Is running back the Texans’ most important position battle to start training camp?
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
The Houston Texans have a bevy of positions they need to square away during training camp. The most visible position Houston has to figure out where to go is at quarterback, what with the situation surrounding Deshaun Watson.
However, that may not be the biggest position battle on the roster.
According to Tom Blair of NFL.com, the most important position battle going on with the Texans to start camp is running back where Houston has three Pro Bowlers vying for the starting job.
The Texans’ apparent general offseason strategy of just signing a whole bunch of guys is perhaps best illustrated by the running back room. Houston added not one but two former 1,000-yard rushers (Mark Ingram and Phillip Lindsay), along with a player who has averaged 88 touches over the past five seasons (Rex Burkhead), to a ground attack that already featured theoretical do-everything back David Johnson. Loading up on bodies is not a bad way to try to quickly improve (or at least patch up) a talent-poor roster, especially for a team dealing with an extreme dearth of draft capital. There’s probably even room for at least three of these backs to contribute this season — but the process of allocating snaps will begin in camp. Of the options, the 26-year-old Lindsay would seem to offer the most juice. Though the team is not committed to him beyond this year, Lindsay has a chance to establish himself as a part of whatever core the new Houston regime ends up trying to build.
The expectation is Ingram will have the first crack at the starting job due to his familiarity with new coach David Culley. However, football is a young man’s game, and Lindsay could have the talent and youth necessary to take the lead role at running back by the end of camp.
