Cam Akers is battling for his football life this preseason. The 25-year-old, former Los Angeles Rams running back, is trying to prove that he still has something left in the tank. The Houston Texans are hoping that Akers can prove his value by being their backup, lining up behind Joe Mixon on the depth chart. The hope is that Akers outperforms Dameon Pierce, or that Pierce outperforms Akers. Regardless of who's on top, the hope is that one of them provides better production than anyone the Texans had last season.
Pierce was awful last season, and there's a good chance that Akers could surpass him this season and take his spot. Yet, with poor performances and injuries, Akers wasn't that impressive last season. So he's coming into the 2024 season with the need to surpass Pierce as the team's number two running back, but how is that going?
PFF paints a rosy picture. In two games, Akers had overall scores of 69.1 and 79.4. That's of course only against 27 snaps, which is what the Texans are hoping he'd play in a single game, at least. He's got a very good receiving score of 91.1 and a running grade of 68.8. That seems bad, but it's a solid score for PFF.
Yet, his actual stats tell a different story. On 11 carries, he's only secured 30 yards. That's less than three yards per average. You want someone hitting four yards per carry as an average, so we're a long way off from great. That said, his pass reception game is a different story. He's caught all five passes thrown his way for a total of 41 yards and a touchdown.
So when you factor it all together, he's had 16 touches, for 71 yards and a touchdown. You're not going to pay a guy $20 million a year guaranteed for that type of production, but that's not shabby at all. It's good enough to make the team.
Especially since Pierce went out and did zero positive things in his outing against the Steelers. We're likely looking at Akers becoming a member of the Texans permanently if this level of production continues. Especially if Akers proves himself as a great receiving threat out of the backfield.