How The Chiefs Passing Game Can Attack the Texans' Defense

How the Chiefs can have success against the Texans' Quarters and Cover-1 heavy defense.

The Houston Texans beat the Los Angeles Chargers 32-12 and earned the chance to head into Arrowhead and play the Kansas City Chiefs in the divisional round of the AFC Playoffs. These two teams faced off last month with the Chiefs’ coming out on top 27-19. The Chiefs’ hopeful offensive resurgence really began in that game and they hope to continue that momentum by continuing to improve that play.

Standing in their way of that is the Houston Texans’ defense, specifically their pass defense that is top 6 in both EPA/play and success rate on drop backs. The Chiefs’ found success moving the ball through the air with the quick passing game but they likely won’t be able to run the exact same gameplan back a second time. They’ll need some new wrinkles in attacking this Texans’ defense through the air so let’s take a dive into how some teams had been able to have success against them this season.

Attacking the Texans’ Pass Defense

Every now and then, I like to use a video format for some of these to help convey my point more clearly and for more complex talking points This is one of those weeks because rather than focusing in on how the Chiefs’ will block Will Anderson and Danielle Hunter, or how they’ll create separation vs Derrick Stingley; I wanted to dive into some common general types of coverage the Texans run and how the Chiefs’ can attack them.

The Texans run Quarters coverage at the third highest rate in the NFL. There are countless types of Quarters coverage with countless play side and backside calls but the generic “four defenders deep, three defenders shallow, with matching principles to their area” is how we are going to treat Quarters coverage here. The Texans are also top 10 in Man Coverage rate - specifically Cover 1 - and is something they heavily relied on in the first matchup. We’ll focus in on those to basic coverage concepts as well as a bonus of where to attack when the Texans blitz, which isn’t often but they will dial it up in important moments.

I will also recap some of the highlights briefly below but the video is going to be the best representation.