Houston Texans Offensive Line Woes

The Texans rank near the bottom of the league in total offense and scoring offense. They will stay there until the performance of the offensive line improves. Can it improve enough for the Texans to make a deep play-off run this year ? It can, but it won’t be easy.

Obviously Duane Brown’s return is a key issue. Losing a Pro Bowl quality left tackle hurts any offensive line. That is especially true for a thin offensive line such as the Texans’. Chris Clark is an adequate short-term replacement, but he can’t anchor the left side the way Brown can.

However, Brown’s return, probably by the Vikings game, doesn’t solve the whole problem. Nick Martin’s value to the offensive line was greatly underestimated.  Since Martin went down Greg Mancz has done as much as can be expected from a second year undrafted free agent. However, at this point he is a marginal starter. Tony Bergstrom, who was expected to compete for the starting center job is a big disappointment…money wasted.

With Martin done for the year Mancz is the best the Texans have at center. For him to be good enough he must be surrounded by talent and coached up. If the guard play is good Mancz is good enough. Unfortunately though, until Brown returns there is not enough line talent to shore-up the guard position.