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Addressing the Texans defense

D

DominatorDavis

Waterboy
I am a little skeptical of how our defense will perform in 04'. I think that the defensive staff is echoing that concern as well. The signing of Robier Smith from the Titans (who?) to a big contract this offseason, the release of (SS) Stevens - a good move, and the drafting of 2 1st round rooks that will have to start and have a positive impact. One thing that we do have more of last year is some depth at NT - I like Sears and hopefully he'll be able to fill in nicely for Smith when he is catching a breather. I would like to know if anyone has heard anything about Glenn Earl's progress as well. And is it feasable to expect that this defense will return to it's 10th place ranking that it had in 2002?
 
Not sure about 10th place but it should be much better than last year. IMO we addressed defense this offseason and this draft because we already have our young, playmaker guys on offense, Carr, Davis, and AJ, as well as the signing of Todd Smith, and our defensive guys are getting a little older.
 
DominatorDavis said:
I am a little skeptical of how our defense will perform in 04'. I think that the defensive staff is echoing that concern as well.
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Where did you hear that from? I would tend to think that the staff is actually pretty positive and excited about having a mostly defensive draft for a change to work with.


DominatorDavis said:
The signing of Robier Smith from the Titans (who?)
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Robaire Smith, although playing alongside three former first round picks, was a definite force on the NFL's second ranked rush defense last year (right?), and projects as an ideal DE in the 34. Capers even said they had to scheme for him when they played the Titans. Both Smith and Todd Wade were considered top-10 UFA's, so although you may have not heard of them, someone obviously has.

I think Glenn Earl is on a similar plan as Tony Hollings was on last year. That is that they want to ease him back in to football and hope to have him up to full strength by the end of the season/offseason at the latest.

I think the Texans defense, barring any significant injuries, absolutely has a chance to return to its 2002 form. The major additions we've made since 2002 (e.g. Smith, Robinson, Babin, McCree, etc) are definitely greater than the subtractions (Posey, Stevens, Martin, etc). Just my two cents.
 
I think the Texans defense, barring any significant injuries, absolutely has a chance to return to its 2002 form. The major additions we've made since 2002 (e.g. Smith, Robinson, Babin, McCree, etc) are definitely greater than the subtractions (Posey, Stevens, Martin, etc). Just my two cents.
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Actually Martin played for NE in 2002 so the only subtractions from the 2002 defense are Posey and Stevens--and really the subtraction of Stevens is by itself and addition.
 
DominatorDavis said:
And is it feasable to expect that this defense will return to it's 10th place ranking that it had in 2002?
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Was that 10th place in a 16 team AFC? I should hope we could "return" to that. That isn't too impressive really. It takes a few years to build a team full of starters and first tier reserves. We are on our way.
 
DominatorDavis said:
I am a little skeptical of how our defense will perform in 04'. I think that the defensive staff is echoing that concern as well. The signing of Robier Smith from the Titans (who?) to a big contract this offseason, the release of (SS) Stevens - a good move, and the drafting of 2 1st round rooks that will have to start and have a positive impact. One thing that we do have more of last year is some depth at NT - I like Sears and hopefully he'll be able to fill in nicely for Smith when he is catching a breather. I would like to know if anyone has heard anything about Glenn Earl's progress as well. And is it feasable to expect that this defense will return to it's 10th place ranking that it had in 2002?
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yup!! Hm... maybe will become the Bucs great defense ; what I mean is maybe we'll have the BEST defense like they did and then they won a Super Bowl and maybe that'll happen to us. Get ready Texans 2004 opponents :soldier:
 
DominatorDavis said:
I am a little skeptical of how our defense will perform in 04'. I think that the defensive staff is echoing that concern as well. The signing of Robier Smith from the Titans (who?)
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Smith was a huge contributer last year to the Titans second ranked run D and he can be a pro-bowl type player in the 3-4 scheme. We should have 2 powerful DEs lineing up when we play. :taz:
 
well i think the more important thing to remember is that this offseason we added bulk to the line and speed everywhere else...let's face it clemons wasn't the fastest LB out there...babin comes in running a 4.6 40...pretty fast for a 260lb LB...robinson running average 4.4 40 pretty up there for your regular starting corner but during his personal workouts we saw him at 4.34 or something like that...coleman is a huge upgrade over stevens...and still an upgrade over mccree who we have as a back up safety...that's huge...who knows he might even be challenging brown for the starting SS position...ramon walker, glenn earl, and curry burns all have great potential still...walker is a menice on special teams...burns is a servicable back-up and earl is a possible starter at SS in a few years...expect more competition in our LBing corps...the only one i see with a sure starting job is sharper...our d-line is improved by smith...but more so from the depth that he allows us to have...deloach, sears, martin, and renteria(a guy i think will make the squad) are all solid back-ups...good rotation guys...overall our offseason has been an interesting one...can't wait to see how it translates onto the field
 
The amount of depth and overall flexibility of the secondary is what I believe will help. Other than the Dline not giving any QB pressure, some of our 31st ranked pass defense can be attributed to lack of real depth. When Glenn or Coleman went down, we had noone except for Wright to come in and contribute largely. Also Mcree didn't start until like the 6th game of the season and I think that was only after he was acquired by the team only a few weeks before that. Now we have a proven serviceable backup at FS, a very good back up at CB in Coleman should one of our CBs go down, and if our SS goes down we got Mcree and Coleman to decide from.

Now that you look at the options, this is a great move.

On our defensive line, I think last year will prove to be excellent experience for those that had to play last year.
 
I'm not too worried about our defense. We upgraded considerably this off-season and it looks great on paper as of now. My only concern is Payne, that guy would make a huge difference if he were to come back strong enough to play the entire season with good rotation in his spot.
 
Look at like this, the defense cant get much worse from last year so everything is an improvement. I think Babin and Smith will adjust great. Robinson will struggle at times though.
 
The past 20 Super Bowl champions have ALL been ranked among the top eight in fewest points allowed. In fact, the Raiders are the only franchise to win a Super Bowl without being ranked in the top eight. And nobody ranked lower than 13th has ever won the Super Bowl.

History tells us that if you don't have the defense to be ranked in the top eight in fewest points allowed, you won't win the Super Bowl, no matter how good your offense is. But if you do, you have a chance to win it even if your offense is below-average.
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I found this quote on another board, and the member is extremely astute. I just wanted to share this with you all. Great D wins championships.
 
Texans D will be a force but if, and unfortunately only if, defensive tackle Seth Payne comes back and operates at 75% or better. The nose tackle in the 3-4 is that important and our defensive production dropped off significantly after his injury last year with backups not meant to be starters.

Think of the last two Super Bowl winners and you will find they had at least one dominating interior d-lineman (i.e. Warren Sapp and Ted Washington...and watch the dramatic difference they make to the Oakland Raider's defense).

The Texans defensive additions and shuffling, along with a clean health report, will produce a winner and dominant team.
 
All in all, our D has a lot of potential The secondary should be obviously improved and assuming we can keep our D-line healthy thats a pretty solid crew as well. I am actually pretty interested in how the LB positions will shape up thru the pre-season, lot of different moves we could make there...I have seen a lot of posts and threads on who the 4 starters will be, I actually think that they will use a package system based on what we are game planning for the offense.
 
Quite frankly I don't think the Texans D will be #10 this year, but they will certainly be improved from the #31 position of last year. Just where they will end up this year is open to debate, but I would say middle of the pack or even a little better.The only thing I am still confused about is, after Seth Payne's severe knee injury, why they didn't do something more meaningful about getting a 1st stringer type to man the NT position till Seth is back to full strength.
 
SteelBlue said:
I found this quote on another board, and the member is extremely astute. I just wanted to share this with you all. Great D wins championships.
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Tampa Bay and the Patriots are both prime examples
 
I feel the Texans are going to have a breakout season for two reasons
1. we not only upgraded our defense but we also added dept :woot:
(and we all know how quickly a roster can be shortened in a NFL season)
2. our offense is one year older meaning more expierence together

P.S. Jamal lord and Sloan Thomas are sleepers their both exploading with talent look for them to be doing big things in the future :crazy:
 
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as much as i would love for our rookies to make an impact immediently im not holding my breath i think we should be patient with babins and robinson in 3 years i think they both will be pro bowlers but next year not a real impact :bag: sorry

P.S. this monkey kills me :monkey:
 
B.Diddy said:
...i think we should be patient with babins and robinson in 3 years i think they both will be pro bowlers but next year not a real impact :bag: sorry
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I disagree that they wont have an impact this year. I, for some reason, see Babin having a hell of a year. Robinson however will look great some times and lost the other times.
 
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