Not to be a Debbie Downer but the coaching of this team still sucks

[TexansFight]

I was at the game last night and had a lot of fun. There was a great atmosphere with the roof open and the chilly weather. This team has a great bunch of loyal fans that still come out and are loud despite the severe disappointment that this season has been.

I have been down about my Longhorns getting screwed out of going to the Big XII CG so this game was a nice pick me up. I was pumped for MNF. Either I or my family have had season tickets when Houston has had a team during the past 20 years. The last time I went to MNF was my SENIOR YEAR in high school back in 1992. I think we played the Bears that year at home on MNF.

I want the best for the Texans, meaning I want them to be on a legit path to becoming Super Bowl champions. Despite the win, I don't think this coaching staff is going to get us there. IMO, if I were to rate coaching staffs in the NFL ours would be in the bottom 10.

First off, I am happy with the improvement with our defense. That being said RICHARD SMITH STILL MUST BE FIRED after the end of the season. That we are playing better with a more aggressive style is not rocket science. That it took him this long to figure it out to me is the final nail in his coffin. Draft a safety, LB, and DL and get a top flight DC in here next year and our defense will be exciting to watch.

What really bugged me last night was our offensive playcalling. I don't know who is ultimately responsible whether it is Kubiak or Kyle Shanahan. That we could not punch it in from the 5 yard line for a TD after Slaton's long gain is ridiculous. We ran the same damn play 3 times in a row and called 74 to be eligible each time. Their D just lined up the same and stuffed us 3 times in a row. Just horrible. I don't mind the running plays (especially with the turnover machine we have in Sage) but for crying out loud run a different play or trot out a different formation or put someone in motion unlike the other times we got stuffed.

I hated the playcall in the either the 3rd or 4th quarter of the sweep to Ryan Moats. Lost 5 yards on that play and knocked us out of field goal range. Not going for the field goal when we were on 37 yard line in the first half was brain dead and pure Dumb Capers.

I am not a hater. I love this team and want them to be a winner. The **** I listed above is going to prevent us from getting to the promised land. What bugs me about this coaching staff is that this team plays the best when there is nothing on the line. Whenever we have a chance to win a game that we need to set us up for a playoff run we fold.

I would like McNair to look around and see if there are better HC candidates out there to take over for Kubiak. If not, keep him around next year with a mandate of playoffs or your getting fired. Dick Smith needs to be fired no question and Shanahan needs to be demoted or fired if he is calling the plays.

[gtexan02]

Maybe many of us don't realize this because we've never had a winning Texans team, but very rarely is ANY team going to play a 100% perfect game.

We won this game 23-3 by my calculations, on MNF, while playing a fantastic game.

Yes, there were some mistakes, but they were minor.

I honestly don't get how fans can get so critical of teeny tiny things when we have only won 5 games. Enjoy it. Sheesh

[TexansFight]

Originally Posted by gtexan02

Maybe many of us don't realize this because we've never had a winning Texans team, but very rarely is ANY team going to play a 100% perfect game.

We won this game 23-3 by my calculations, on MNF, while playing a fantastic game.

Yes, there were some mistakes, but they were minor.

I honestly don't get how fans can get so critical of teeny tiny things when we have only won 5 games. Enjoy it. Sheesh

Fixing the "teeny tiny things" would vault us from 6-8 win no playoff land to 9-11 wins next year. There are still troubling signs that if not fixed will rear their head next year and prevent us from becoming a winner.

[Hervoyel]

Of course Richard Smith still needs to go. A pair of games against less than specatacular offenses won't change that so don't apologize for being a "Debbie Downer". Besides, the truth is I wouldn't know what to make of one of your posts if you weren't complaining about something.

[TexansFight]

Originally Posted by Hervoyel

Of course Richard Smith still needs to go. A pair of games against less than specatacular offenses won't change that so don't apologize for being a "Debbie Downer". Besides, the truth is I wouldn't know what to make of one of your posts if you weren't complaining about something.

Haha that's good. I guess I am more of a glass half empty guy. I can deal with losses but not ineptitude. I am just jealous of teams like Atlanta and Miami who have turned it around and play good, sound football. That does not mean they will win the Super Bowl this year but they are on the right track while we are still muddling our way through.

[Texan_Bill]

Steve Slaton: 21 carries for 130 yards and 2 rushing TD's.........

Yup, we probably should have held our collective breaths and let Sage throw hoping he doesn't throw yet another pick in the red zone...


PS... Agreed. Dick Smith still must go.

[HOU-TEX]

And what if those plays would've worked??

I didn't really have a problem with the 3 runs on the goal line. I mean, that's smash mouth football and we SHOULD be able to punch it in with 3 tries. We could've tried the outside once though.

[gtexan02]

Originally Posted by TexansFight

Haha that's good. I guess I am more of a glass half empty guy. I can deal with losses but not ineptitude. I am just jealous of teams like Atlanta and Miami who have turned it around and play good, sound football. That does not mean they will win the Super Bowl this year but they are on the right track while we are still muddling our way through.

I see what you're saying, but be careful about certain wishes.

Atlanta has an even worse defense than we do, statistically, giving up 340 yards per game. For whatever reason, opposing teams just don't score on them as much (probably because we turn the ball over on offense a lot more).

I bet they have tons of fans complaining about defense, etc, as well.

No team is perfect. Even the Pats last year had things to improve on. If we played every single game like we did last night, I'd be pretty happy

[GP]

Originally Posted by TexansFight

Fixing the "teeny tiny things" would vault us from 6-8 win no playoff land to 9-11 wins next year. There are still troubling signs that if not fixed will rear their head next year and prevent us from becoming a winner.

Exactly.

There's this attitude around here that we should just be happy that we won.

Won what? A game? OK. We won a game. But it was, in the grand scheme of things, not exactly a game that had anything attached to it. Don't get me wrong: I LOVE TO BEAT THE JAGS!!!! I really do. I hate them the most.

But. The Texans need to stop being happy with moral victories. It's been the attitude since Day 1, and it's still here. Although I don't want Kubiak back next year, I can suffer through year 4 (I can't believe I'm saying that...). See how bad it is? I am now saying that I can live through a meaningless year 4 of Kubiak. Dang.

Look, this era of mediocrity needs to stop for this team. We need to make the jump and become a playoff team. Kubiak doesn't seem to be the guy to get that done, to me.

[TexanSam]

I think Kubiak and Shananan are playing it much more conservative because Rosenfels has been a turnover machine. Just a guess

[gtexan02]

Originally Posted by HOU-TEX

And what if those plays would've worked??

I didn't really have a problem with the 3 runs on the goal line. I mean, that's smash mouth football and we SHOULD be able to punch it in with 3 tries. We could've tried the outside once though.

Its a damned if you/damned if you don't situation.

We tried passing it from inside the 5 once and the board blew up with how horrible the play call was. We tried smash mouth and we lost yards.

This team just isn't good within the 5 yard line, and no play call was going to change that.

I think the coaches knew that when you have Sage INT-Machine Rosenchoppper back under center, and you've got a lead, its better to take your chances with the run game and guarantee yourself a FG

[Texan_Bill]

Originally Posted by gtexan02

Its a damned if you/damned if you don't situation.

We tried passing it from inside the 5 once and the board blew up with how horrible the play call was. We tried smash mouth and we lost yards.

This team just isn't good within the 5 yard line, and no play call was going to change that.

I think the coaches knew that when you have Sage INT-Machine Rosenchoppper back under center, and you've got a lead, its better to take your chances with the run game and guarantee yourself a FG

Exactly gtexan!!!

[HOU-TEX]

Originally Posted by gtexan02

Its a damned if you/damned if you don't situation.

We tried passing it from inside the 5 once and the board blew up with how horrible the play call was. We tried smash mouth and we lost yards.

This team just isn't good within the 5 yard line, and no play call was going to change that.

I think the coaches knew that when you have Sage INT-Machine Rosenchoppper back under center, and you've got a lead, its better to take your chances with the run game and guarantee yourself a FG

That mis-direction play to K-Dub would've been nice on 1st or 2nd down. Eh, hindsight and all that jazz.

[TexansFight]

Originally Posted by gtexan02

Its a damned if you/damned if you don't situation.

We tried passing it from inside the 5 once and the board blew up with how horrible the play call was. We tried smash mouth and we lost yards.

This team just isn't good within the 5 yard line, and no play call was going to change that.

I think the coaches knew that when you have Sage INT-Machine Rosenchoppper back under center, and you've got a lead, its better to take your chances with the run game and guarantee yourself a FG

Again, I don't have a problem with running the ball 3 times in a row especially considering who we have under center. My problem is with the same damn play being called THREE TIMES IN A ROW with Slaton running it up the gut. As much as I like Slaton, he is in no way the ideal short yardage back. I would have tried another RB in there or a different play on 2nd or 3rd down such as bouncing it to the outside or spreading the field out more instead of being in a bunch formation which would help Slaton out IMO.

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention in my OP was our abortion of an attempt to run the Wildcat formation. That needs to be scrapped and reworked. Putrid.

[Hooston Texan]

If this was the first time I'd ever seen the Texans, I would have also been mystified by the goalline playcalling in the two series where we got inside the 10 but came away with only 3 total points. In the first (the one that ended in the botched snap), we called a WR screen, a screen to Slaton and then an underneath throw to AJ. All three plays were designed to be thrown in front of the defense with a prayer that the receiver can break some tackles. The second was the series you described (three runs by Slaton into the line).

The answer is that the coaches were absolutely intent on not letting Sage screw up things up. They clearly slapped the handcuffs on him after the interception (and near-pick on the previous play) on the second series, and especially so when we got near the goalline. The last 55 minutes of this game are what a QB-as-game-manager offense looks like when the offense is fortunate enough to have a guy go off like Slaton did.

I make no alibi's for the defensive coaching this year prior to the Cleveland game. But I can definitely see the rationale for going ultra-conservative on offense last night. It worked as we got up 20 going into garbage time.

[Hooston Texan]

Originally Posted by TexansFight

Again, I don't have a problem with running the ball 3 times in a row especially considering who we have under center. My problem is with the same damn play being called THREE TIMES IN A ROW with Slaton running it up the gut. As much as I like Slaton, he is in no way the ideal short yardage back. I would have tried another RB in there or a different play on 2nd or 3rd down such as bouncing it to the outside or spreading the field out more instead of being in a bunch formation which would help Slaton out IMO.

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention in my OP was our abortion of an attempt to run the Wildcat formation. That needs to be scrapped and reworked. Putrid.

Especially when those three plays immediately followed Slaton's 45-yard, cutting-from-one-sideline-to-the-other sprint on the screen pass which ended with him getting clobbered on the sideline. Dude must have been gassed. Of course, the only other RB we have is an off-the-street guy we signed a couple weeks ago.

But as I said in a long post (and others said better in much briefer ones), we weren't going to let Sage take any chances.

[GP]

Originally Posted by TexansFight

Again, I don't have a problem with running the ball 3 times in a row especially considering who we have under center. My problem is with the same damn play being called THREE TIMES IN A ROW with Slaton running it up the gut. As much as I like Slaton, he is in no way the ideal short yardage back. I would have tried another RB in there or a different play on 2nd or 3rd down such as bouncing it to the outside or spreading the field out more instead of being in a bunch formation which would help Slaton out IMO.

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention in my OP was our abortion of an attempt to run the Wildcat formation. That needs to be scrapped and reworked. Putrid.

No doubt. They have to get a TE in motion, or run a counter, something that gets movement on the line and creates gaps...running it up the gut with a Jags line that has 10 men crammed on it is not going to work.

Spread the formation out, for crying out loud. We don't have a goal line formation that is making an impact...we're not going to power over the big fatties across the line from us.

Gibbs' system is all predicated upon getting the oline off the ball and out into space, with the RB able to choose a gap and explode through it. Once the Jags line stuffed the smaller Texans oline, there was just nothing--The DBs were crashing in from the edges, cutting off the end(s) from Slaton.

[Wolf]

At least the board doesn't look like this

http://forum.jaguars.com/index.php?showforum=6

[Vinny]

I wonder how much responsibility Richard Smith has lost over the season and if the Texans have too many cooks in the soup. With Smith, Bush and Rhodes there sure are a ton of chiefs for the few Indians we have. Someone wrote an article lately that pointed out how top heavy our Coaching staff is...anyone here know where that article is?

DeMeco has regained his lost step and bounce (via injury I assume), Dunta has firmed up the CB situation and the line seems to be playing at a higher level and now that our new S tandem has been together a few games they seem to be gelling a bit and playing at a higher level even though (as a team) I can still see way too much awful tackling from NFL level defenders.

[Porky]

Some of these complaints are valid, but I think Hooston put it best - they weren't going to put the game in the hands of Sage. He is a screw-up. I can't blame them for that, but ya the 3 in a row off right tackle? A little much.

By the same token, for the most part I don't tend to complain after a win, especially a convincing win. Rarely, if ever, does a team play a perfect game.

It's not like we are blind, but can't we celebrate the victory without someone always trying to rain on our parade?

I mean, this is a guy who after winning the lottery would complain about the gas prices for the trip to Austin.