Houston Texans: Gaining their identity in the secondary

The Houston Texans have some of the best personnel they’ve had in the secondary in recent years.

Despite the fact that the Houston Texans are winless after two weeks, they have a promising core in the secondary moving forward. Texans general manager Brian Gaine and the coaching staff have completely changed the outlook of the safety group in 2018. It went from a weakness to a position of strength.

The Texans won the bidding war and were able to sign talented safety Tyrann Mathieu after he was his release by the Arizona Cardinals. They were also able to pry away slot cornerback Aaron Colvin who played an integral role in the defense of AFC South rivals Jacksonville Jaguars.

The Texans then drafted talented safety Justin Reid in the third round of the 2018 NFL Draft when he was expected to go a round or two earlier. They also decided to move Kareem Jackson around the secondary and he has produced. Jackson has had 14 tackles and two forced fumbles in his first two games of the season.

Houston has a talented team and are one of the few 0-2 teams that don’t deserve to be in this category, but they have been digging themselves in a huge hole early in games and been unable to get themselves to the finish line in time. In the past two games, the Texans defense has held their opponents to only six points in the second half. The secondary is only allowing opposing quarterbacks to throw for an average of 225 passing yards which ranks 12th in the league.

They have the upside to continue to improve, the only glaring weakness is the opposing boundary cornerback position across from Jonathan Joseph.  They do have Kayvon Webster and Shareece Wright who are still learning the defensive playbook. Jackson was placed at cornerback versus the Tennessee Titans in Week 2, but he has shown plenty of potential playing across from Mathieu at safety.

However, Reid has shown he can hold his own starting at safety against the Titans. The defense boasts enough talent in the Texans front seven that they could hide that weakness and provide the team with one of its most formidable defenses in recent years.