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Do the Texans have playoff talent?

TexansFanatic

Extremist
I'm not terribly happy with Kubiak at the moment, but I think the "Fire Kubiak" thread is premature.

I'm beginning to think I, along with a lot of others on this board, have been lying to myself about the caliber of talent this team is fielding.

Schaub is beginning to look like the next David Carr. The only WR on the team is Andre Johnson and suddenly he's dropping touchdowns. The best running back on the team is an undersized scatback. Who is the tight end again? The O-line looks as weak as it's ever been.

Defensively, we've got Mario and DeMeco and that's it. Somehow Petey Faggins is STILL on this team.

It seems clear to me now, after writing this, that the 0 and 2 start should have been pretty predictable. Especially after the last couple of preseason games where the team just looked like crap.

This was never going to be a playoff year. What the heck was I thinking? This team doesn't have playoff talent!

Am I wrong? Anyone?
 

Wolf

100% Texan
if this helps. I'll take steve over Reggie

I am not sure about playoff talent, but I think we don't have Playoff coaches as far as what is under Kubiak..

and who knows Kubiak is learning but sometimes seems to be out coached
 

J-Russ

Veteran
We seriously regressed from last year. Our playmakers from last season, Ryans, AJ, Schaub, Okoye, etc are going backward instead of forward. Alot of us predicted playoffs for a reason...

So, what is the reason for this regression? Is it because they overacheieved last year or is it because the coaches didn't prepare them as well as they should of? now that I think about it, this is really starting to look like that 2-14 season all over again.
 
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thunderkyss

Just win baby!!!
Staff member
Contributor's Club
Reggie is keeping me in the race in my fantasy league.

I've just finished watching the game for the first time.... it wasn't really that bad. Not like the Pittsburgh game, which was pathetic.

We were in this game, deep into the fourth quarter... I think we were just too predictable.

But Andre has always dropped balls... this isn't nothing new. IMHO, only one of those balls was perfect, and Matt Schaub has a lot to learn.

I will admit that I expected more from Schaub..... three years in the league, and we gave him a lot of money, I thought that meant he was ready to start.

Then I watched Farve & the Jets stink it up tonight.

Defensively, I know we gave up a lot of points... but I don't think the score is justified.

We've got a lot of work to do, no doubt. But I do believe this will be our best season ever.
 

TexansLucky13

53d Signal Batt
We seriously regressed from last year. Our playmakers from last season, Ryans, AJ, Schaub, Okoye, etc are going backward instead of forward. Alot of us predicted playoffs for a reason...
I'm not too sure about that. DeMeco had 13 tackles on Sunday and he is credited with leading the defense to that stellar 2nd half. Sure, the Titans offensive gameplan wasn't extremely complicated since they had the lead, but they did a hell of a job sealing LenDale and forcing 3 and outs. Also, where is Mario on that list?

Mario and DeMeco are studs and can easily be considered playoff talent. On offense, Winston, Brown and Pitts are holding their own. Slaton had a heck of a first half against that playoff caliber Titans defense, so that may qualify him (just on a one-game basis, mind you). AJ is playoff talent but he didn't play like it on Sunday.

:twocents:
 

TexansFanatic

Extremist
now that I think about it, this is really starting to look like that 2-14 season all over again.
Seasons like that tend to start out like this and then snowball. The Texans are staring 0 and 4 right in the eye. If that happens, there's a real chance for a 2 and 14 catastrophe.

If that happens, I will be at the head of the line lobbying for McNair to give Bill Cowher $10 million to un-retire.
 

J-Russ

Veteran
I'm not too sure about that. DeMeco had 13 tackles on Sunday and he is credited with leading the defense to that stellar 2nd half. Sure, the Titans offensive gameplan wasn't extremely complicated since they had the lead, but they did a hell of a job sealing LenDale and forcing 3 and outs. Also, where is Mario on that list?
That list was meant to be for players that regressed from last year. Mario is still beasting so I didn't put him on it.

I read that DeMeco look slower and less effective from last year, so I put him on the list. He looks like he's getting his on the stats sheet though.
 

GP

Go Texans!
Is this even a serious question?

(sigh)

I am going to bed now, to do what our team does when it gets tired: Lay down.

When the whistle blew, and Titans defenders continued to steamroll our running back--backward in a huge gang tackle--did Chester Pitts or any other lineman run over and shove the crap out of any of the defenders, to get them off our guy? NOPE.

Kevin Walter did. I saw him, at the end of a play, forcefully and emphatically SHOVE a defender much larger than himself to get him off our guy...and this was it. I didn't see any other Texans player make an effort to exert violence on the opponent.

Face it: Our guys SAY they are doing their jobs and that the armchair QBs need to shut their mouths...but THEY need to get some swagger and start walking the walk, IMO. THEY are the ones who think they're really putting out a lot of heart and soul out there, but they aren't. Collectively, this team is devoid of any cohesiveness.

Losing D-Rob was HUGE. He was the leader, and that's no disrespect to DeMeco because I think DeMeco is a great leader, too. But D-Rob just has that swagger about him. He LEADS by example on every play.
 

leebigeztx

Keep it Movin!
If u ever want to know if a team is playoff caliber, this is what I look at. The team has to have a top 16 o-line,d-liine and qb. There are exceptions, but the form is pretty consistent. If u avg those 3 out and its not top 16, ur not a playoff team.
 

threetoedpete

Hall of Fame
They'll be lucky not to start out 0 for four.

Look , You've got a replacement DB at one corner. A second year guy at the other. Got a rookie Sam, a bow legged Will who cannot run. Got another rook rotating in with a dinosaur @ DT. A Strong Safety playing free safety and a Strong safety who's forgotten how to tackle. One DE who is a beastie. And the other who can't reach the QB unblocked and with a free run at the QB.
And he now is a liability at holding the point of attack. That's on defense. With all the crying over Richard Smith...the guy sent five...five mind you, zone blitzes. With all due respect to John McClain...you send five guys on a zone blitz...five times, someone has to get there. And they didn't.

As far as the offense is concerned....anyone who thought the o-line would blend and bond after four preseason games was fooling themselves. What disturbs me the most is I see no, none, nada, back side cut blocks. No one on the back side puts his guy on the ground. The down field blocking is better. Pitts, for all the good it's doing. is having his best season so far. But every play, someone is breaking down and missing an assignment. They went up against two of the leagues top ten defenses and got their collective clocks cleaned. Matt's rattled and now has Carr feet. The three ints per game has got to change one way or the other. They do not have any margin in talent to spot anyone in the league with three turn overs. A.J. had his worst game in four years.

Now whether or not they sit Matt, know this going in. Rosenfelds is a streaky passer. Always has been. Always will be. He'll hit 14 of sixteen, then he'll go cold and hit six of sixteen. They have to win four in a row to get back in the race. Possible. Not probable. You thought you knew how bad Casserly and Capers left the team. Now you know for sure. Switching QBs and defensive schemes only exacerbated the carnage. Mostly, what they need is time for the youngsters to grow up. They put all of their chips on Okoye having a jump this season. So Far that hasn't happened yet. Weaver's wheels have come off the wagon. He should of been cut Monday. Too many anchors in the water slowing the ship down. Some of them we have to live with. Weaver isn't one of them.
 
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HJam72

Hall of Fame
No. I don't actually see us regressing either. What we are is consistently inconsistent. We consistently lose to the same teams, whether by a lot or very little. Some teams match up very well or very badly against one another. We are not good enough to beat teams who have matchup advantages against us. Much of this means teams that have a good 3-4 D, especially if the NT is freaking big, or a good, smash mouth, power blocking, running game. The Colts do not "matchup" well against us (anymore). They have just always had Manning. Some things are just about overall talent, of course.

Anyway, in summation, NO. :headhurts:
 

TexansFanatic

Extremist
THEY need to get some swagger and start walking the walk, IMO. THEY are the ones who think they're really putting out a lot of heart and soul out there, but they aren't.
I was thinking this very thing yesterday. It occurs to me that this team doesn't put a gram of fear into anyone's heart. They're so freaking vanilla. And---dare I say it---soft?

I do think that's a coaching issue right there. I despised Jerry Glanville. I thought he was an awful coach and an awful person. Say what you will about the man, but I don't think anyone can argue that his teams didn't show up to hit you. Those Oiler teams under Glanville were constantly blitzing, hitting, and sometimes, they were borderline dirty. Opposing teams knew they were going to get bloodied and bruised during the House of Pain era.

These Texans don't have that. Not even close.
 

nunusguy

Hall of Fame
I dunno, but Kubiak may regret hying up all that playoff-talk at the beginning of the season. But he kinda started that last year when he pulled out all the stops to win the season finale, in a game that the Jags basically treated about like a preseason game.
So I've never really thought of the Texans as even a 500 team. At best I'd put their '07 record at 7.5-8.5. But Kubiaks the one who put those expectations up there, so he's gonna have to live with them and perhaps
suffer the unfortunate consequences ?
 

Texans_Chick

Utopian Dreamer
I'm not too sure about that. DeMeco had 13 tackles on Sunday and he is credited with leading the defense to that stellar 2nd half. Sure, the Titans offensive gameplan wasn't extremely complicated since they had the lead, but they did a hell of a job sealing LenDale and forcing 3 and outs. Also, where is Mario on that list?

Mario and DeMeco are studs and can easily be considered playoff talent. On offense, Winston, Brown and Pitts are holding their own. Slaton had a heck of a first half against that playoff caliber Titans defense, so that may qualify him (just on a one-game basis, mind you). AJ is playoff talent but he didn't play like it on Sunday.

:twocents:

It's a team game. You need playmakers but you need to also have players who do well together.

As for the contention that Ryans led the team to a better second half defensive performance, that is newspaper spin. They had some nice moments, but here's my view of this at the Chron blog:

The Houston Texan defense is bad; No "awakening" in second half of Titans game

I think the general view of the team by the general public is that the offense is pathetic but gee we have spent all these high draft picks on defense and they are coming around.

And I think really, the offense clearly has been playing poorly, but has played better last year, even with some worse talent (AJ out, Dayne train). But the defense has never really played awesome. There have been some great individual performances. But when was the last time that the Texans took down an offense that was a good one with all their players healthy? <crickets>

The Texans offense under Kubiak has played above average in the past. The defense hasn't. So where do you see the best hope of a turnaround?
 
P

Polo

Guest
But when was the last time that the Texans took down an offense that was a good one with all their players healthy? <crickets>
How many times has our offense done anything against a good defense not resting their starters ? <crickets>

Our offense and defense both have beat up on mediocre teams/teams that are having off years...

If you all remember...before Kubiak took over we were struggling to even do that....
 

Double Barrel

Texans Talk Admin
Staff member
Contributor's Club
now that I think about it, this is really starting to look like that 2-14 season all over again.
As down as I've been about the Texans, we ain't that bad.

Remember, we NEVER had a lead in our first six games of the 2005 season. That was a horrible team, and I refuse to even think that we're in for another 2 win season. :headhurts:
 
P

Polo

Guest
No.

We do not have play-off talent. We don't even have players with a play-off mentality.

A bunch of nice guys normally play like a bunch of nice guys.
 

Texans_Chick

Utopian Dreamer
How many times has our offense done anything against a good defense not resting their starters ? <crickets>

Our offense and defense both have beat up on mediocre teams/teams that are having off years...

If you all remember...before Kubiak took over we were struggling to even do that....
The Texans offense finished the year ranked 14th in total offense by NFL.com stats. Put together with Ron Dayne, no AJ, duct tape and some chewing gum.

I wish I had the old Football Outsider stats because they were ranked a little higher in those, IIRC. In the FO stats, the Texans defense was near the bottom of the league.

Texans put up 28 points on a Tampa Bay defense last year that ranked #2 in the league. The Texans have traditionally stunk against a solid Titans defense, but showed moments of life (with Sage) putting up 29 points in one quarter against them last year.

Since Kubiak has come on board, you have seen at least some potential with the offense, even without all the pieces and parts he wants for it. My biggest hope is that the running game ends up working together with the passing game to get it to finally click.

The only good parts of the defense is the individual efforts of some players. But as a group, they are really difficult to watch.
 
P

Polo

Guest
The Texans offense finished the year ranked 14th in total offense by NFL.com stats. Put together with Ron Dayne, no AJ, duct tape and some chewing gum.

Yeah...And defense was so solidly put together...



Texans put up 28 points on a Tampa Bay defense last year that ranked #2 in the league. The Texans have traditionally stunk against a solid Titans defense, but showed moments of life (with Sage) putting up 29 points in one quarter against them last year.
Andre Davis returned a kick-off in that game for a score.

The Texans scored on drives of 66 yards, 23 yards, and 17 yards.

Our defense came up with some pretty timely fumbles and sacks that put us in good position to score.

http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/boxscore?game_id=29392&displayPage=tab_box_score&season=2007&week=REG14


Enough of the stats.

Be honest--when was the last time we played what you deemed to be a "tough, fast, physical defense" and our offense handled them ? When was the last time you watched a game and witnessed our offense taking it to one of those defenses ?

Sage playing well in a comeback effort against Tenesseee doesn't count...Atleast IMO, it doesn't...For so many reasons...
 
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Runner

Hubcap Diamond
Staff member
Be honest--when was the last time we played what you deemed to be a "tough, fast, physical defense" and our offense handled them ? When was the last time you watched a game and witnessed our offense taking it to one of those defenses ?
I don't know - the Vikings game from the previous era, or did they have a bad defense?
 

dskillz

Waterboy
How can anyone still be talking playoffs? Everyone says "preseason doesn't count", but we are seeing the exact same issues from preseason continue into the regular season. A defense that can't stop anyone, an offense that is not consistent and a return game that would be better fair catching the ball every time. Nothing has changed.

I was excited about 8-8 season with so many injuries, but not nearly as excited now. I think it is just a cumulative effect of a crappy preseason, keeping Ahman on the roster, 2 early losses, and the hurricane that makes me really put the Texans on the backburner.
 

Thorn

Dirty Old Man
Do the Texans have playoff talent?
As a team? NO!

Do we have individual players that are either awsome or going to be awsome and become pro-bowlers and lead us to the playoffs? YES!

But we ain't there yet.
 

Spike

Waterboy
They'll be lucky not to start out 0 for four.

Look , You've got a replacement DB at one corner. A second year guy at the other. Got a rookie Sam, a bow legged Will who cannot run. Got another rook rotating in with a dinosaur @ DT. A Strong Safety playing free safety and a Strong safety who's forgotten how to tackle. One DE who is a beastie. And the other who can't reach the QB unblocked and with a free run at the QB.
And he now is a liability at holding the point of attack. That's on defense. With all the crying over Richard Smith...the guy sent five...five mind you, zone blitzes. With all due respect to John McClain...you send five guys on a zone blitz...five times, someone has to get there. And they didn't.

As far as the offense is concerned....anyone who thought the o-line would blend and bond after four preseason games was fooling themselves. What disturbs me the most is I see no, none, nada, back side cut blocks. No one on the back side puts his guy on the ground. The down field blocking is better. Pitts, for all the good it's doing. is having his best season so far. But every play, someone is breaking down and missing an assignment. They went up against two of the leagues top ten defenses and got their collective clocks cleaned. Matt's rattled and now has Carr feet. The three ints per game has got to change one way or the other. They do not have any margin in talent to spot anyone in the league with three turn overs. A.J. had his worst game in four years.

Now whether or not they sit Matt, know this going in. Rosenfelds is a streaky passer. Always has been. Always will be. He'll hit 14 of sixteen, then he'll go cold and hit six of sixteen. They have to win four in a row to get back in the race. Possible. Not probable. You thought you knew how bad Casserly and Capers left the team. Now you know for sure. Switching QBs and defensive schemes only exacerbated the carnage. Mostly, what they need is time for the youngsters to grow up. They put all of their chips on Okoye having a jump this season. So Far that hasn't happened yet. Weaver's wheels have come off the wagon. He should of been cut Monday. Too many anchors in the water slowing the ship down. Some of them we have to live with. Weaver isn't one of them.
Always nice to see a well thought out, reasoned response.
 
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