Ahman Green, Steve Slaton: The List of What We Know About the Texans Running Game

Lots of confusion out there on who is going to get the running back touches for the Texans. I think the confusion exists because I am not sure even the Texans coaches know what they are going to do.

Here's what we know as of today:

1. Green's Injury: Ahman Green was in and out of the lineup for most of last year, and then put on IR due to a bone bruise of his knee. He has recovered from that, but was the anti-weeble in the first preseason game, falling down on his first play without being touched due to a groin injury.

2. Green as Starter: Richard Justice of the Houston Chronicle reports that the coaches believe in that Ahman Green will be back for the beginning of the season. As Justice says in his blog comments:

I was told by both Rick Smith and Gary Kubiak that they think he'll be the starting running back in the regular-season opener. He's telling them he'll be ready, which is different than last season when he was never optimistic about coming back. But the biggest factor is that from a talent standpoint he's light years ahead of the other RBs except for possibly the rookie, and there's no way they're going to throw him out there against the 3-4 in the first game.

And he says more about Green in this other blog post.

3. Green Gone: Justice's colleague, John McClain speculates that if Green doesn't play in the preseason, he is going to get cut.

4. Salary Cap/Financial Implications of Cutting Green: Keith Weiland of InTheBullseye.com has traditionally followed Texans salary info closer than anyone else who writes about the team. Here's his analysis based on the information he was able to obtain.

5. Steve Slaton Gets First Team Reps: Third round pick Slaton is the only Texans running back that has looked any good at all in the preseason. The Texans are going to get him some reps with the first team in the preseason game against the Cowboys on Friday but Chris Brown will start.

6. Marcel Shipp Signed: What does the signing of Cardinal castoff, Marcel Shipp mean? Probably nothing. McClain claims this means that the Texans signed Shipp because they are going to get rid of Ahman Green or Chris Brown. Personally, I think it means that they are trying to get through the rest of preseason with nobody else getting hurt. Chris Taylor came off the field during the Saints game with cramps, so they need training camp bodies.

7. Player To Be Named Later: Keep an eye out for a running back signing after teams make cuts. The Texans had such running back troubles in Gary Kubiak's first year with the team, he acquired two running backs, Ron Dayne and Samkon Gado that hadn't been through training camp. Lance Zierlein in his Z Report blog, gives a sensible set of odds for different running backs making the team. He is in the Ahman Green-likely-stays camp.

8. Running Blocking Work In Progress: After the first preseason game, Eric Winston said that the Texans offensive line was still working through their assignments with the run blocking and that they stuck with some things they were working on that they might not do in a regular season game.

A lot of people will see the chaos at the running back position as being an illustration of why the Texans needed to draft running back in the first round without moving down in the draft. My view of this is that the Texans have addressed this some in the Slaton pick, but ultimately, the Texans team has had so many positions to fill that they were going to have to make do with a fungible running back committee (especially with Alex Gibbs installing his brand of running blocking).

First pick, left tackle Duane Brown has been quietly doing a nice job pass blocking in the preseason. You haven't heard his name called so that's a good thing.

So, do you now understand what the deal is with the Texans running game? No? I don't think the coaches know either.