Houston Texans: Carlos Hyde and Rankin trade does carry potential

The Houston Texans have traded Martinas Rankin to the Chiefs in exchange for running back Carlos Hyde. Is he enough to help the offense? Likely not. Why?

Houston Texans fans — it’s CUT DAY as the roster had to be trimmed to 53 men by 3 p.m. today.  That time has passed and we’re still seeing the fallout from the various moves that the team is making ahead of the start of the 2019 season.

The most notable has been the trade heard around the world with the Houston Texans trading Jadeveon Clowney for a future third-round pick as well as edge rushers Barkevious Mingo and Jacob Martin.  The news of this trade disappoints me greatly as they had seemed to wave the white flag on Clowney and decided not to wait out until next season, where his value could’ve been more.

This defense would’ve been a lot stronger with him onboard than without.  We’re about to see what life will be like with him with Mingo and Martin in the fold.

They are both decent pass rushers but that’s to the extent what they bring to the table so far.  Their value plus the pick doesn’t even come close to Clowney’s and this move should be categorized as a fumble at the goal line on 4th down.  Similar to the nuance of play like that, they’ve lost possession of a good player with the potential to be great and it will be an uphill battle to get themselves back on track.

But team executed their second trade of the day with the team swapping Martinas Rankin, a third-round pick in last year’s draft for veteran running back Carlos Hyde.

There’s no question that Hyde has the talent and he does fulfill a need but with LeSean McCoy available, I don’t see why don’t they go for the gold by getting the best talent available.  Both he and Rankin were candidates to be cut from their squads so this trade does help both teams.

The Houston Texans were trying to develop Rankin into a tackle, an experiment that didn’t seem to have a good hypothesis, to begin with.  He played much better at guard but at the rate he was giving pressures up, the writing was on the wall with him.

Rankin did get a bunch of time in the preseason to make his case but it simply wasn’t enough.

Pro Football Focus graded Rankin with a 42.1 offensive, 45.2 pass block and 46.0 run block grade through 430 snaps last season.  His grade line for this preseason was 58.7/70.8/49.9 which were all improvements but a lot his time was against guys that were likely going to be cut anyway.

As for Hyde, PFF has him graded with a 52.7 offensive, 57.6 rush, 62.1 fumble and 60.6 run block grade through 184 snaps.  His rush grade ranks him 58 out of 62 running backs with at least 60 snaps to their credit in 2018.

Hyde ranked 43rd out of 50 backs in elusive rating (32.4), meaning that he can still be effective somewhat independent of the blocking in front of him but as his numbers have decreased over the seasons along with workload, his ability to produce on big plays remains in question.

Duke Johnson will be the RB1 and Hyde will be counted on to complement him but I don’t think we should

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expect the moon and back out of Hyde but I think he could be a solid contributor who can pass-catch.  He averaged 3.3 yards per attempt last season so even though that’s okay but not great, he might have the potential to increase that with more snaps given to him.

It’ll be a mystery in regard to if Karan Higdon or Damarea Crockett will be the third back so we’ll have to see.

Hyde rushed 172 times for 571 yards and five touchdowns through 14 games — seven starts — with the Cleveland Browns and Jacksonville Jaguars last season.  He’s just two seasons removed from catching 59 balls for 350 yards off 88 targets with the San Francisco 49ers — 5.9 yards per catch — when he was the featured running back there.

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