2021 Houston Texans Depth Chart

Position	1	2	3
Quarterback	Deshaun Watson	Tyrod Taylor	Davis Mills
Running Back	David Johnson	Phillip Lindsay	Mark Ingram
Wide Receiver 1	Brandin Cooks	Isaiah Coutler	Chris Conley
Wide Receiver 2	Randall Cobb	Andre Roberts
Wide Receiver 3	Keke Coutee	Alex Erickson	Chris Moore
Tight End	Ryan Izzo	Jordan Akins	Kahale Warring
Left Tackle	Laremy Tunsil
Left Guard	Justin McCray	Tytus Howard
Center	Jon Weeks	Pep Hamilton	Cohl Cabral
Right Guard	Max Scharping	Hjalte Froholdt
Right Tackle	Charlie Heck	Rick Leonard	Brent Qvale

The Houston Texans currently have two of the league’s top playmakers on both sides of the ball. DeAndre Hopkins is a generational talent at wide receiver and J.J. Watt is the highly-respected defensive leader. When combining their numbers, these two fill the stat sheet. Rostering playmakers is only a minuscule piece of an entire roster, calling for depth as the main attraction for success within the league. These players are only as good as the sum of their parts, a vocal wake-up call that was spread throughout the Texans organization this off-season.

The team faced adversity last season within the offense. DeShaun Watson was on pace to crush rookie averages at the quarterback position, posting an impressive victory upon impressive victory. An early-season injury would ultimately spell the end to his brilliant run, calling for recovery and rehab to take course. The team plugged a slew of back-ups into Watson’s position, but none could re-create the consistencies and shades of brilliance he left behind. The road to recovery has Watson slotted to be the starter come week one of this season, a true blessing for the organization. While the ship can’t be sailed by a single talent, it can be managed and influenced by one. The Watson revival helps to make others around him better. The team created a friendly roster pool for DeShaun to work with this off-season. The team returns all of its starters from last years and adds rookies and Sammie Coates to the wide receiver mix. Creating familiarity with the wide receiver core is good practice for a younger quarterback. He has to feel his way through the organization to learn which combinations and connections work best for him. The team already struggles at the offensive line, a need that was not fully addressed this off-season. Watson is a mobile quarterback who can place himself at different areas of the field. This allows him to utilize his speed and agility to run his style of offense. The wide receiver core has the tangibles needed to suit Watson’s game play style.

The team is also looking forward to the prospect that their defense brings this season. J.J. Watt has nursed his gruesome knee injury back to full health, preparing for a full workload in 2020. The defense operates out of a 4-3 set, usually positioning a nose tackle in the middle. Vince Wilfork called it a career last season, passing down the torch to DJ Reader. While Reader doesn’t afford the team the ability to plug the middle like Wilfork did, he does offer more speed at the position. This defense is built around speed and their ability to penetrate the offensive line. The return of the Watt and Clowney show should have Texans fans gleaming with excitement. When these two work opposite one another, there is rarely a match for both of their skill sets. The linebacker core returns a young and poised group that competed with one another last season. Romeo Crenel has the defense exploring new looks and helps influence the spread of players across the horizon of the defense. His defensive prowess helps to create timely mismatches. The team also added a threat to their secondary with the signing of Tyrann Mathieu. Mathieu signed with the intention of joining a winning organization. His description was in terms of present time and not in the near future. His addition creates a complete secondary and rounds the defense towards a solidified grouping at all tiers of play.

The biggest concern for the team will be getting their guys out of the gate fast. A strong start to the season will set the tone for the remainder, which begs for a week 1 victory. The team is fully covered on the defense, but this is only one component of a team. Watson should be able to avoid the rookie hangover and he has a deep pool of talent to work with. This off-season is all about building familiarity within a system and building rapport with teammates for Watson. The team fully has his best interests in mind and they have really scaled back the teaching to let Watson run his style of play. The Texans could be a team that surprises the AFC South this season with this much talent composed on their roster.