Houston Texans' Core Players: Who's Better, Who's Worse Compared To 2013

Photo by Groovehouse

Houston... where the quarterback's mistakes being merely crippling (as opposed to fatal) net you a two game improvement.

They say it takes a village to raise a child, a collective group effort whose results are ultimately indicative of the time, effort, and most of all, capability of those doing the raising.

The same can be said of a 2-14 NFL season. It takes a village to go 2-14. A village of injuries, comedically egregious mistakes, and general under-performance and suckitude. Now, to be clear, not everyone did "his part" in order to drag the Texans into the bottom of the NFL abyss. J.J. Watt had the greatest season ever for a 3-4 defensive end (topping the standard set his previous season), Chris Myers was one of the top five or six centers in football, and somehow Andre Johnson still found a way to put up over 1,400 yards receiving.

But generally speaking, everyone else was pulling the rope in the completely opposite direction of where this team was thought to be headed at the beginning of the season, especially after a 2-0 start.

So now, nine games in, the team appears to be better. Their record actually is better. So where has the improvement come from? Who, of the Texans' 2014 core, is better in 2014?

We could subjectively argue about things we've seen with our eyeballs, and certainly there's no perfect way to do this empirically player-by-player, using statistics. Hell, for half the positions on the field, there are little to no traditional statistics by which to measure them. So to make it easy, we will use the advanced player scoring on the Pro Football Focus website to couch this post.

If you're unfamiliar with Pro Football Focus, I'll let them tell you what their player grades are all about:

You'll find page after page of intriguing, never-before-captured numbers and our brand of next-level scouting that will take your knowledge of the game to new heights. The tireless PFF team has worked for years with our mission of continual improvement in mind and, to that end, we're constantly adding even greater depth to the information we offer. What's more, analysis and data for each game goes up within 24 hours of the game being played so there's no waiting around.

So there you go. PFF is a site where a bunch of "experts" (I like to visualize it as a room full of people chained to desks and being fed bread and water, but all of them are wearing NFL Starter jackets) are watching every play of every game and grading every facet of every player. (Hey, I love football, but better them than me.) To get slightly more granular, they dish out grades for different facets of a player's role that all add up to one cumulative grade (typically, a positive or negative low single digit number, unless your J.J. Watt and routinely go positive double or near double digits all the time). A player's season grade is the sum of all of his single game grades. The evaluation to arrive at the grade is complicated, the interpretation is simple. Thankfully.

So for this post, I picked out eight core Texans on each side of the ball (plus the kicker and punter) who were here in 2013 and are still here in 2014. To be clear, I am doing this having no idea if this is going to take us to any logical conclusion. I just kind of dork out over stats like this, and want to see where it goes. Come along if you like!

OFFENSE

DEANDRE HOPKINS, WR
2013 PFF Score, Final (rank): -5.4 (88th)
2014 PFF Score, Current (rank): 2.6 (21st)
2014 PFF Score, Projected ('13 delta): 4.6 (+10.0)

ANDRE JOHNSON, WR
2013 PFF Score, Final (rank): 15.4 (7th)
2014 PFF Score, Current (rank): 1.7 (26th)
2014 PFF Score, Projected ('13 delta): 3.0 (-12.4)

DUANE BROWN, LT
2013 PFF Score, Final (rank): 9.8 (24th)
2014 PFF Score, Current (rank): -1.1 (31st)
2014 PFF Score, Projected ('13 delta): -2.0 (-11.8)

CHRIS MYERS, C
2013 PFF Score, Final (rank): 16.4 (6th)
2014 PFF Score, Current (rank): 0.2 (16th)
2014 PFF Score, Projected ('13 delta): 0.4 (-16.0)

BRANDON BROOKS, RG
2013 PFF Score, Final (rank): 15.1 (10th)
2014 PFF Score, Current (rank): 3.7 (12th)
2014 PFF Score, Projected ('13 delta): 6.6 (-8.5)

DEREK NEWTON, RT
2013 PFF Score, Final (rank): -28.3 (72nd)
2014 PFF Score, Current (rank): -5.9 (51st)
2014 PFF Score, Projected ('13 delta): -10.5 (+17.8)

GARRETT GRAHAM, TE
2013 PFF Score, Final (rank): -6.8 (57th)
2014 PFF Score, Current (rank): -6.8 (44th)
2014 PFF Score, Projected ('13 delta): -12.1 (-5.3)

ARIAN FOSTER, RB
2013 PFF Score, Final (rank): 4.2 (22nd)
2014 PFF Score, Current (rank): 4.2 (13th)
2014 PFF Score, Projected ('13 delta): 7.5 (+3.4)

DEFENSE

J.J. WATT, 3-4 DE
2013 PFF Score, Final (rank): 99.8 (1st)
2014 PFF Score, Current (rank): 53.8 (1st)
2014 PFF Score, Projected ('13 delta): 95.6 (-4.2)

WHITNEY MERCILUS, 3-4 OLB
2013 PFF Score, Final (rank): -18.1 (42nd)
2014 PFF Score, Current (rank): 1.1 (29th)
2014 PFF Score, Projected ('13 delta): 2.0 (+20.1)

BROOKS REED, 3-4 OLB
2013 PFF Score, Final (rank):-17.7 (41st)
2014 PFF Score, Current (rank): -0.9 (36th)
2014 PFF Score, Projected ('13 delta): -1.6 (+16.1)

JARED CRICK, 3-4 DE
2013 PFF Score, Final (rank): -8.9 (38th)
2014 PFF Score, Current (rank): -4.6 (38th)
2014 PFF Score, Projected ('13 delta): -8.2 (+0.7)

BRIAN CUSHING, ILB
2013 PFF Score, Final (rank): 3.7 (16th)
2014 PFF Score, Current (rank): -7.9 (48th)
2014 PFF Score, Projected ('13 delta): -14.0 (-17.7)

JOHNATHAN JOSEPH, CB
2013 PFF Score, Final (rank): 6.5 (25th)
2014 PFF Score, Current (rank): -1.1 (54th)
2014 PFF Score, Projected ('13 delta): -2.0 (-8.5)

KAREEM JACKSON, CB
2013 PFF Score, Final (rank): -4.0 (81st)
2014 PFF Score, Current (rank): 5.9 (17th)
2014 PFF Score, Projected ('13 delta): 10.5 (+14.5)

D.J. SWEARINGER, S
2013 PFF Score, Final (rank): -6.4 (71st)
2014 PFF Score, Current (rank): -4.6 (70th)
2014 PFF Score, Projected ('13 delta): -8.2 (-1.8)

SPECIALISTS

RANDY BULLOCK, K
2013 PFF Score, Final (rank): 20.3 (24th)
2014 PFF Score, Current (rank): 3.9 (21st)
2014 PFF Score, Projected ('13 delta): 6.9 (-13.4)

SHANE LECHLER, P
2013 PFF Score, Final (rank): 41.2 (1st)
2014 PFF Score, Current (rank): 8.6 (12th)
2014 PFF Score, Projected ('13 delta): 15.3 (-25.9)

Ok, here are my observations from this data and how it matches up to what we are seeing with our eyeballs: