Houston Texans: Ryan Griffin’s ouster exemplifies unofficial morality statute

The Houston Texans have cut long-time tight end Ryan Griffin, likely stemming from an arrest that occurred last month. What does this move mean? Let’s look.

The Houston Texans have made a move that most of us fans didn’t see as too much of a surprise but the timing of it is quite peculiar.  But as with any moves that the Houston Texans make, we do question the ones of notoriety.

With the latest report of the Houston Texans deciding to cut ties with tight end Ryan Griffin, it certainly alludes to an arrest that occurred back April 26 in Nashville where he allegedly punched out a hotel window which was mysteriously timed the same night as the franchise selected TE Kahale Warring in the third round of the NFL Draft.

The one thing that the Houston Texans don’t like is negative publicity and they’ll take whatever means necessary to ensure that stories like Griffin’s are squashed as quickly as they possibly can.

Now I can’t read Griffin’s mind but this obviously stems from the team wanting to go in a different direction at tight end.  With Jordan Akins, Jordan Thomas, Darren Fells, Jerell Adams and Warring already in the fold, it was clear the team was stacking the deck against the Griffin.

And with this legal charge that he’ll have to settle in court, there isn’t a winning hand that Griffin could pull to continue his vitality with the Houston Texans.

My criticism of Griffin is how he put himself in a position to let it happen in the first place.  Even if he was allegedly frustrated with what the Houston Texans did, he’s in the NFL and would’ve had another opportunity to shine elsewhere.

He has now marred any chance of doing that now — at least for the interim — because teams will look upon his actions as being unsportsmanlike.  But I’m positive that Griffin will play in the NFL again and it’s just a matter of when.

Quite frankly, Griffin hasn’t been the athletic, pass-catching, fierce-blocking tight end that we’d expected him to be.  I think he has had a tremendous amount of time to improve but the Houston Texans felt that this was going to be the best that they were going to see out him.

The news of his arrest only exacerbated the situation and it expedited his ouster to much earlier in the offseason.

The Houston Texans have an unofficial morality statute that encompasses a no-nonsense

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approach.  Bill O’Brien, Brian Gaine and the rest of the staff moved to exercise it to ensure they weren’t displaying any type of favoritism toward him outside of the other men on the roster.

According to Pro Football Focus (subscription required), Griffin had a 55.7 offensive grade, along 55.9 pass block grade, the lowest grade he’s received since 2015.  Although he shored up the amount of the drops he’d accumulate a long time ago — he only had two last season — the pass blocking is an important element and he simply just was not getting the job done.

His run blocking could’ve also used improvement but those numbers had been steadily declining since 2015 where he had a career-high of a 64.7 on that front.

This new group of tight ends will be expected to do that and it won’t include Griffin in 2019.

I’m actually excited to see what Warring can do and how much an impact he’ll make early.  Let’s keep our eyes peeled out!

Griffin, 29, caught 24 balls for 305 yards — 12.7 yards per catch — along with zero touchdowns through 14 games — 11 starts — in 2018.

For more grades, advanced statistics and more at Pro Football Focus, subscribe to PFF’s EDGE and ELITE subscriptions at ProFootballFocus.com.