When the team loses, it can seem impossible to see the bright side, but as Houston Texans fans, we have to find the positive this season. Therefore, Thursdays are dedicated to finding the top PFF artists from the previous week. Of course, we’ll also highlight a few negative performances, just to be honest.
When we recall snark, sarcasm and critical analysis, we have to admit that good things are happening with this team. When you lose consecutive matches, you might have to dig a little deeper to find them, but they’re there. So, we start this week with the top five artists according to PFF.
Brandin Cooks 82.4, Dameon Pierce 76.8, Steven Nelson 75.3, Christian Kirksey 74.3, Davis Mills 74.1
Alright, this is the second week in a row that we’ve seen Mills on this list. We’ll get to that later, but especially when you see two defenders on this list, it makes you scratch your head. A wise man once said that statistics are like a street lamp. You can use it for lighting or you can use it for leaning. We don’t know what’s going on in the PFF numbers, so we have to look at those numbers with some healthy skepticism. Clearly, Cooks and Pierce’s game seems to be checking out. Others maybe not so much.
Offensive Lineman: Brandin Cooks
The Cooks fell from 90th among wide receivers to 60th. He now has 20 catches on the season for 215 yards and a touchdown. If we extrapolate those numbers over a full season, that would be 85 catches for over 900 yards and four touchdowns. Again, that doesn’t make him a Pro Bowler, but he also doesn’t have the best quarterbacks or a full complement of receivers.
Offensive feller: Kenyon Green
Perhaps no play sums up his performance as the last offensive play of the game. He was beaten, gave up the sack and committed two penalties in the process. Coming into the game, he had given up pressure in the first three games. He gave up a few on Sunday. The body of work is still good overall despite dropping from 29th to 52nd for the season. Still, rookies will learn on the fly. They will find that everyone they face is capable of beating them on any given game. It probably didn’t happen Texas A&M.
Defensive amount: Steven Nelson
Nelson went from the 60th ranked corner to the 44th ranked corner after Sunday. This makes him practically average among qualified corners. With apologies to Jonathan Joseph, you usually don’t find special corners in free agency. You can find ways and given where the Texans high school was a year ago, the average is pretty good. While he may not have earned a top-five spot, he certainly was solid overall.
Defensive faller: Kurt Hinish
Hinish goes from 75th to 91st among defensive tackles. We need to level on a curve. It’s remarkable for an undrafted rookie to be a rotational player in any position. There are nearly 130 defensive tackles that qualify as regulars, so being 90th isn’t the worst thing in the world. That might be more indicative of the position as a whole. Roy Lopez is the only one who scores above average. He was a late-round pick last season, so Nick Caserio’s rookies are arguably the strength of this team.
Find out more about the mills
According to PFF, Mills is the 13th best starting quarterback with a 70.0 rating. He hit 7.0 yards per attempt for the second straight week on Sunday. He looked good for a few drives in the second half as he bounced back from an early interception to throw two impressive back-to-back touchdowns. So, I guess if we squint hard enough and delete a few games from our memory, we can see some positives. So, let’s look at his ranking in just about every number that matters.
Yards: 908 (19th)
% complete: 62% (22nd)
TD: 5 (18th)
IN: 4 (23rd)
API: 6.4 (26th)
Score: 80.4 (25th)
QBR ESPN: 28.4 (28th)
So when you look at these numbers, how do you arrive at 13th? Maybe we take into account the talent around him. I know they have numbers where they draw balls that should be out but aren’t. Granted, we don’t know everything that goes into the secret sauce, but to me, it tastes like Thousand Islands. When it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and has webbed feet like a duck, it’s probably a duck.
