The Texans Do Not Have the Worst Defense in the History of the NFL (yet)

With the massive amount of yards allowed by the Texans offense over the first three games, I asked the question of whether the Texans might have the worst defense in the history of the NFL. I mean, it certainly felt that way sitting in the stands, watching Mark Brunell carve the Texans D like a turducken. (The meat falls off the bone easier on a turducken versus just a plain ole turkey.)

One of my favorite NFL bloggers has answered this question for me. Doug Drinen of Pro-Football-Reference.com (a site that sabermetically looks at football), says that the Texans so far are 2006 terrible, but not bad bad by historic terms:

But if you want to wade into a worst-ever brawl, you'd better be packing more than 98 points allowed in a three-game stretch. Since 1978, NFL teams have played 11,813 three-game stretches (some of which overlap with each other), and 361 have been worse than the Texans' last three games. So they're in the 97th percentile for badness. But as of now they do not seem to be anything special. They're just regular old worst-in-the-league bad.

In case you were curious, the worst defensive three-game stretch of the last 25 years belongs to the Titans, who in weeks 13–15 of 2004 gave up 140 points: 51 to the Colts, 49 to the Chiefs, and 40 to the Raiders. On the other end of the list, the 2000 Titans, the 2000 Steelers, and the 1985 Bears had three-game stretches where they allowed 3 points.

His assessment is somewhat limited because he doesn't have historic access to yards allowed.

The Texans defense is also bad by its own team standards, allowing 32.7 points versus 21.7 last year, and allowing 483.7 yards versus 358.3. If your numbers are that bad, it is due to the defensive coaching, and I have a more in depth post about this in the Texans Chick blog. In sum, I am non-whelmed by the Texans defensive coordinator, Richard Smith.