A good read found on TC's blog

[Texans_Chick]

Originally Posted by GP

It's hard for me because before she was contributing to The Chronicle, she was here and doing stuff for this board...we would all say "The Chronicle should have YOU as its Texans beat writer!"

Then she becomes a blogger for them, and now (sad to say) I find it hard to click on the link and go to the Chronicle-based blog articles she writes. I don't like the way the Chronicle holds its nose up and "regular Joes" while their own "professional" Texans writer is, how do I say this, not up to standard for us.

She invests huge amounts of time, has cultivated great relationships while balancing those relationships with true journalism creativity, and I guess I still just hold a grudge at the Chronicle because they get clicks to their site off of her.....but she's not their bonafide Texans reporter. It's like they're getting away with murder, to me, putting cronyism above professionalism. Granted, TC might not even WANT a full time gig with the Chronicle.

I just have a conflict with going to that site. It goes back to the days of Richard Justice and how he would skewer the Texans without knowing what he was taking about, then jump on board the bandwagon, then hop off of it, and then Johnny Pancakes gets everything wrong that he puts his hand to. But hey, just like Arian Foster snuck onto the Texans...so did TC find a way to make the Chronicle look and function in a competent manner. Quickly.

I wish she would sometimes do some "TexanTalk exclusive" stuff here, even if it was just 3 or 4 times a year. I am not in any way griping at her, per se, just not happy with the Chronicle.

My 2 cents on this:

One of the reasons why I choose to write for the Chronicle is that I like having newspapers, even imperfect ones, and want them to succeed. I think they are good for communities, especially in times of emergencies.

The Houston Chronicle has been very supportive of my writing. Specifically, a number of the sportswriters there have been extremely supportive of my writing.

After I quit it after 2006 when I was writing also for another site, it was John McClain who asked me at an event if I would come back because he missed having my voice at the site. That he arranged for me to freelance for them. That was very gracious of him to go out of his way to do that because not all journalists are as supportive to bloggers as the people at the Chronicle have been to me.

I have no desire to be a beat writer for the Chronicle. I do not have the time. To do it well, you have to be at the facility every day. You have to travel. You experience sports as a job and not a love, and whenever this writing thing is no longer fun for me, I'm not going to do it. I have a family, and beat writing would not be an easy job to do with children. If I wanted to go through my life juggling stuff, I'd be making a ton more money that I could as a sports journalist.

I also do not enjoy writing basic news pieces. I prefer writing analysis. I don't like writing to outwardly imposed deadlines or writing about topics an editor wants me to write. I have freedom to write whatever I want when the muse and time permits. So I'm good with my arrangement with the Chron.

However, basic news pieces are an important part of coverage of local teams--otherwise, you'd only get whatever the team wants to let you hear.

Due to the Chronicle's help, I've been able to get credentials for OTAs, minicamps, training camp in recent years. I pretty much attend that every day I can get away. Because I know that news is dear to get during that time. But I prefer to go to games as a fan, and not have to write a detailed post-game right after the game unless I feel like writing a detailed post-game right after the game.

I'm just trying to live my life with joy. And in a way that is good for my family. And use the Chron platform as a resource to help Texans fans out because I'm a fan, and I dig Texans fans. (Ironically, in real life I'm a pretty private person for someone who feels compelled to wear silly clothes, write a blog for the love of her fave team. But I came to recognize that I can do good things if I put myself out there more in the world a bit because of how things have sort of evolved. If you asked me 10 years ago that I'd be doing any of the stuff I do now, I'd think it would be nuts).

I'm not telling you to click on the Chron if you don't like writers there. But I will tell you that if people don't click on my blog, some day the Chron won't keep me on. Margins for newspapers are very small given diluted ad dollars.

I click on links that I want to support. I do that by writers not platforms. I do not like a lot of what Bleacher Report is or their business model one bit. I've been plagiarized there and the quantity of inaccurate and sexist content makes me feel vomity.

However, I do like some of their writers, and will link/click on their stuff if it is good. You encourage what you support. If you want to encourage more of my writing or other people's writing, then click on it, comment on it, share it on the web. Because that and my continued interest is how my writing will be able to continue to exist.

[thunderkyss]

Originally Posted by Texans_Chick

I'm just trying to live my life with joy. And in a way that is good for my family. And use the Chron platform as a resource to help Texans fans out because I'm a fan, and I dig Texans fans.

Steph, you don't need have to explain yourself to the "elite" around here. We know & appreciate what you do for us.

[Lucky]

I found myself in agreement with this comment posted after the interview/article:

Richie November 12, 2012 at 7:52 pm

I love that Wade Phillips’ twitter handle is @sonofbum.

I am not following the Houston situation closely, but I see one particular relevant trend: when Wade Phillips takes over as HC/DC, the teams’ defense improves every time – many times by a significant amount.

Here are the Defensive SRS improvements between year 1 of Wade Phillips and the year before he arrived:

Houston – 6.9 points (took a negative DSRS and made it positive)
Dallas – 3.0 points (neg to pos)
San Diego – 9.2 points (neg to pos)
Atlanta – 3.5 (neg to pos)
Buffalo – 1.4 (took a negative DSRS, and improved it, but it was still negative)
Denver – 9.1 (neg to pos)
Philadelphia – 0.1 (the only time he took over a positive DSRS team, and it improved by a tiny bit)
New Orleans – 7.1 (neg to pos)

I don’t see any reason to think that Gary Kubiak suddenly became a better coach. I think he added one of the best defensive coordinators of all time. I’m not saying that Kubiak is a bad coach, I’m just saying he probably hasn’t changed much.

Wade is certainly one of the best defensive coordinators of our time. What he has done in Houston is nothing short of phenomenal.

[infantrycak]

Originally Posted by Lucky

I found myself in agreement with this comment posted after the interview/article:


Wade is certainly one of the best defensive coordinators of our time. What he has done in Houston is nothing short of phenomenal.

Yeah, Wade is one of the best defensive minds of our time. I happen to think Kubiak is one of the best offensive minds as well. As far as I am concerned I could give a crap about who is better and just be glad to have both.

[ObsiWan]

Originally Posted by Fiddler

Steph, you don't need have to explain yourself to the "elite" around here. We know & appreciate what you do for us.

^^^^
THIS!

To not click on and enjoy Steph's work because it happens to be on the Chron.com site is, to me, akin to tossing the baby out with the bathwater.

[Txn_in_Oki]

Great read as always.

As a fan that loves a game, but doesn't have time to really get into the weeds it's great to have people on this board that know what they are talking about.

Reading this makes me appreciate how good we have it here. TC knows what she is talking about and so do a lot of people here on the board.

[Lucky]

Originally Posted by HoustonFrog

The next issue has to do with Wade. To me this team has co-head coaches. One on O and one on D and it works really well.

Now, they just need a head coach for the special teams and they'll have the perfect storm.

[HoustonFrog]

Originally Posted by Texans_Chick

Eh. All coaches and players have strengths and weaknesses. When everybody was talking just about Kubiak's weaknesses, nobody was talking about his strengths. So it might seem like I'm being partial, but really I'm trying to bring balance to the discussion.

When everybody was talking about firing Kubiak two seasons ago, he had the 2nd most efficient offense in the league. It's actually hard to win 6 games/be competitive in more when you have the worst defense in the league.

Was it Kubiak's desire to go into the 2010 season with an entirely inexperienced secondary? Don't know. But it is pretty easy to say that the Texans would have a much better team if they got better coaching on the defensive side of the ball.

Ultimately, if I thought the Texans would have had a better shot at winning faster if Kubiak was fired in 2010, I would have advocated for it. I've advocated for various firings in the past. But for me, at the time, I didn't think that was worth doing, especially when the rumor was that Rick Smith was going to stay and Kubiak was going to get fired. That rumor made not one lick of sense to me.

In any event, I was right, you were wrong. Neener neener. You can call that a blind spot, but I call it scoreboard.

(But thanks for the kind words on non-Kubiak topics. )

And the bolded here was what I was saying in my earlier post. Kubiak shouldn't get a pass because his offense was prolific but the defense was horrible and his secondary wasn't coached right. He had a massive hand in hiring those coaches. He had a massive hand in drafting those players. He had a culture of FOG..Friends of Gary. That goes into the equation just as much as the offense. So while your instincts may be right overall, it doesn't mean that people can rewrite history. Wade was basically pushed on the franchise because no other D Coordinator they found worthy worked. He has basically saved the team and Gary. Gary is great on offense. Wade is great on defense. Overall it makes one great team. He didn't lose the team and they played hard but it doesn't erase those mistakes. Love your work!

Again Gary had the players supporting him. He has a great O mind. The culture changed when Wade got there and coached up the D right. Right now things are A-1. But alot of the previous 5 years can't be rewritten just because he is a success now. JMO.

[76Texan]

There are several issues at play here.

1. What was it that caused Wade's sophomore lump (or the perception of such) everywhere he goes?
Perhaps the offense didn't help him out enough, and it dragged down the defense???

2. It's not that easy to become a good HC on first stint.

There are coaches who never had a winning record: (Dennis Erickson 0-6
Dan Hanning 0-7).

Manny coaches didn't start off well:

Chuck Fairbanks 1st winning season in 4th year.
Jeff Fisher started w 5 losing seasons (including one as an interim coach.)
Famed coach Sid Gilman had a losing record his first 5 yrs 28-31-1
Tom Landry was 0-11 in his first year, and didn't have a winning season until his 7th

Bill Walsh was 24-37 in his first 4 years.

Bill Belichik had 1 winning season in his first 5 yrs with the Browns
Dick Jauron 1 in 10
Dom Capers 1 in 12 with 2 orgs.

Dave Wandstedt was 16 games under .500 in his first 6 yrs w/ the Bears before he took the Dolphins to 4 straight winning seasons.
(But the team fell flat 1-8 in his 5th yr, leading to his firing.)

3. And there's that that matter with rebuilding a team.

Tom Flores won 2 SBs with the Raiders but went 14-34 w the Seahawks.

Dennis Green built a good Vikings team but went 16-32 with the Cards.

Rich Kotite started off well with the Eagles 36-28, but his next team (Jets) went 4-28.

Steve Mariuci was 58-39 with the Niners, 15-28 w the Lions

Bum Phillips never had a winning team in 5 yrs w the Saints.

Buddy Ryans was 12-20 w the Cards.

George Seifert was 16-32 w the Panthers.

Sam Wyches was 4 games under.500 in 8 years with the Bungals; he was 18 under with the Bucs.

Mike Shannahan is 14-27 w the Skins so far.

...
The rationals:
- Usually, one gets good in one's job with experience.
- It normally takes both sides of the ball to have a good team.
- Rebuilding is never an easy job.