The Houston Texans feel like they are ready to turn the corner after years of terrible football.
If that wasn’t the case, there’s no way they would have shipped their 2023 first-round pick to Arizona in the trade-up for Will Anderson in April.
Well, the advanced analytics believe GM Nick Caserio could be in for a rude awakening.
The Texans have been projected to finish with the worst Total DVOA in the NFL in 2023 at negative-19.0%, according to Aaron Schatz’s FTN Football Almanac 2023.
Houston is projected to win 5.6 games, second-lowest in the NFL behind only the Bears, and in a conversation on Monday, Schatz told Compare.bet that Chicago’s signing of edge rusher Yannick Ngakoue has likely leapfrogged the Bears past Houston in the projected standings.
“The Justin Fields experiment is probably not going to work. Sorry if that shatters your worldview.”https://t.co/VEWpF55LIb
— Kyle Odegard (@Kyle_Odegard) August 9, 2023
There is a chance rookie quarterback C.J. Stroud flies high out of the gate, or young defensive building blocks Derek Stingley and Anderson quickly ascend to star status, but history is working against them because of inexperience.
“It’s just a lot of hope,” Schatz said. “When you’re me and you’re doing stat analysis, you can’t fall into hope.”
The Cardinals are widely seen as the worst team in the NFL by the sportsbook operators, with an over/under win total of 4.5 games.
While Schatz doesn’t think they are going to shock the world, his projection system has Arizona as the No. 28 team in DVOA with 5.8 wins in 2023.
“We probably have Arizona higher than anybody else,” Schatz said. “It was hard to know just how much to drop their quarterback projection. First of all, (Colt) McCoy has not been terrible in the past. Second of all, you don’t know when (Kyler) Murray is coming back, how Murray is coming back.”
The Cardinals have been given a 24.8% chance of grabbing the No. 1 overall pick next year, Schatz said, with the larger percentage of that coming via Houston.
Caleb Williams and Drake Maye are seen as potential franchise quarterbacks, and Arizona would have the luxury of either drafting one of them or trading down for a haul while sticking with Murray.
“It’s complicated because of the Kyler situation,” Schatz said. “Marvin Harrison looks awesome. If they trade down with one of those picks and get Marvin Harrison and the edge rusher (Jared) Verse? That’s amazing. An amazing haul.”
My mailbag if you missed it:
* Caleb or Kyler in 2024
* Biggest rookie impact for the Cardinals
* How I feel about Gambo calling me some guy from a betting site+ morehttps://t.co/7dRCgm60cz
— Kyle Odegard (@Kyle_Odegard) June 21, 2023
Schatz’s projection system has Murray about league-average in passing in addition to his elite rushing ability, which pegs him in the top half of starting quarterbacks in the NFL.
“Let’s say you’ve decided Kyler Murray is the 12th-best quarterback,” Schatz said. “It’s hard to win it all with a guy that’s the 12th-best quarterback in the league. You want a guy that’s in the top-5. Do you get rid of him and take the chance that Caleb Williams is going to grow into a top-5 quarterback?
“Or, do you stick with Murray, feeling like he can still grow into that guy, that he’s still a couple years from his prime and can still grow? It’s going to be a really interesting discussion, but what was important was Arizona really put themselves in a great position by making that trade.”
The Cardinals are ranked No. 29 in offensive DVOA, No. 29 on defense and No. 27 on special teams. Pretty grim across the board, but actually more optimistic than the consensus.
“I think the 4.5 (wins) the markets have on Arizona, that seems a little low to me,” Schatz said. “Yes, there’s a chance that they completely crash out. But there’s also a chance that they are more mediocre than horrific, like 6-11 or something.”
