Walker Down with Injury

Walker is good, just had an injury problem last year and may take a little more time this year. You can say the same thing for Glenn, other walker, or all the tens of thousands of injured Texans we had last year. It's a strong possibility that some of those will take some time to heal. I just think that this is one of those situations where a 'need' in a draft should have been addressed. Babin may be good but we had 2 of our starters out with pretty significant injuries last year and it's pretty rare that a 3-4 team goes after a linebacker in the 1st round. Add to that the potential progress of Peek in his 2nd year as a 3-4 linebacker then we could have done without the Babin pick. Babin is going to take a while to get proficient in the 3-4 and may be good someday, but we did have pretty good depth before him. The D-line on the other needed some good healthy bodies to make the 3-4 successfull. Payne was big questionmark so you really don't know about his status until late in the pre-season. Seems like we should have added some insurance there. We added R. Smith, but he only replaces someone that should never be a starter in the 1st place.

[aj.]

It's not clear, because you stated that you thought the Texans overpaid for Walker. That pretty much implies that you felt:

a) the Texans should have signed another player at that price for the position.

b) the Texans should have looked at cheaper alternatives for that position.

c) the Texans should have kept Walker, they just did a lousy job of negotiating.

Again, I'm glad he's on the team, and again, IF he ends up not being able to give us say...three solid years, then it's obvious if the risk comes to bear that they should have considered a cheaper alternative. An elusive point here is that this is more a discussion on risk than anything else.

The risk is they gave 2/3 of our DL 21 million in signing bonus alone, with a six year prorata commitment. Eventually that kind of stuff will come back to bite you in the ***, especially when you're giving it to older players. Don't just look at Walker, look at the bigger picture. Payne's contract comes due at the end of this year. If he plays well this year and shows that he is fully recovered, it will probably take near Walker and Smith money to re-sign him and I seriously doubt they will be able to keep all three next year at that price. One or two high priced guys on the line along with a guy like Corey Sears I can understand. An entire starting unit all paid top dollar is Carolina '95 all over again and isn't a good idea imo. If you give me the choice of 2 players among a healthy Smith, Payne and Walker for long term deals and I take Payne and Smith. The only unknown that the Texans had to deal with that forced their hand was the uncertainty about Payne. Think about what other positions you want to sacrifice when you start paying one position top dollar across the board. That's part of what I'm trying to say. It's a little more than just whether Gary is a good player or not -- which he obviously is. Also, consider Corey Sears and Jerry DeLoach are both free agents after this year. Unfortunately the ecomomics of the game force you to make some tough decisions on popular and talented players -- that is if you want to be competitive over the long term as opposed to an all or nothing approach.

[Mistril48]

Originally Posted by aj.

Payne's contract comes due at the end of this year. If he plays well this year and shows that he is fully recovered, it will probably take near Walker and Smith money to re-sign him and I seriously doubt they will be able to keep all three next year at that price. One or two high priced guys on the line along with a guy like Corey Sears I can understand. An entire starting unit all paid top dollar is Carolina '95 all over again and isn't a good idea imo. Think about what other positions you want to sacrifice when you start paying one position top dollar across the board...

I would prefer to see the Texans trim future salary at WR (Bradford), interior OL (Weigert/McKinney), S (Coleman) and LB (Wong) before D-line. It feels like the Texans are grooming players this year to step in to some of these roles. It's fine to say address the d-line need in the draft, but the problem is a lot of teams have drafted players for the d-line without a lot of success, IMO. Drafting someone for a position, even with a first round pick, is no guarantee of a productive player. A solid D-line is essential to develop young LBs and DBs, IMO.

[aj.]

...the problem is a lot of teams have drafted players for the d-line without a lot of success, IMO. Drafting someone for a position, even with a first round pick, is no guarantee of a productive player.

That's true for other positions too, not just DL.

[SBTexans08]

That guy needs more fiber in his diet!

[Carr Bombed]

I suffered a groin strain about 3 weeks ago and still not over it. About a week and a half after the strain I was feeling great, so I went to the track and walked, but jogged the curves for a couple of laps, because I'm leaving for boot camp for the Coast Guard in december and I'm trying to get in shape. Anyway when I woke up the next morning I couldn't hardly move my legs. Now I'm in physical therepy doing small groin exercises trying to speed up the healing of the muscle. Now they're telling me that they are going to have to strap a electronic muscle stimulator thingy to my groin (not looking forward to that!)to heal it faster and build up strength for boot camp. My point is that this is something that shouldnt be taken lightly. They better be positive that this thing is completly healed and then sit him out an additional week before he goes back out there, because if he injures it again it takes a long time to heal and will turn into a cronic injury that we'll be dealing with all season.