USA Today was wrong; Tytus Howard has the most to prove in any Houston Texans game

The Houston Texans don’t have many lingering question marks. There are concerns about the defensive tackle position and we don’t know what the safeties will look like once all is said and done. Beyond that, however, there’s no real major concern. The only other question that exists is whether or not several offensive line players will be able to bounce back after their 2023 releases.

Players like Tytus Howard were supposed to be the team’s starting left guard in 2023, but injuries derailed him and he ended up having a disastrous season. A fact that would be bad enough, but amplified significantly due to Howard’s recent contract. He signed a three-year extension that would pay him $56 million. Elite money, but far from an elite player.

Howard’s difficulties were real. Yet USA Today’s Texans Wire believes another offensive lineman, Kenyon Green, is the player most in need of a bounce-back season. He struggled as a rookie, coming out of Texas A&M as a first-round pick with lofty aspirations. He fell on his face, metaphorically speaking, and many expected a better season in year two.

Unfortunately for Green, he would suffer a season-ending injury in the final preseason game. An entire year has passed, meaning Year 3 would be Green’s first real attempt to prove his selection was far from ill-advised. Now he must prove that he is worth keeping around as the team heads towards its peak as a team. So it won’t be easy, because the expectations of everyone involved are much higher.

Yet missing an entire year makes green an unknown commodity. Someone we don’t know. With no real expectations following his injury, who knows what he can do? It has not yet been widely tested. It’s not the same for Howard. He’s shown us how good he is, and as he approaches 30, he’s not going to get much better; or not at all. The pressure is therefore much more on Howard than on Green to live up to his noble contract.

If he doesn’t, then the Texans will have to decide if he’s worth sticking around, or if they’d prefer $14-16 million in additional cap space by releasing him early.