against the run that led to a big gain. 

There were some good moments, but the secondary was very fortunate to have Lawrence as the opposing quarterback.

Special Teams: F

It was one thing to have Steven Sims on the field not doing much in the return game, but Sunday he was a major negative and nearly cost the Texans a football game.

Turnovers like the one Sims had are as bad as it gets. It came a play after DeMeco Ryans dialed up a third-down blitz to force a punt. The mistake handed the Jaguars a touchdown lead. Sims was then flagged in a crucial moment late in the game and pushed the Texans offense back 15 yards on a critical drive. Sims was benched twice in the game and you wonder what his role is on this team moving forward.

The Sims performance warrants an automatic “F” for Frank Ross’s special teams.

Coaching: C

Ryans said he had the penalties under control, but they were still a major issue. He also had a questionable, near costly display of clock management.

At the end of the first half the Texans took a timeout into the locker room with them:

• This timeout could have been used at some point after the first play of the two-minute warning when a 23-yard reception by Nico Collins took the ball to the Jacksonville 44.

• The Texans allowed 45 seconds to run off the clock and the next snap didn’t come until there was just over one minute left in the half. What makes this even more frustrating is the Texans had to settle for a field goal from the 11 on second down because there wasn’t enough time on the clock. 

• This was a potential four-point swing due to poor clock management. You can get away with this vs the Jaguars, but this needs to be cleaned up once competition increases and things intensify.

Ryans’s defense stepped up when needed and got some gifts from Lawrence. I didn’t see much wrong with Bobby Slowik’s gameplan, although there seems to be a growing group of fans that aren’t pleased with Slowik.

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