FO:The Game Charters Speak:TEXANS

[Wolf]

they list alot more teams but this was the part about the Texans

Chris McCown
Houston Texans

Quarterback: Both Matt Schaub and Sage Rosenfels are solid quarterbacks, but their big numbers are all a product of the receiving corps in general and Andre Johnson in particular. Schaub has a few annoying tendencies: His passes tend to get batted down at the line, he has his Favre moments (usually a result of staring down the intended receiver), and, fair or unfair, he isn't exactly durable. I know that the MCL tear was a late hit, and he was deathly ill for the Colts game, but he has still missed a lot of time for a quarterback over the past few years. When Rosenfels comes in the Texans spread the offense out a little more, and they like to put him in the shotgun. I believe they think his field vision is better than Schaub's. Unfortunately, both the games he's played in thus far have been marred by a ton of mental errors that have overshadowed how stellar he has otherwise been.

Running back: Only two runners of any consequence. Steve Slaton has been everything you've heard and more. A plurality of his runs for big gains come from yards after the catch. Ahman Green is still very explosive for those five plays a game before he hurts himself again. He easily beats Slaton to the line, but it takes less contact to bring down. Vonta Leach has been admirable enough as a blocking back. He has had a few big plays, but the Texans still run a few too many offensive plays to him. At least they've stopped splitting him out wide.

Receivers: Easily the best group on the team. Andre Johnson's only flaw is that he can sometimes catch a case of the drops. Kevin Walter is a solid receiver, but also very good in the blocking game -- the Texans love to put him in motion to the side of the run -- and is good to be involved in a few trick plays or screens a game. Owen Daniels also spends a lot of time presnap in motion, and while his blocking is still rough, this year the Texans have been sending him out so much it's been irrelevant. Andre Davis and Jacoby Jones are both cut from the same cloth: deep threats on offense and return threats on special teams. Davis is a bit less raw on slants and such. Without Mark Breuner around, it's hard to make fun of his diminished blocking skills.

Offensive line: Here's where the problems start again. Boy, bet you thought you were done with that mantra, huh? Lets start with the good. Both the starting guards, Mike Briesel and Chester Pitts, have been very stellar. Pitts is still the best of the Texans at getting to the second level on pulls and tosses. That was short.

Eric Winston has regressed some thus far this year, but at least he has tended to bury most of his bad plays in the same couple of games. Duane Brown had a solid first few weeks but has been abysmal ever since; any bull rush with speed has him scrambling, and he has spent more time laying on the ground than Jenna Jameson. The biggest data point was Week 8 against Minnesota when Jared Allen took him to the woodshed, but Winston was even getting dominated by NFL legends such as Robert Geathers and Jared DeVries. Now you can see why Eprhaim Salaam has been getting some series in relief.

Finally we come to the David Eckstein of football, one starting center Chris Myers. I admire Chris greatly. He puts in a ton of effort, he makes decent snap calls, and by all accounts he seems to be a standup guy and skilled at what he does. Unfortunately, the NFL is full of these linemen that can generate enough force to send his listed 300-pound frame backwards often enough to make his starting role a bit of a stretch. This was perhaps best demonstrated by Steelers linebacker James Harrison, who sent him back so far on a stretch play that he essentially tackled his own rusher, but over the course of the year, many a pocket has broken down as he has been overpowered.

Defensive line: I can flatter Mario Williams with a ton of superlatives, but instead I'll just call him what he is: a one-man pass rush. Undrafted rookie Tim Bulman has been a nice change of pace. He doesn't rush the passer extremely well, but he is great at shuffling over on the run to get stops. Occasionally Earl Cochran and Amobi Okoye remind you that they are around, but they have generally been mediocre or worse. I'm not sure if Travis Johnson and Anthony Weaver even really play football, because after I see their pictures in the starting lineup, I never hear their names the rest of the game. Perhaps if we find Trent Green again, that will provoke Johnson to show up and shout at people.

Linebacker: DeMeco Ryans has been playing injured since Week 3, and it has shown. He's noticeably slower in pass coverage and doesn't have the same burst coming off the line on the run anymore. He makes some plays on guile and football smarts, but otherwise has been inadequate. Before Zac Diles broke his leg, he was having a decent season as a first-time starter, but I think he's eventually going to become a two-down rush specialist. He looks lost in coverage. Morlon Greenwood has entered that phase of his career where if he were a celebrity, he'd be appearing on late-night infomercials, like Bowser from Sha Na Na.

Defensive backs: Fred Bennett is still the best the Texans have and his benching (which I'll get into later) was inexplicable. Jacque Reeves has played a little better than I thought he would, which means he has been below average: He was abused by Bernard Berrian in Week 8. Dunta Robinson has come back from knee surgery and played like he has a clubfoot. I'm thinking he needs to be a safety for the rest of the year if he does play. Demarcus "The Cushion" Faggins has been absolutely dreadful for the second year in a row. You may remember him from such plays as "96-yard touchdown to Calvin Johnson" and as an extra in "Missed tackles in every carry against the Texans for more than 20 yards since 2005."

One of my favorite assertions of the season was in Week 4 when the Texans were up against the Colts and everyone and their mom told you that with both starting safeties out, the Texans were going to be even more vulnerable to the pass. First of all, telling someone to start Colts against the Texans is not exactly rocket science. Secondly, the Texans losing both safeties is sort of like when the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail lost both of his legs; I guess theoretically it weakened them, but overall it was pretty redundant. Will Demps and Eugene Wilson are the Texans' best pair of safeties, but neither of them are much in deep coverage, and when your best safeties coming over in back-to-back years as training camp free agents, that's a pretty damning indictment of your in-house options. Brandon Harrison showed absolutely no reason to play him ever again. Nick Ferguson is the same all-run, no-pass safety he has always been, only now he's old. C.C. Brown is still dreadful, and losing him was a blessing in disguise.

Overall thoughts: The offensive play-calling has improved as Kyle Shanahan has gotten experience, but it's still been very vanilla and mostly run out of the I. The Texans almost always have a man in motion before the snap, something I'd like to see how they'd do without, because they've been very turnover prone this year and I wonder if getting rid of the excess motion would help with that.

Defensive coordinator Richard Smith needs to be fired. Now. He has patently refused to let his rookies and young players like Bennett and Antuan Molden see the field even despite the failings of everyone in front of them. Is there any reason left to not see how the rookies have done? Why is Demarcus Faggins still on the roster?

Second complaint: Smith almost never blitzes. We have a column where we are supposed to mark rushers on pass plays. Before I start charting my half, I usually just mark down "4" on every pass play the Texans run, knowing that I will maybe change two or three of them at the most. And when he does send a blitz, it's often a terribly designed blitz. One play against the Lions sent Dunta Robinson from the inside on a corner blitz. This was his second game back from his injury. By the time Dunta was even at the line of scrimmage, Dan Orlovsky had thrown the ball. Mario Williams is a great start to a pass rush, and maybe the personnel in place isn't optimal for blitzing, but if the Texans defense is so bad, shouldn't they be trying to force more big plays? Don't they need those turnovers? I just don't see how any rational person could keep doing what he's doing.

I'd expect this team to get in a few shootouts, but at this point I think a realistic record to end the season is 6-10 or 7-9. This is not a playoff team, and once again they should be spending their draft picks and dollars on defense during the offseason, hopefully with a new coordinator to actually try to exploit them.

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/aud...ters-speak-afc

[ziggy29]

Apparently, Petey's "coverage" of CJ is making football lore like Bo Jackson running over the Boz...

[Wolf]

no joke Ziggy, I don't know who this writer is and maybe I am a glass half empty guy but after listening to some on the boards about Pitts, this guy has a different take on him (or both of our guards)

[Norg]

Demarcus "The Cushion" Faggins HAHAHAH

iam glad he seeing little to no play time anymore

[Silver Oak]

"Dunta Robinson has come back from knee surgery and played like he has a clubfoot. I'm thinking he needs to be a safety for the rest of the year if he does play."


ouch.

[Lucky]

Originally Posted by Wolf

they list alot more teams but this was the part about the Texans

Link?

[Wolf]

Originally Posted by Lucky

Link?

sorry lucky, forgot to add it .. here it is (and I added it to the original post)
http://www.footballoutsiders.com/aud...ters-speak-afc

[nero THE zero]

When was this written? It seems a few weeks dated.

DeMeco has looked much improved over the past few weeks. They've blitzed a lot more. And Dunta's looking better every week. Pretty spot on for the most part, but could use some updating

[Wolf]

date on the link was nov 23

[edo783]

He has actually watched games. Kind of refreshing for a media type. Saw the same things we have. I like the fire Dick Smith comment.

[ChampionTexan]

Originally Posted by nero THE zero

When was this written? It seems a few weeks dated.

DeMeco has looked much improved over the past few weeks. They've blitzed a lot more. And Dunta's looking better every week. Pretty spot on for the most part, but could use some updating

At one point when talking about Sage, the writer referred to "Both the games he played in", meaining it was written after the Minnesota game and before the Baltimore game.

[Jackie Chiles]

Originally Posted by nero THE zero

When was this written? It seems a few weeks dated.

DeMeco has looked much improved over the past few weeks. They've blitzed a lot more. And Dunta's looking better every week. Pretty spot on for the most part, but could use some updating

DeMeco definitely looked like himself today, its fun seeing him flying around the field. Even when the DTs get blown off the line he can make a play. Thank goodness the Browns didn't stick to the run game, they were getting about 5 yards a pop.

[nero THE zero]

Originally Posted by Jackie Chiles

DeMeco definitely looked like himself today, its fun seeing him flying around the field. Even when the DTs get blown off the line he can make a play. Thank goodness the Browns didn't stick to the run game, they were getting about 5 yards a pop.

Yea, there was one play where he stuck Lewis at the LOS and had me saying, "there's the old DeMeco"

[ArlingtonTexan]

Originally Posted by edo783

He has actually watched games. Kind of refreshing for a media type. Saw the same things we have. I like the fire Dick Smith comment.

Honestly, if the author had not signed his name to this piece i would have thought it to be a post from one of the more observant guys on this board. Well, minus the over-the-top attempts at Jenna Jameson and Sha Na Na humor.

[Lucky]

Second complaint: Smith almost never blitzes.

Today, the Texans blitzed. Look at the results. I'm not suggesting it would work in every game, against every team. Just that it beats the hell out of what they've tried to do the previous 10 weeks.

[Jackie Chiles]

Originally Posted by Lucky

Today, the Texans blitzed. Look at the results. I'm not suggesting it would work in every game, against every team. Just that it beats the hell out of what they've tried to do the previous 10 weeks.

Yeah I don't see how anyone (coaches especially) can argue against the blitz at this point. Worst case scenario I would rather die with the blitz and have a shot at making a play than die a slow and inevitable death like we have been this entire season. Let me be clear, I have no illusions about this defense turning it around and becoming anything resembling a top NFL unit, but if you let me pick my poison I take the blitz.

[Wolf]

I am not defending smith at all because I ....well the article states what I think but I wonder if with the limit of blitzing has anything to do with our safeties sucking

Secondly, the Texans losing both safeties is sort of like when the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail lost both of his legs; I guess theoretically it weakened them, but overall it was pretty redundant. Will Demps and Eugene Wilson are the Texans' best pair of safeties, but neither of them are much in deep coverage, and when your best safeties coming over in back-to-back years as training camp free agents, that's a pretty damning indictment of your in-house options. Brandon Harrison showed absolutely no reason to play him ever again. Nick Ferguson is the same all-run, no-pass safety he has always been, only now he's old. C.C. Brown is still dreadful, and losing him was a blessing in disguise.

from link

[Wolf]

Just curious if Vinny,AJ,CnD, Herv or TC and others have any other view points.. esp on the offensive line part

[texanhead08]

We have had crappy safety play since 2002. You might think upper management would have done something about it by now.

[mussop]

Some of you might be surprised that Briessels play (expecially run blocking) is considered by most media and pro scouts as very good.