There have been very few constants for the Houston Texans since 2019, but one of them has been Jonathan Owens.
The former 2018 undrafted safety has played 31 games for Houston over the past four seasons, starting in 19 contests. The 5-11, 210-pound defensive back had his most productive year in 2022 with 125 combined tackles, 1.0 sack, one quarterback hit, and four pass breakups through 17 starts.
According to Cody Benjamin from CBS Sports, Owens is the one impending free agent the Texans can’t afford to let go.
The Texans have been shuffling spare parts with all their cap space ever since Nick Caserio took over, so it’s no surprise they don’t even have premium pieces to retain. Owens, 27, is an intriguing low-risk, high-reward safety, however, after a fifth-year breakout as a full-time starter. His 125 tackles ranked second on a young but occasionally feisty defense.
The challenge for Owens would be whether or not he could fit in with new coach DeMeco Ryans’ system. However, Owens went through a few changes in defenses with the Texans. In 2020, he went from playing Romeo Crennel’s style of 3-4 defense to new defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver’s attacking style modeled after Rex Ryan’s schemes with the Baltimore Ravens and New York Jets in the 2000s. In 2021, Owens went from the 3-4 to Lovie Smith’s Tampa 2, which the Texans played for the past two years and at least gave Owens some consistency.
If Owens was able to adapt to those changes, then it shouldn’t be too much of an issue for him to adjust to Ryans’ system.
What may convince Houston to let Owens walk is if they believe he could stop the progress of any young safeties on the roster, or if the Texans believe they need to draft a younger, blue-chip prospect to pair with Jalen Pitre.
Owens has utility as a special teamer with 253 such snaps over his career. Despite playing 971 defensive snaps, Owens still found a way to contribute in the transition phase of the game with 71 special teams snaps.
