Battle Red Blog
What could Nick Chubb do the for the offense?
Much is made of high powered offenses in the NFL. Usually, the focus for the Texans going from a mediocre offense to a good offense is focused on improvement in pass protection and the performance of the passing game. Those things can certainly be helpful and they will lead to a jump in performance, but few people in the mainstream media focus on the development of the running game.
The Texans had a better season on the ground by most numbers between 2023 and 2024. Joe Mixon became the team’s first 1000 yard rusher since the last time they went to the playoffs in the Bill O’Brien era. Considering he lost a few games to injury, he might have had the best season for a Texans running back since Arian Foster. So, obviously it is not an outhouse to penthouse situation.
Outside of Mixon, the results were not nearly as good. Yes, the Texans can get to where they want to go if Stroud performs more like a top five quarterback. Yet, they might also get there if the Texans can become a top five running attack. Is it possible? Let’s start by looking at the overall Texans numbers.
2024: 434 carries, 1909 yards, 15 TD, 4.4 YPA
Per Game: 25.5 carries, 112.3 yards, 0.88 TD
These numbers are quite important when we compare them with the top five rushing offenses in the league from last season. What is most stark is that the difference doesn’t look to be that much when we start looking at it from a per game perspective. We will look at both.
Ravens Season: 554 attempts, 3189 yards, 21 TD, 5.8 YPA
Ravens per game: 32.6 attempts, 187.6 yards, 1.24 TD
Eagles Season: 621 attempts, 3048 yards, 29 TD, 4.9 YPA
Eagles per game: 36.5 attempts, 179.3 yards, 1.71 TD
Commanders season: 526 attempts, 2619 yards, 25 TD, 5.0 YPA
Commanders per game: 30.9 attempts, 154.1 yards, 1.47 TD
Bucs season: 483 attempts, 2536 yards, 16 TD, 5.3 YPA
Bucs per game: 28.4 attempts, 149.2 yards, 0.94 TD
Packers season: 526 attempts, 2496 yards, 23 TD, 4.7 YPA
Packer per game: 30.9 attempts, 146.8 yards, 1.35 TD
The thing all of these teams have in common is that they simply had more attempts than the Texans. If they did nothing but carry the ball five times more per game than they would be in line with the attempts by those other teams. At their 4.4 yards per attempt, that would be an extra 22 yards per game on the ground. Suddenly, a team sitting at 112 yards per game would be up to 134 per game. That is not top five material, but it might be close o the top ten.
Three of those five teams have running quarterbacks, so there are some obstacles to overall success that the Nick Chubb signing did not overcome. Yet, the Bucs and Packers quarterbacks are more similar to Stroud,...
