Last night I watched a video by the YouTuber KTO. In his video, he looked at the NFL from three years ago (2021) to see how different it was. It was a bit different, admittedly, but it wasn't so different that it would be unrecognizable. I just thought it was a fun watch. That said, he did bring up a statistic that often goes under-stated. The idea is that the average NFL player's career is only 3.3 years long.
So I got to thinking; if the average NFL player's career is only 3.3 years long and the rate of turnover in the NFL is wildly high, just what did the Houston Texans look like in 2021? More importantly, how many of those players are even left? That took me down a long and exhaustive search. From my best guess and without counting practice squad players in 2021 who never took a snap, I found that there are only nine players left from the 2021 season. Those nine players are;
- TE Brevin Jordan
- QB Davis Mills
- K Ka'imi Fairbairn
- S Eric Murray
- LB Neville Hewitt
- LS Jon Weeks
- OL Tytus Howard
- LT Laremy Tunsil
- WR Nico Collins
The Texans went just 4-13 that season. The same season that would begin the post-Deshaun Watson era for the squad. While he was on the team, he wasn't active and was traded at the start of the free-agency period in 2022. The very same season that would see David Culley hired after no one else wanted the job. The Texans were, for lack of a word, awful.
Yet, some of the team's best players persist. Tunsil is back, hoping to make another Pro Bowl with the Texans and further cement his push for a Hall of Fame bid. Howard is struggling but is still a starter. Murray, Fairbairn, and Weeks remain as consistent as ever, while Hewitt, Mills, and Jordan are key backups.
We went from a team where Mills, Danny Amendola, Mark Ingram, Rex Burkhead, and Phillip Lindsay were our offensive playmakers, to a team where Stefon Diggs, Nico Collins, Joe Mixon, Tank Dell and C.J. Stroud are our playmakers.
Christian Kirksey was our best defensive player. A far cry to now, where there are at least three if not four players who could make that case.
The strangest thing about the 2021 season is that the Texans had only five draft picks, and three of those players selected (Mills, Collins, and Jordan) are still on the team.