DeMeco Ryan’s job is infinitely harder than anything David Culley or Lovie Smith have had to deal with. For one thing, his season actually comes with expectations. When you finish last, there’s no pressure. What’s the worst that can happen? There’s definitely a downside for Ryan’s. If the Texans somehow miss the playoffs, it will be the most disappointing season since 2020, and maybe even more disappointing.
Those are worries for tomorrow, though. The hardest part of the job right now is putting together a 53-man roster and filling your practice squad with promising talent. Which players can offer your roster something others can’t? Who is flexible? Perhaps more importantly, who will end up staying off the waivers list.
Smith and Culley didn’t have enough good football players to fill a 53-man roster. They would scour the other 31 teams for anyone who could breathe and run and chew gum at the same time. The Texans probably have over 60 or 65 guys who could potentially make a 53-man roster somewhere. Those final cuts are always the hardest from a human and strategic perspective.
Nowhere is this more present than in the running back room. I would say there are six running backs there that will be playing somewhere on Sunday. In Houston, only four will be playing. So which of the six are you keeping and are there any you can add to your practice squad?
Actual gaming performance
Every coach has to make three considerations at every level. Unfortunately, as fans, we only get to see one of them on a regular basis. The first consideration is the one that everyone sees. Who is performing and who is not performing? We can wax poetic, make excuses and evade, but at the end of the day, the numbers are the numbers.
If we take Joe Mixon out of the conversation, we see three openings and five significant running back candidates. Jahwar Jordan, British Brooks and Cam Akers have all performed well in the three preseason games. That performance has to count. How much it counts is anyone’s guess. We’d have to get inside Ryan’s head to see how he breaks down the three different factors.
As a statistician, I tend to be dispassionate. In more than twenty years of football, the Texans have led the league in avoiding arrests. They’ve won zero Super Bowls. Heck, they’ve won zero conference title games. At a certain point, you need guys who can make plays. These three guys made plays in the offseason, Dare Ogunbowale and Dameon Pierce did not.
Practice performance
I was a high school volleyball coach, but the concept is pretty much the same. You spend 10+ hours a week practicing and maybe two hours playing, so what you see in practice has to be important, if only because it’s a larger sample size. Sure, some media people have seen every practice, but none of us at Battle Red Blog have managed to fit that into our daily schedule.
So we have no choice but to listen to the other media reports and read the comments from the coaches. Ryans himself has praised Pierce for his performance and those who follow the team more closely have also sent positive reports. Of course, they have also said positive things about the other running backs.
There is a certain amount of tactics involved. If Ryans hypes up a player, another team may be willing to pay draft compensation for that player after tomorrow’s game. If you sign two or three of those players (from the entire roster), you can start amassing picks for the 2025 draft.
We should note, however, that preseason games are not necessarily a good laboratory for accurately evaluating players. Sometimes a player will play twos and threes and become worse at blocking. Sometimes he will play twos or threes and look better than usual. Practice time allows coaches to see players in every possible situation to give them a better idea of what they are dealing with.
Football character
The character of a football player is a little different than the average character. At the end of the day, we all want guys we can root for. That hasn’t changed and it never will. Mixon obviously brings some significant questions/black marks, but all the other backs meet all of those criteria as far as we know. Granted, that may be a low bar.
The character of a football player simply depends on your ability and willingness to work on your skills. It also includes your ability to work and play well with others. For example, when you see how the team reacts to John Metchie, you know that this is not an unimportant aspect. As any professional knows, productivity usually increases when you work with people you get on well with.
I usually consider that a deciding factor, but others place more emphasis on it. As I said above, at some point you have to produce. Willingness to improve is very important, and someone who is close will be given the benefit of the doubt if we believe they will improve. Unfortunately, as fans, we don’t see that, so we have to trust that Ryans is making the right decision here.
Final Predictions/Analysis
We’ll find out a lot based on Saturday’s game, but I’ve made up my mind. I know who the top four backs are. Unfortunately, that rarely works out for a variety of reasons. One is that special teams contributions have to be taken into account. The other is that the possibility of using the practice squad for additional depth comes into play. Most likely, at least one back will be placed on the practice squad.
The deciding factor will be what happens with Brooks and Jordan. Personally, I would keep both of them on the active roster, but that’s just my opinion. I don’t want to risk them going on the waivers list. Brooks has some flexibility as a fullback, while Jordan has shown versatility as a receiver out of the backfield.
Ogunbowale’s ability to play on special teams will play a role in that decision. I just don’t see a place for Pierce on this football team. I hope they get a late draft pick for him, but he could be a guy that slides through until they have to release him. He meets all the character criteria and they say good things about him in practice, but at some point you have to deliver. That’s the nature of the business.
