USA Today got it wrong; Tytus Howard has the most to prove of any Houston Texans player

The Houston Texans don't have a lot of lingering question marks. There are concerns over the defensive tackle position and we're not sure what the safeties will look like when it's all said and done. Beyond that, however, there are no real outstanding concerns. The only other one that exists is whether or not several players from the offensive line can rebound from their 2023 outing.

Guys like Tytus Howard were supposed to be the team's starting left guard in 2023, but injuries derailed him and he ended up having a disastrous season. A fact that would be bad enough, but magnified significantly due to Howard's recent contract. He signed an extension that was for three years and would pay him $56 million. Elite money, yet far from an elite player.

Howard's struggles were real. Yet, USA Today's Texans Wire thinks another offensive lineman, Kenyon Green, is the one player with the biggest need to have a bounce-back season. He struggled as a rookie, coming out of Texas A&M as a first-round pick with lofty aspirations. He fell on his face, metaphorically speaking, and many were expecting a better season in year two.

Sadly for Green, he would suffer a season-ending injury in the last preseason game. An entire year has gone, meaning year three would be Green's first real attempt to prove his selection was far from ill-advised. He now has to prove he's worth keeping around when the team is heading towards its apex as a squad. So it won't be easy, as the expectations for all involved are much higher.

Still, missing an entire year makes Green an unknown commodity. Someone we're unaware of. With no real level of expectation following his injury, who knows what he can do? He's still largely untested. That's not the same for Howard. He's shown us how good he is, and as he nears 30 years old, he's not going to get much better; if at all. So the pressure is on Howard far more than Green to live up to his lofty contract.

If he doesn't, then the Texans will have to decide if he's worth sticking around, or if they'd rather between $14-16 million in extra cap space by releasing him early.