The Texans’ top outside linebackers, Whitney Mercilus and Brennan Scarlett, have a nickname for themselves that neither will take credit for but both like. They go by The Rock Boys, and after one of the biggest plays in Houston’s 13-12 victory over the Jaguars on Sunday, they showed why.
Early in the fourth quarter, Mercilus ripped through the Jaguars’ offensive line with a spin move that barely allowed the left tackle to lay a hand on him. For the second time that day, he’d recorded a strip-sack of sixth-round rookie quarterback Gardner Minshew, and unlike the last time, the Texans recovered the ball. As the crowd roared and J.J. Watt spun the football like a top on the turf, Mercilus and Scarlett dropped to one knee and broke out air guitars.
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Scarlett goes by Henny Hendrix, and Mercilus chose the stage name Muddy Waters. But some Texans teammates might prefer to simply call Mercilus, an eighth-year veteran, among Houston’s best players through two games.
A year after spending much of his time dropping into coverage, Mercilus has found himself back in a pass rush-heavy role, responsible for replacing many of the sacks and pressures Jadeveon Clowney used to supply. Through two games, Mercilus has turned that opportunity into three sacks, none bigger than his second strip of Minshew, which gifted Houston’s offense the ball at the Jacksonville 11-yard line. Four plays later, quarterback Deshaun Watson ran in for the Texans’ only touchdown on a day Houston’s offense looked mostly lifeless.
“We’ve always known Whitney is a rusher,” Watt said. “He’s great off the edge. He can do different things off the edge. He’s back in his natural position this year, and I think you’re seeing the results of when he’s in his proper place.”
.@Merci380 forced it and @JJWatt recovers!pic.twitter.com/w3WWOApq6K
— Houston Texans (@HoustonTexans) September 15, 2019
That Watson score and two Houston field goals ultimately proved to be enough after the Jaguars opted to go for a game-winning two-point conversion with less than a minute remaining, only to see Houston safety Justin Reid stuff running back Leonard Fournette short of the end zone.
Plenty went wrong for a Texans offense that is still waiting on its new pieces to jell with its old ones, and Houston’s defense, which allowed Minshew to march down the field on Jacksonville’s final possession, had late-game issues, too. But after two Texans games that looked nothing like one another, one of the few things this team has proven is that its overhauled roster still features at least one pass rusher who can take advantage of the extra attention Watt draws.
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“Now I get to go ahead and go out there and go tee it up,” Mercilus said. “Do what I do best: get after the quarterback, cause turnovers and all that. It’s been fun.”
Against a rookie quarterback who was playing behind a banged-up Jaguars line, the Texans appeared to have some decent complementary players who can get after passers, too. Five Texans players registered hits on Minshew, who fumbled three times. Linebacker Zach Cunningham sacked him. So did rookie Charles Omenihu, who replaced Carlos Watkins on the active roster after sitting out of the Texans’ Week 1 loss to the Saints.
No one player will make up for all of Clowney’s production, and even with a collective effort, the Houston defense will at times miss the No. 1 overall pick whom the Texans never came close to re-signing long term. But led by Mercilus on Sunday — when Watt got to Minshew just once and complained about a lack of holding calls — the Texans’ defense proved stout enough to carry a feeble offense.
According to Next Gen Stats, NFL so far with his strip-sack of Gardner Minshew.
Omenihu checked in at 2.7 seconds. Whitney Mercilus was right behind him at 2.77.
— Aaron Reiss (@aaronjreiss) September 15, 2019
“You come out of a game with three and four and five sacks a week — bro, what pass rush problems are you talking about?” said Jacob Martin, an outside linebacker who came to Houston in the Clowney trade and has found a role as a situational pass rusher. “… It’s not necessarily (about) getting the sack, but getting the quarterback off his spot, (so) he’s not looking downfield.”
The Texans accomplished that by blitzing the rookie plenty and throwing a large variety of pre-snap alignments at him. Minshew finished with 213 yards on 23-of-33 passing, plus another 56 yards on six scrambles. But through the first three quarters, Jacksonville mustered just three points and converted one of eight third downs.
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That poor performance would’ve left the Jaguars hopeless if they were playing the Texans offense of Week 1, when Watson endured his share of pressure and still put up points. But against Jacksonville, which was missing star edge rusher Yannick Ngakoue and starting corner A.J. Bouye, the Texans moved the ball from their side of the field to their opponents’ just once. On one of their few productive drives, they displayed poor clock management, getting just one play off inside the red zone before settling for a field goal and heading into halftime still in possession of two timeouts.
“It’s going to take a little time,” Watson said. “The whole offseason, we’ve been working with other guys. They just got in last week. Things are still clicking. It’s going to hit when the time is right.”
Evidently, that wasn’t Sunday. First-round pick Tytus Howard debuted at left guard, and Roderick Johnson, a 2017 fifth-round pick of the Browns, replaced Seantrel Henderson as the starter at right tackle, but Watson took another beating. This time, he endured four sacks and seven hits while throwing for just 159 yards. No receiver caught more than 40 of them, and running back Carlos Hyde, who ran for 90 yards on 20 carries, seemed to be the only offensive bright spot.
Had Jacksonville opted to kick the extra point and try for overtime, Houston might now be facing an 0-2 record for a second consecutive year. The Texans got out of that hole last season, but Mercilus never found a rhythm, as his 2018 campaign was arguably his worst fully healthy professional season: He recorded just four sacks and 25 pressures, causing him to enter this season, a contract year, needing to prove himself.
During training camp, the 29-year-old said the pressure of an expiring contract weighed on him some, but that he could only try to help himself with a strong year.
“At the end of the day, the biggest thing is they always base you off production,” Mercilus said. “So, I’ve just got to make sure my numbers are up there.”
So far, they are.
After Mercilus stepped onto a podium Sunday to talk about his performance, a reporter asked the linebacker if he knew that he’d never before recorded three sacks through a season’s first two weeks.
He did know that. And now he’s looking for more.
(Top photo: Tim Warner / Getty Images)