Buffalo Rumblings
There’s been a lot of digital ink spent on talking up how good the Houston Texans’ defense is as we prepare to watch the Buffalo Bills try and take them down in front of millions tuned in to Thursday Night Football. I could easily do an article on just stats showing how that’s true. They allow the second least yards per play, with the best defense when it comes to yards per pass specifically. They have the fourth best interception rate, allow the least points per game and per drive (my favorite metric).
The Texans have this stat, that stat, and the other stat going for them; proof of their formidability. But everyone else has already written that article, so allow me to write a quick-hitter pointing out not only that they’re not invulnerable, but they may have very specific and exploitable vulnerabilities.
I want to be clear that nothing I’m about to suggest is to sway anyone towards the idea that Houston doesn’t have an elite defense. They do. All the league ranks I noted above are all true, and quarterback Josh Allen and company will have their work cut out for them trying to put up points Thursday night.
That said, all of those very true stats are aggregate numbers representing the totality of their work this season. Let’s get a little less aggregate for a second, starting with their rushing defense.
In totality, the Texans allow the fourth-least yards per rushing play with 3.85 yards per carry. Rushes toward the left end, left guard, and right guard all have average numbers when it comes to yards per rush. Put differently, that’s half the field in which Houston can give up a little ground. Even more starting is their numbers up the middle. They allow 4.4 yards per rush there, good for a 24th rating in the league. By my rule of four, that’s one rank away from the “bad” category
Want even better news? And I mean even better than what I just mentioned in light of having running back James Cook III and an actual buffalo at quarterback with Josh Allen. Sometimes these numbers can be skewed due to low attempts in a particular direction. Houston has had 77 runs up the middle against them, the 12th-most in the league. That’s high enough to give this stat some extra validity.
Conclusion: The Bills should be able to run effectively up the middle.
Remember from above that the Texans’ defense has the best rating in the league for yards allowed per pass. They allow a scant 5.45 yards per throw in that metric. There isn’t a ton to work with here as they are very good pretty much across the board. The biggest exception are short throws across the middle, where they allow 7.7 yards per pass — which puts them 24th in the league. Even with that though, Houston is ninth in the...
