Houston Texans Position Group Outlook - Wide Receiver Corp
Performance against Zone Coverage and Man Coverage schemes.
Welcome back to another Cap & Trade Newsletter! This week I am taking a look at the Wide Receiver position group, specifically for the Houston Texans, and their performance in Man Coverage versus Zone Coverage in 2022.
Nick Caserio has continued his efforts to revamp or rebuild the wide receiver group with additional free agents and draft picks including veteran Robert Woods (free agent), Noah Brown (free agent), Nathaniel (Tank) Dell (drafted), and Xavier Hutchinson (drafted).
The team will have higher expectations for third year receiver Nico Collins in both anticipated performance and health availability. John Metchie is slated to return this year after missing all of 2022 due to cancer treatments. The team will likely carry 5 players on the 53 man roster with 2 to 3 players on the practice squad.
Side note: Keep an eye out for Jesse Mathews during training camp.
First time offensive coordinator, Bobby Slowik, is clearly on the fanbase’s radar in bringing over a new offensive scheme. A scheme that is not all too unfamiliar to Houston fans, especially if you were around in the Gary Kubiak days. Slowik is the next Shannahan position coach to make the leap to coordinator outside of San Francisco.
Fair to say Slowik will utilize elements from Kyle Shannahan’s system with his own variations sprinkled in. I can’t use the word I want due to trademark rights by Seth Payne.
To start I wanted to look at the coverage types that San Francisco faced on drop backs in 2022. I will concede the offensive personnel offering in SF, as a whole, is stronger compared to Houston’s offensive personnel roster for 2023.
Data courtesy of The 33rd Team
Based on the data, San Francisco faced some form of Zone Coverage on 73% of their drop-backs (pass attempts), with 25% of their drop-backs against a form of Man Coverage. 2% of the drop-backs were unaccounted for, I am not sure on the reasoning for that.
Next area I wanted to review was the offensive personnel grouping that San Francisco deployed in 2022.
Data courtesy of Joseph Jefe/NFLVerse
Based on this data San Francisco ran two primary formations in “11” personnel and “21” personnel. The “21” personnel usage is a good indication of why Houston signed Andrew Beck as a tight end/h-back hybrid role player.
Data Time!
I pulled data from ProFootball Focus (PFF) wide receiver (including tight ends and runningbacks) data. Specifically performance data in zone and man coverage schemes.
Disclaimer: Just for fun I included Tank Dell and Xavier Hutchinson’s college data, despite their competition being completely different compared to the NFL players. Their data labels are colored differently in the charts below.
The data below captures all NFL players with a minimum of 60 receiving targets for the 2022 regular season. Highlighted players are current players on the Houston Texans roster: Robert Woods, Nico Collins, Noah Brown, and Dalton Schultz (and the afore mentioned Tank Dell and Xavier Hutchinson).
moar charts!! you can hover your mouse over the charts for additional tooltip data
The first chart up (above) is a comparison of PFF receiving player grades based on scheme, with the x-axis as the man coverage data versus the y-axis as the zone coverage data.
Robert Woods has a history of performance in a similar offense with his time in Los Angeles, conversely Noah Brown and Dalton Schultz coming from Dallas. It is worth mentioning prior to Woods’ injury, his PFF grading in zone coverage schemes was 68.5 (2021), 70.7 (2020), and 78.7 (2019).
Nico Collins, albeit a limited number of targets, has a moderately high ceiling potential in this system. Health has been the barrier to Collins showcasing his abilities.
Seeing Dell and Hutchinson’s placement with their college football data lends some credence to Houston targeting them in the draft.
The second chart showcases my favorite wide receiver stat. Yards Per Route Run, considered to be a stable metric year over year, and is viewed as a predictive metric from college to the NFL production. As with the first chart I plotted data with Zone Coverage vs. Man Coverage.
From PFF:
”The PFF "Yards per Route Run" figure takes into account the number of snaps a player went into a pattern.This provides a better indicator of production than Yards per Reception or even Yards per Target.”
Again Nico Collins lands in the more favorable area of the chart (top right quadrant); as is rookies Hutchinson and Dell. This continues the trend of Nico Collins with a potential high ceiling in the Slowik system.
The third chart I wanted to review was Quarterback Rating when targeting the receiver in Zone vs. Man Coverage schemes. This metric is less stable and more quarterback driven. I was surprised to see Brown and Schultz in this area of the chart given Dak Prescott’s performance in Dallas last year.
The last chart I wanted to include was YACPR, also known as Yards After Catch Per Reception. Absent Tank Dell, the Houston Texans wide receiver group likely won’t be known for Yards After The Catch in 2023.
Slowik will need to utilize pre-snap motion to gain advantageous match-ups for Tank Dell and John Metchie. Placing these players in space will be critical for this offense to succeed. Expect the scheme to generate open space in the short middle of the field, an area that CJ Stroud excelled in college.
Pre-Snap Motion
To generate these advantageous match-ups, Slowik will need to utilize pre-snap motion. A concept that should be very familiar to him from the Shannahan system. Mike McDaniel is a Shannahan disciple utilizing motion at a high rate in 2022.
The top right dot is Miami. (I am still learning Datawrapper’s format output, why it is cutting off this data point label.)
San Francisco and Miami were two of the highest teams utilizing pre-snap motion. Cleveland, a Kevin Stefanski led offense, is also a disciple of Gary Kubiak with similar tendencies.
Could we see something similar with Bobby Slowik? I am hoping so!
CJ Stroud Areas of Strength
Did I mention that CJ Stroud excelled in the center of the field? An area of the field that offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik could exploit? Below is CJ Stroud’s passing map via PFF for his 2022 college football season.
Closing
Expect Bobby Slowik to exploit match-ups in the 0-10 yard range early in the season with Tank Dell, John Metchie, and Nico Collins over the middle of the field. My expectation is for Robert Woods to play the Y receiver role with the underneath “dirty” work with his exceptional run blocking skills and short yardage work.
Slowik will need to utilize pre-snap motion to create mis-matches for his play makers and open up space for potential yards after catch. This will happen primarily over the middle of the field between the defensive backs.
Should the opposing defense attempt to wall off the middle of the field, the team could look to Nico Collins and Xavier Hutchinson to challenge the boundaries.
If you are a film watcher, check out how Brandon Staley walled off Mike McDaniel in the middle of the field last year. Tua did not have the arm strength to throw outside the hash marks to counter. Resulting in Tua finishing the game with 145 passing yards. This is the type of game plan that Slowik will have to counter at different points during the season.
Color me excited to see how Slowik deploys this offense and how he utilizes his wide receiver group!
Next up: Mandatory Mini Camp!! We should have a few interesting veteran players stories to discuss.
-TC