Keylan Rutledge Favorite For Texans’ Center Job

The Texans’ latest round of offensive line tinkering included multiple key free agency additions — Braden Smith, Wyatt Teller — but the team’s most notable offseason investment up front came via the draft. Houston chose Keylan Rutledge 26th overall.

Although Rutledge was seeing time at both guard and center during the Texans’ offseason program, he is primarily in a battle for the center job with Jake Andrews. The latter served as Houston’s 2025 center starter, winning a training camp competition to claim that status, but the former Patriots draftee does not look to be in the lead this year.

This is Rutledge’s job to lose, according to ESPN.com’s DJ Bien-Aime. The Texans spending a first-round pick on Rutledge always pointed to him finding a way into their lineup, and with the team signing Teller after re-signing Ed Ingram, center seemed the position that would allow for a “best five”-like configuration re: Rutledge. The Texans did plenty of work on Rutledge coming into the draft and traded up two spots to No. 26 — ahead of the division rival Titans, who were also interested in the Georgia Tech blocker — to ensure they landed him.

Not seeing game reps at center at Georgia Tech or Middle Tennessee State, Rutledge is attempting to make a rookie-year transition and solidify a position that has been in flux for several seasons. The Texans have been unable to depend on a center since Nick Martin‘s four-year run at the position concluded after the 2020 season. Juice Scruggs, drafted as a possible center solution in the 2023 second round, never could hold that job and ended up being included in the package Houston sent to Detroit for David Montgomery.

Pro Football Focus graded Andrews 28th overall among qualified centers last season. The former fourth-round pick had only started one game prior to 2025; he started 16 last season in Houston. Barring Rutledge looking completely overmatched during camp, it appears likely Andrews — whose rookie deal includes one more season — will fall to the swing-backup tier of the Texans’ O-line depth chart.