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Houston Texans

3rd-down performance needs improvement

A year ago Deshaun Watson was coming back from an ACL injury. He's healthy now, and sees Houston's offense taking a big step forward in 2019. One way for that to happen will be for the team to be better on third downs than it was last year.

"“I feel like I’m ahead of where I was, of course, last year," says Watson in an article at the team website. “Just decision making, operation of the offense, being able to do things that I couldn’t do a year before and definitely my rookie year. ... It’s been a great camp and we’re just trying to continue to improve and make this offense go.”

Houston finished last year as the 15th-ranked offense (yards). If it's going to improve, it will need to be better on third downs. It converted just 37 percent last year, which ranked 20th in the league. Meanwhile the team that won the AFC South, the Colts, converted nearly half of its third downs (48 percent), No. 1 in the league.

3RD-DOWN SUCCESS RATE, 2018
TeamMadeAtt%
Indianapolis10421448.6
Kansas City8317647.2
Tampa Bay8618746.0
Atlanta9220345.3
LA Rams8619145.0
Baltimore10423145.0
New Orleans8218444.6
Pittsburgh8819844.4
Carolina7718541.6
Dallas8921541.4
Chicago8220041.0
Philadelphia8420541.0
New England8220140.8
Jacksonville9323040.4
Tennessee8220540.0
LA Chargers7017739.5
Seattle8120838.9
San Francisco7319337.8
Oakland7319737.1
Houston7720837.0
Cincinnati6918736.9
NY Giants7620636.9
Green Bay7520436.8
Washington7520636.4
Detroit7520836.1
Minnesota7320435.8
Cleveland7320835.1
Denver6920733.3
NY Jets6921432.2
Buffalo6821531.6
Miami5618630.1
Arizona5819929.1

Encouragingly for Watson and the Texans, the team did convert two-thirds of its fourth-down tries (8 of 12). That ranked 6th in the NFL. If it can get closer to that on third downs, Houston might well make Watson's anticipated leap forward.

--Andy Richardson

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