Houston Texans Going All-In for 2011 Season

This year may finally be “the” year for the Houston Texans. After trading for Matt Schaub, getting one of the biggest diamonds in the rough last year in running back Arian Foster, as well as building one of the most exciting and high-octane offensive attacks in the NFL, it seems as though they have finally gotten serious about building a defense.

It started when they hired Wade Phillips as the team’s defensive coordinator and completely altered the defensive scheme. The Texans had one of the worst defensive units in the NFL last year, and it just wasn’t working out with the previous regime. Something had to be corrected, so Gary Kubiak went out and hired one of the best defensive minds in the game to make that defense turn around–fast.

In April, Houston made it evident that they were going with a defensive makeover, spending their first five draft picks on that side of the ball. They got one of the toughest defensive linemen in the draft in Wisconsin’s J.J. Watt, another blue-collar and relentless pass rusher in Arizona’s Brooks Reed, and then they upgraded their secondary by taking Miami’s Brandon Harris, Virginia Tech’s Rashad Carmichael, and Idaho’s Shiloh Keo.

An underrated addition to the Texans’ defense is going to be linebacker DeMeco Ryans who is coming back from injury, but they aren’t going to stop there. The team added Jonathan Joseph, a Pro Bowl cornerback, as well as safety Danieal Manning, who was a safety for one of the NFL’s best defenses of the last decade. He definitely adds toughness and some playmaking abilities to the Texans’ defensive backfield.

This is a team that is making moves I really liked, and you can expect plenty of people to jump on their bandwagon.