The Houston Texans secondary falls into one or two categories: Too young or too old. There doesn’t seem to be any middle ground when it comes to the age-related criticism.
A player that no doubt skews the averages for the Texans being too old is cornerback Johnathan Joseph, who will enter his 14th season at age 35.
“I guess we’ll see when January and February rolls around,” Joseph told reporters Tuesday after the first day of minicamp. “Every year, there’s always predictions, there’s always experts saying this or that. But at the end of the day, you have to go out and play the game.”
In a way, Joseph is right. On paper, with the departure of defensive back Kareem Jackson, a borderline Pro Bowler, and safety Tyrann Mathieu, the Texans seem to have at least stayed with signing cornerback Bradley Roby and safety Tashaun Gipson. Houston also seems too young with cornerbacks Lonnie Johnson and Xavier Crawford, their second-round and sixth-round draft picks. Either way, there is nothing on paper that suggests they have fixed the problems int he secondary that ailed them a season ago.
However, training camp and preseason bring their attrition across the entire NFL, not just in Houston. Maybe the Texans secondary will be sufficient to cover the receiving corps on their 16-game slate after those corps suffer a few injuries or struggle with availability. Similarly, maybe Johnson and Crawford or other Texans defensive backs will step up.
“If I could have it in a perfect world, I’d draw it up to where it looks great paper, but at the end of the day it doesn’t get anything done from the field standpoint,” Joseph said.
The Texans have one more day of minicamp before entering the last of the offseason doldrums as training camp kicks off in late July.
