Battle Red Blog
Throughout the 2025 NFL season, SB Nation’s Doug Farrar will write about the game’s Secret Superstars — those players whose performances might slip under the radar for whatever reasons. In this installment, we focus on Houston Texans safety Calen Bullock, the third-round pick in 2024 who has become that rarest of entities — a deep-third defender you simply never want to test.
If you weren’t already up on how great the Houston Texans’ defense is (and since you’re reading this on a Houston Texans website, I dare say you are), Thursday night’s 23-19 win over the Buffalo Bills sure put this defense on the national radar. The Texans rank third in Defensive DVOA behind only the Seattle Seahawks and the Los Angeles Rams (another upstart defense worthy of your attention), and their 16.5 points per game allowed is the NFL’s best.
Josh Allen was sacked eight times in that game, the most in his NFL career, and he was pressured on more than 20 of his dropbacks. The Texans took Allen to the ground on 53.3% of his pressured dropbacks, and both edge-rushers — Danielle Hunter and Will Anderson Jr. — were lining up to the buffet over and over.
But when head coach DeMeco Ryans was asked postgame about his favorite part of the defensive performance in the game, he pointed immediately to the work done by second-year safety Calen Bullock. Bullock was targeted twice against the Bills, and he responded brilliantly. The only catches he allowed were the ones he made — Bullock gave up no catches, but he had two interceptions, and his second pick with 24 seconds left sealed the deal.
“The thing that stood out to me… The way our defensive line hunted, of course that was great, but Calen Bullock is the guy for me,” Ryans said. “The way he went out and intercepted the ball two times, and forced a fumble to get us in plus territory there. My favorite play is the one that ended it. A lot of emotions going on on the sideline through that entire drive. For Calen to come down with the interception, that was my favorite play, because it meant it was over.”
The Texans have been up on Bullock’s range and fluidity since they traded up to take him with the 78th overall pick in the third round of the 2024 draft. It’s why they put him in the deep third more than any other defender in the NFL in his rookie season — 1,063 of his 1,113 snaps were as the last line of defense. That’s a major test for any rookie, but Bullock was up to the challenge. In 2024, he allowed 13 catches on 29 targets for 159 yards, two touchdowns, five interceptions, five pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 45.7.
Now, he’s even better. So far in 2025, he’s allowed eight catches on 20 targets for 109 yards, one touchdown, four interceptions, two pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating...
