Value of Things: Key Player of the Texans – Kenyon Green

One of the problems with praise and blame is that they are often doled out to too few or too many people. I want to take some time to compare two situations before we get into the nitty gritty. Some of you have found that I write a similar regular column at Crawfish Boxes. This is one of those cases where we end up talking about the same things.

In business, there is a concept called “sunk costs.” Essentially, it means that the money you committed to someone or something is gone. Companies often get into trouble when they make decisions without accepting this simple fact. The Houston Texans have signed Kenyon Green. This rookie contract includes certain guarantees for four seasons and an option for a fifth year. Those guarantees must be honored no matter what. That’s a sunk cost.

The Astros had a similar situation with Jose Abreu. He was drastically underperforming, but the organization made some crucial mistakes AFTER he was signed. They ignored clear signs that something was wrong. They even sent him back, but only for a month. Ultimately, they decided to release him rather than give him more batting opportunities to prove he just can’t do it.

Enter DeMeco Ryans and Nick Caserio. I don’t know who made the final decision on Kenyon Green last season. It could have been one, the other, or both. But there’s a lot of wisdom in their decision. Whether it was mental, physical, or a combination of both, Green wasn’t ready to play football at the professional level last year. They could have said, “Screw it, he’s a first-round pick and he needs to play.”

If they had, Green would probably have been destroyed. That would have been two disastrous seasons in a row, and 99 percent of players never recover from that. Despite all the positive sentiment, the odds are still stacked against him. Most first-round interior defenders are good right away or they’re failures. It’s not like tackles that need time to develop.

What the Texans’ leadership did was give Green the best possible chance to succeed. They recognized the sobering facts behind the sunk costs. They spent the money. It’s gone. You might as well do what you can to get the most out of the money you spent. So they let Green hit the reset button. He had all the surgical procedures and the time to heal properly.

He also went to Oregon to train with Ndamukong Suh. So Green is coming back in the best shape of his life. We can expect him to come back in the best mental shape he’s been in since his time as a Texan, too. The only question now is will it matter at the end of the day.

Good physical condition, good mental health and good preparation are no guarantee of success. However, the chances of success are much better in this case than in the alternative and these are precisely the chances that Ryans and Caserio secured when they made the decision to give Green the year off. Green had to do the hard work and therefore deserves praise here too.

The harder question is figuring out what success looks like. For skill position players, we can look at relatively simple numbers that indicate performance. Linemen are harder to pin down. For Green, simply being out there and on the field would be a start. Here, however, we need to look at some numbers from last year to understand what we’re talking about. Shaq Mason was the right guard for virtually the entire season. While he didn’t perform anywhere near the Pro Bowl level he did in New England, it gives us a good basis for comparison. Notice what happens when we include all the left guards

Shaq Mason: 1221 snaps, 65.8 run blocks, 64.7 pass blocks
Juice Scruggs: 534 snaps, 50.9 run blocks, 48.9 pass blocks
Tytus Howard: 409 snaps, 49.6 run blocks, 38.9 pass blocks
Kendrick Green: 208 snaps, 56.3 run blocks, 69.9 pass blocks

For most positions, solid starters should score 70 or higher. 15 guards in the NFL scored 70 or higher overall. The average starter scored around 61. So Mason was better than average. Any starting guard as good as Mason would mean the offensive line would be much better based on that one position alone.

However, that ignores the obvious. Each of those positions works with the other. If Green could come in and be just average (or middle of the pack) at guard, Scruggs could move to center. The middle of the pack at that position was around 65 overall. Jarrett Patterson was the only player who qualified, and he fell below that. It’s reasonable to assume Scruggs should be better, since he was originally projected to be the starter before he got injured.

Howard would then move to the right tackle position, where he belongs. The median qualified tackles there was about 67. George Fant played right tackle and scored 61.8, so if Howard could become an average starting tackle (like he was in 2022), you’ll see improvement at that position as well.

So a healthy and somewhat productive Kenyon Green helps you improve three different positions on the offensive line. If you fill five positions with mid-level or better players, then you’ll no longer have one of the worst lines in the NFL, but one of the 15 best offensive lines. That won’t make anyone forget the lines that opened holes for Arian Foster or protected Matt Schaub, but it will be good enough to give CJ Stroud some time to throw and hopefully open a hole or two for Joe Mixon. All of that starts with Kenyon Green becoming an average starter. That may be a tall order given what he’s done so far, but he’s put himself in the best position possible to make that happen.