The Land Lock Week Seven Grades for the Texans Loss to the Packers

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

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I came away from this loss feeling like this was a complete football team, but it felt like a missed opportunity.

C.J. Stroud went 10-21 for 86 yards, the defense was beyond short-handed and they lost to a really good team on a field goal as time expired.

This was a weird game.

Here are this week’s Land Lock grades.

Quarterback: D-

The offensive line and protection as a whole didn’t give Stroud much of a chance at success. 

Plays where he avoided sacks were among the most impressive plays he made in Green Bay. His best play of the game came on the final play before the two-minute warning in the fourth quarter where he avoided a sack and found Xavier Hutchinson on third and 10 to move the chains. 

It wasn’t his best performance, but he was basically taking a college exam without a scantron. Am I dating myself with that reference or do they still use those things on campus?

Running Backs: A

Joe Mixon has balled out in all three of his complete games this season and was the only player on offense who played really well. 115 more yards on the ground and two more rushing touchdowns. 

Dameon Pierce only had two carries, but had the longest kickoff return of the season, which led to a Fairbairn field goal.

Wide Receivers: D

The wide receivers didn’t have much statistical production, but how much of that is on the offensive line?

Tank Dell started the game off with a dropped touchdown after a Neville Hewitt interception and spent a lot of time jawing with Green Bay defensive backs. He didn’t have a single catch.

Stefon Diggs had five catches for a moderate 23 yards in a rare non-productive performance against the Packers.

Hutchinson had potentially one of the biggest plays of his young career on his one catch for 11 yards. 

The production was meh and the Dell dropped touchdown was a missed game-changing opportunity, but the offensive line limited opportunity.

Tight Ends: B-

Early in the game, it looked like this could be the game where tight end production was finally a major factor. 

However, the tight ends finished with two catches for 43 yards, which was the second-highest yardage total from tight ends this season. It all came on one drive early in the game. 

Dalton Schultz’s one catch for 28 yards was enough to lead the team in receiving yards.

The tight ends aren’t asked to do a lot or at least aren’t given a ton of opportunities, should that change? The most receiving yards the tight ends have had in a game this season is 61 against Jacksonville.

Maybe, like most of the offensive issues on this team, this can be tied back to the offensive.

Offensive Line: F

Stroud was sacked four times and it felt like it could have been a lot more.

The excuse that this offensive line wasn’t healthy last season is gone. 

They have been the healthiest unit on this team and remain the biggest area of concern. Is this healthier line even performing better than last year’s depleted line?

This lingering concern handcuffs the offense, puts the franchise quarterback at risk, and feels like something that will prevent a good football team from reaching its goals.

How does it get better? A schematic change? A personnel change? Does it naturally improve? 

It’s a helpless feeling for the Texans fan base and has to be a headache for the coaching staff behind the scenes. Coaches will throw out the low-hanging fruit cliché of execution, but what specifically needs to change? They cannot ride this ongoing roller coaster, can they?

Defensive Line: A-

Outside of one productive drive in the third quarter, Josh Jacobs was kept in check, finishing with 76 yards on 12 carries.

Will Anderson and Danielle Hunter each had a sack. Tim Settle backed up his talk and had a sack and two tackles for a loss.

The only disappointment was that Denico Autry was pretty quiet in his debut. 

Linebackers: A+

Without their two starting linebackers the Texans reserve backers put on a next man-up clinic.

Neville Hewitt is a damn good football player. He had an interception and led the team in tackles for the second consecutive week. His only “mistake” was getting a 15-yard penalty on a suplex.

Jake Hansen was solid as well, finishing with seven tackles and some solid physical play in the trenches.

The linebackers played better than anyone should have realistically expected and linebacker depth is no longer a major area of concern on this team.

Defensive Backs: B

Calen Bullock had his rookie-leading third interception of the season on a pass defended by fellow safety Jalen Pitre.

D’Angelo Ross was challenged more this week and Green Bay had success going his way. This team misses Kamari Lassiter, but he held up as well as you could expect. 

Eric Murray had an awful series where he missed a third-down tackle that would have ended a Green Bay drive and got a 30-yard pass interference penalty shortly after.

There were highs and a few lows, but the secondary played well enough to win against an underrated group of receivers.

Special Teams: A+

Special teams kept the Texans in the game and were elite.

Tommy Townsend was good, Ka’imi Fairbairn didn’t miss a field goal, the punt team recovered a fumble deep in Green Bay territory and Dameon Pierce had a 42-yard kick return that led to a 52-yarder from Fairbairn. 

Desmond King had a punt bizarrely go over his head and appeared to nearly fumble another at the end of the second quarter, but no harm, no foul.

Frank Ross’s special teams unit had by far their most complete performance of the season.

Coaching: C

DeMeco Ryans and Matt Burke’s depleted defense played well. Ross’s special teams were elite. However, the offense outside of Mixon stunk.

Bobby Slowik’s decision to throw a sideline pass to Dell on the final offensive play was beyond suspect and allowed Green Bay to keep their final timeout no matter what the result of the play would have been. It was even weirder given the fact they ran the ball on the previous two plays and lost a combined five yards. He will be asked about this Thursday.

How much of the protection issues are schematic vs personnel? That’s the million-dollar question that I don’t have the answers to right now.

There was also a potential backward pass by Jordan Love that wasn’t challenged by Ryans.

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