Houston Texans: Grading the team at the halfway point of the season

Offensive Line

The Texans’ offensive line has been a punching bag in recent years, and rightfully so as they allowed a league-high 62 sacks in 2018. But this year, the offensive line is much improved, due to the Texans addressing this area in the off-season.

This season, the offensive line is best assessed by breaking down weeks 1-4 and weeks 5-8 separately. Over the course of the first four games, the Texans allowed 18 sacks, which is obviously far too many. Part of this is due to the lack of cohesiveness on the line, in addition to the Texans simply not knowing who they were going to start on the line. In addition, due to the timing of the Laremy Tunsil trade, he was immediately thrown in the fire as well.

Once the line developed chemistry and familiarity with one another, these issues got corrected. During weeks 5-8, the Texans only gave up 7 sacks and went two consecutive weeks without allowing any sacks. Unfortunately, the Texans have dealt with injuries on the line, which caused rookie Tytus Howard to miss the team’s last two games.

Moving forward, I’d expect the Texans’ line to get back to dominating opposing pass rushers and keeping Watson off the ground.

Overall Grade: B+