Houston Texans: Why not sign Takk McKinley for rest of 2020 season?

The Houston Texans need some help on defense and Takk McKinley is a free agent.

The Houston Texans could use some added depth on their defensive line, and now they have a chance to give a player a second chance with Takk McKinley being recently released by the Atlanta Falcons. The Texans need some more help at defensive end, and McKinley has to have some untapped talent that was never found with the Falcons.

Being a former first round pick, McKinley had to catch the eye of teams back in 2017 when he was in the NFL Draft. With the Falcons passing on his services for the rest of the season, and McKinley seemly wanting out of Atlanta, now is the time for the Texans to make a visit with the defensive end to see where he could stand with the franchise.

The current defensive ends on the depth chart of the Houston Texans other than J.J. Watt are P.J. Hall (who also plays tackle), Charles Omenihu and Carlos Watkins. So yes, not only would Takk McKinley make the Texans better at the position, but if nothing else he would be a welcome addition to a defensive end depth chart that needs more players.

Turron Davenport of ESPN.com reported in the release article of McKinley the following about McKinley’s career up to this point of the release:

"“The 2017 first-round pick has been disappointing, totaling only 17.5 sacks in 49 career games.”"

Those are not very good numbers, but maybe a new team, and playing along side J.J. Watt for the rest of this season would be a boost to the career of McKinley which would be a plus for the Texans and McKinley too.

The article also reported that Takk McKinley had missed the past two games with a groin injury, but once that is all healed up, it isn’t a crazy thought to want to see McKinley in a uniform with the Texans for the remaining eight games to see if things can be corrected. What could it hurt?

This season, McKinley has played in four games and has one sack.

Houston Texans: Defense end production this season isn’t the best

The numbers by the defense of the Houston Texans aren’t great in 2020 as they haven’t been too reliable from a week-to-week basis. Hall has played across the defensive line this season with 32 tackles, two QB hits and one sack.

Watt is the main defensive end and one of the faces of the franchise, but that also means he’s a main focal point of being double teamed by the opposing offense nearly every play. Watt’s stats this season include four sacks, three passes defensed, two forced fumbles, one fumble recovery, five tackles for loss and eight QB hits.

Watkins this season has one pass defensed, and one sack, along with one QB hit, and one tackle for loss. Omenihu has recorded two sacks, two tackles for loss and eight QB hits as he’s made one start and been active for eight games in 2020.

This hasn’t been the greatest season for many of the defensive players for the Houston Texans, so maybe a new addition like Takk McKinley would energize the entire unit. The Texans are 2-6 overall entering Week 10 and those two wins were both against the Jacksonville Jaguars, so some sort of change would be a smart move by looking how things have went so far this season.

Adding a player like Takk McKinley can’t hurt matters for the Houston Texans moving forward for the remainder of this season, and who knows McKinley could end up like playing for the Texans and he could be the defensive end they’ve been looking to add all along.