Its a long road.

I came to a realization recently when typing a respone to another post: The Texans have at least another year or more to go before they start playing competitive, "any given Sunday" football. Why? Heres my thoughts:

Capers and Kubiak have 1 thing in common - they are both system guys.

At first I thought Kubiak was a pure system guy--Someone who wouldn't adapt his system to fit the players. But then I realized something else: He IS adapting, and thats exactly why we're failing. Kubiak is a west coast, zone blocking system, mobile QB guy. Thats how he suceeds. Obviously, we don't have that here. So what does he do? Adapts.
-Enter Sherman. Bringing in Sherman allowed Kubiak to try and mix his system with GBs OL system in this hybrid system. The result? Our team looks worse than either of those systems.

So what does this mean? Kubiak needs to overhaul the personel on this team before we will suceed. We need new OL, we need a new HB. On tope of that I see us overhauling our defense quite a bit. Basically, it will take some luck, and a lot of drafts and FA periods for us to bounce back. the huge contracts and dead money we have looming overhead will keep us from really making an impact for at least a few more years.

I personally think the Texans are low on "impact" type players. The only one I can think of on offense is Johnson; any team would love that guy.

On defense I can't think of any although I suspect the Texans feel Mario will be that type of player one day and perhaps he will.

They really need to make some wise choices next draft.

Heres the biggest problem I see: Lack of players.
Heres a list of people I think are either gone or removed from starting roles after this season:

OT - Spencer - He's huge, and coming off a leg injury. Not a ZBS guy, I think he was brought in for this year and the transition only

OG - Pitts - Too big to be an effective ZBS guard. Maybe they'll move him to tackle?

C - Flannagan - He's already lost a step this year, next year I think he's really going to disapoint.

C - Hodgon - This guy just isn't cutting it imo, and ZBS centers are "supposedly" easy to find late in the draft

T - Wiegart - I bet he's done. Age + Injuries = retirement looming

WR - Mathis - I hear he's uncoachable, and now that we have a receiver that can actually contribute in the passing game and return game, I think Mathis might be out

DE - Babin or Peek - I doubt we keep both of these tweeners around

DT - Payne - I bet he's going to retire after another ACL tear

OLB - Greenwood - I actually like his play, but who pays a guy of his caliber 5+ million?

OLB - Orr - If Wong can come back healthy, I see Orr gone to a 3-4 team

CB - Sanders/Faggings/McCleon - I sure hope none of these are starting next year...

FS - Brown - This guy should be a backup

Thats a lot of replacements we need....

gtexan02 said:

OT - Spencer - He's huge, and coming off a leg injury. Not a ZBS guy, I think he was brought in for this year and the transition only

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They didn't spend the 65th pick of the draft on a guy to bring him in for a single year. You are far too hung up on size. FYI--both of Atlanta's starting guards are within spitting distance of 310 lbs. It is about ability more than a 3% difference in weight.

Its not just his size, its his mobility. i don't live in Houston, and can't watch the games, but based on his measureables (I know that is stupid, but its all I have!), he doesn't have the speed needed from a quick moving ZBS guy.

The main reason I'm doubtful on him is because the initial injury reports were that his leg could have suffered permanent damage, and that he might not recover. I haven't heard anything either way since then.

Well first of all they have to start drafting wiser. They gave away I think 2 or 3 draft choices for Buchanon and in hindsight that has really come to hurt them.

They did the same with Babin. And he's average to me at best. Certainly not worth the price.I am hopeful they can pursue some FA's next offseason for depth purposes and draft well.

And I hate to talk this way after just a few games but it seems that the Texans are already in a "next year" type mode.

gtexan02 said:

Its not just his size, its his mobility. i don't live in Houston, and can't watch the games, but based on his measureables (I know that is stupid, but its all I have!), he doesn't have the speed needed from a quick moving ZBS guy.

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You can't measure speed or footwork based on height and weight.

The main reason I'm doubtful on him is because the initial injury reports were that his leg could have suffered permanent damage, and that he might not recover. I haven't heard anything either way since then.

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Were these official reports of some kind or internet fan worries because I have seen none of the former and without that the latter is just internet hysteria?

gtexan02 said:

I came to a realization recently when typing a respone to another post: The Texans have at least another year or more to go before they start playing competitive, "any given Sunday" football. Why? Heres my thoughts:.

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According to football outsiders, the Texans have played the 4th hardest schedule in the league.

If judging games on paper, the Texans should be 0-5 instead of 1-4.

It doesn't get any easier this weekend, but if you just judged games by paper, we should probably be 0-8 historically with the Jaguars, instead of the 4-4 that the Texans are.

Of course, Kubiak needs more time to get more of his kinda players, but at this point we don't exactly know what the 2006 Texans are capable of. We have seen flashes of good play by the offense and the defense, and you never know when a team might stop thinking so much and just play. You've seen that a bit with the defensive side of the ball.

OK I did a little digging, and found some interesting things. First off, you brought up George Foster in a previous thread of an example of a big OT that moves well. So I looked a little deeper into the measureables of Spencer, and found his playing ability belies his combine results. Apparently he plays faster than his 40 time would dictate. For the doubters (like me), heres what you have:

Foster - 6'5" 338

NFL.com said:

Has a solid, athletic frame with very quick feet and good strength … Flashes a mean streak, generating a strong finish once he gets his hands on the defender … Very quick out of his stance and stays focused at the job in hand … Has excellent lateral agility, showing proper kick slide to make blocks on the move and has the short-area speed to mirror the defenders

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Spencer - 6'5" 358

NFL.com said:

Spencer is a very good athlete with the foot quickness, agility and playing speed that is hard to find. When he keeps his knees bent and pass blocks with leverage, he can slide out to the corner to cut off speed/edge rushers and can re-direct and slide back inside to handle their quick inside moves. He has the natural strength to jolt a defensive lineman and drive him off ball on straight-ahead run blocks, and can drive his man down the line of scrimmage on down/side blocks when he blocks aggressively. He can pull and make excellent blocks out in front on sweeps/tosses and can get through to the second level to seal-block a linebacker easily. His quick feet and athleticism enable him to get around a defensive lineman to make the reach block with good body position.

Click to expand...

So let me be the first to say I was wrong, and hopefully he'll make a full recovery! At least LT is a position we hopefully don't have to worry about.

Lol, after all that, heres a quote from that broncos fan "kubs-elway" in the other thread:

kubs-elway said:

3.) Foster was drafted in the first round and was a big mistake. He is not our favorite lineman.

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The cap will be the only thing that slows this process down.


1 Morlon Greenwood
$7,544,840
2 Kailee Wong
$7,030,720
3 Eric Moulds
$6,600,000
4 Seth Payne
$5,506,160
5 David Carr
$5,504,400
6 Domanick Davis
$5,384,400
7 Dunta Robinson
$4,239,400
8 Steve McKinney
$3,250,000
9 Zach Wiegert
$2,654,840
10 Kris Brown
$2,454,400
11 Mike Flanagan
$2,209,210
12 Gary Walker
$2,206,160
13 DeMarcus Faggins
$2,005,000
14 N.D. Kalu
$1,952,310
15 Jason Babin
$1,783,663
16 Dexter McCleon
$1,721,875
17 Tony Banks
$1,653,520
18 Jeb Putzier
$1,505,610
19 Barrett Green
$1,465,000
20 Travis Johnson
$1,290,000
21 Chester Pitts
$1,261,160
22 Lional Dalton
$1,204,290
23 Andre Johnson
$1,155,000
24 Jason Simmons
$1,028,960
25 Ephraim Salaam
$1,003,520
26 Sam Cowart
$1,002,530
27 Lewis Sanders
$944,400
28 Victor Riley
$816,760
29 Mark Bruener
$769,400
30 DaShon Polk
$695,280
31 Antowain Smith
$692,090
32 Troy Evans
$661,280
33 Saleem Rasheed
$658,530
34 Wali Rainer
$650,000
35 Chad Stanley
$635,280
36 Sage Rosenfels
$630,000
37 Ron Dayne
$570,500
38 Jerome Mathis
$566,000
39 David Loverne
$543,080
40 Jameel Cook
$542,200
41 Nick Luchey
$508,235
42 Ramon Walker
$461,160
43 Fred Weary
$460,600
44 Anthony Weaver
$460,170
45 Antwan Peek
$386,160
46 Bryan Pittman
$386,160
47 Seth Wand
$385,720
48 Derick Armstrong
$384,840
49 Shantee Orr
$384,840
50 Kevin Walter
$384,730
51 Michael Stone
$374,706
52 Drew Hodgdon
$355,900
53 Frank Chamberlin
$349,412
54 Charlie Anderson
$311,160
55 Glenn Earl
$311,160
56 Cody Pickett
$310,830
57 Roc Alexander
$310,720
58 Edell Shepherd
$310,390
59 Anthony Maddox
$309,840
60 Courtney Watson
$309,180
61 C.C. Brown
$305,300
62 Vonta Leach
$305,000
63 Derrick Johnson
$290,500
64 Roy Manning
$245,500
65 Guss Scott
$236,160
66 Thomas Johnson
$236,000
67 Tim Bulman
$147,006
68 Samkon Gado
$126,465
69 Doug Nienhuis
$121,765
70 Kenneth Pettway
$101,594

Where did you get your numbers? They are way off from our capologist who has been very good over time.

Link

I agree with everything you posted except Spencer, but Spencer's career might be over or he may never be the same.

We literally have to rebuild over half of the team's starters.