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Have we changed our approach?

H

houstonhurricane

Veteran
It seems that during the first five seasons, the franchise's approach to its roster has been to draft/bring in young players who will be long-term solutions. It now seems that for some key positions (RB/QB/WR), we have slowly been looking at alleged quick fixes that may only "help" us for a couple of years (Ahman Green, Jeff Garcia/Plummer).

Am I reading too much into this or does it appear there is a franchise rush to win/improve now without regard to the long-term viability of the franchise. I am not saying this is the incorrect approach, just wondering if I am reading too much into recent activities...
 
houstonhurricane said:
It seems that during the first five seasons, the franchise's approach to its roster has been to draft/bring in young players who will be long-term solutions. It now seems that for some key positions (RB/QB/WR), we have slowly been looking at alleged quick fixes that may only "help" us for a couple of years (Ahman Green, Jeff Garcia/Plummer).

Am I reading too much into this or does it appear there is a franchise rush to win/improve now without regard to the long-term viability of the franchise. I am not saying this is the incorrect approach, just wondering if I am reading too much into recent activities...
Click to expand...

The last regime was horrible in scouting and even worse in Free Agency. This regime is a little more guarded in putting pen to paper to high priced FA's and have shown they can find gems in the draft and off the waiver wire. I want to see players get better, we will see this year if they pass that litmus test.
 
Kaiser Toro said:
The last regime was horrible in scouting and even worse in Free Agency. This regime is a little more guarded in putting pen to paper to high priced FA's and have shown they can find gems in the draft and off the waiver wire. I want to see player's get better, we will see this year if they pass that litmus test.
Click to expand...

what is sad is I thought in 2002 McNair or Casserly talked about our scouting department being one of the highest paid in the league and reason was scouting was one of the most important part of building a team(obviously)

:thud:
 
I dont think that is the case....Bringing in a veteran like Plummer/Garcia is something they are going to do to push David Carr to be better....and if he cant be, then the veteran will take the job.

In the case of Ahman Green...The Texans only have Chris Taylor, Wali Lundy, and Domanick Williams right know....they are all unknowns at this point. Williams is the best of these 3 IF he can come back healthy...which we have no proof if he will or will not...Ahman Green is simply an insurance policy I think....If we sign Green, Dayne wont be brought back....and if we get a #1 I have a feeling Williams will be released...
 
The BIG issue is not how long a player is going to stay with a team, but how long his contract will. It is fine to bring in a Garcia or Green, but the contract needs to be structured so that realistically the player can be off the roster in 2-3 years and it doesn't result in a ton of dead money like the Walker, Wade, Smith contracts did. Instant, but temporary, improvement is just fine so long as it doesn't result in long term disability.
 
houstonhurricane said:
It seems that during the first five seasons, the franchise's approach to its roster has been to draft/bring in young players who will be long-term solutions. It now seems that for some key positions (RB/QB/WR), we have slowly been looking at alleged quick fixes that may only "help" us for a couple of years (Ahman Green, Jeff Garcia/Plummer).

Am I reading too much into this or does it appear there is a franchise rush to win/improve now without regard to the long-term viability of the franchise. I am not saying this is the incorrect approach, just wondering if I am reading too much into recent activities...
Click to expand...

I'll give you an example of where their plan went wrong and it has lead to a situation where we are having to improve with vets while hopefully starting to draft strong. Casserly is running the 2005 draft. Here are our picks.
1) Rd. 1 player 16 Travis Johnson DT Florida State
2) Rd. 3 player 73 Vernand Morency RB Oklahoma State
3) Rd. 4 player 114 Jerome Mathis WR Hampton
4) Rd. 5 player 151 Drew Hodgdon C Arizona State
5) Rd. 6 player 188 Ceandris Brown DB Louisiana-Lafayette
6) Rd. 7 player 227 Kenneth Pettway LB Grambling State

We also gave up our 47th and 78th pick overall for Phillip Buchanan.

So right now we have gotten pure production out of Jermone Mathis. I mean Morency with the 3rd rounder?This doesn't include using a supplemental pick in 2003 on Tony Hollings or other 2nd and 3rd rounders...guys who should contribute..on guys like Joppru and Ragone.

The idea of starting a franchise and building it right sounds great until 5 years later you look back and see what Casserly did. Right now I'd love to see some veteran leadership on offense and some intensity.
 
I think player player development has been as big an issue as talent evaluation in the past. The Texans have had very few players get better while here, no matter what their skill sets or draft position. Some of the players they have drafted and we question now would have been successful on other teams. Had they gone elsewhere, we'd be complaining now, "Why didn't we pick player X". Well, the Texans have acquired, wasted, and dumped talented players.

The jury is still out on deciding if the Kubiak regime can correct this most glaring of problems.
 
HoustonFrog said:
.

So right now we have gotten pure production out of Jermone Mathis. I mean Morency with the 3rd rounder?This doesn't include using a supplemental pick in 2003 on Tony Hollings or other 2nd and 3rd rounders...guys who should contribute..on guys like Joppru and Ragone.
Click to expand...
Morency was an excellent pick at 3rd. One reason Ahman Green has not been resigned is the Packers are satisfied with Morency. I have been to the Packers message board and many of their fans are shaking their heads about why we would give hiim up so easily.
 
houstonhurricane said:
It seems that during the first five seasons, the franchise's approach to its roster has been to draft/bring in young players who will be long-term solutions. It now seems that for some key positions (RB/QB/WR), we have slowly been looking at alleged quick fixes that may only "help" us for a couple of years (Ahman Green, Jeff Garcia/Plummer).

Am I reading too much into this or does it appear there is a franchise rush to win/improve now without regard to the long-term viability of the franchise. I am not saying this is the incorrect approach, just wondering if I am reading too much into recent activities...
Click to expand...

The first regime's plan might have been to draft and bring in long term solutions, but they continued to bring young bad players into the fold. A young bad player with bad coaching isn't going to become a good player. I think Smith will focus more on finding players that haven't had an opportunity and will flourish once given a chance. Yes, guys like Green, Lelie, and Garcia are known commodities, but I look at the Dalton and Maddux signings last year. They were the best DTs on the team. More players that play like they want to earn a paycheck is what this team needs.
 
lets just get garcia, green and lelie.
o-line depth in draft
secondary help in draft/free agency.
and sign Montae Reagoor good DT, and could be a team leader on the d-line.

roster for next year:
QB: garcia, rosenfals
RB: green/williams, gado/taylor/lundy
FB: Leach
WR: johnson,lelie,mathis/walter,anderson
TE: daniels, putzier
LT: Spencer/Ugoh
LG: Pitts, McKinney
C: Flagan, Mike Elgin
RG: Weary, rookie?
RT: Winston, Salaam

LE: Williams, Babin
RE: Weaver, Kalu
DT: Maddox, Reagor
OLB: Greenwood, rookie?
MLB: Ryans
CB: Robinson, Hood
FS: Hamilin
SS: Earl
 
A Texan said:
Morency was an excellent pick at 3rd. One reason Ahman Green has not been resigned is the Packers are satisfied with Morency. I have been to the Packers message board and many of their fans are shaking their heads about why we would give hiim up so easily.
Click to expand...

I've never seen a coach get rid of players like Kubiak has-and doing this after he said he was going to coach to a player's strength and put them in positions to succeed...notttttttttttttt. Instead, Gary has done just the opposite as he has cleaned house of virtually any player that has not played in his system. And, the really sad part, is the replacement players did not play better and those that weren't cut are on the bubble.

Capers and Kubiak share a lot of coaching similarities and-sad to say-one of those same-o's is they tell us one thing but then do another. We all know Capers watch word was 'execute.' Kubiak's is 'gotta find a way.' Are they similar? "We've got to execute those plays." "We've got to find a way to make that play work."
 
NATHANHALE said:
I've never seen a coach get rid of players like Kubiak has-and doing this after he said he was going to coach to a player's strength and put them in positions to succeed...notttttttttttttt. Instead, Gary has done just the opposite as he has cleaned house of virtually any player that has not played in his system. And, the really sad part, is the replacement players did not play better and those that weren't cut are on the bubble.

Capers and Kubiak share a lot of coaching similarities and-sad to say-one of those same-o's is they tell us one thing but then do another. We all know Capers watch word was 'execute.' Kubiak's is 'gotta find a way.' Are they similar? "We've got to execute those plays." "We've got to find a way to make that play work."
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And in the process tripled our win total...god, fire him now!
 
A Texan said:
Morency was an excellent pick at 3rd. One reason Ahman Green has not been resigned is the Packers are satisfied with Morency. I have been to the Packers message board and many of their fans are shaking their heads about why we would give hiim up so easily.
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For what we needed at that place and time, it was a bad pick. No matter how the guy turns out at the moment we had alot more holes than another RB. At the time that happened we still had DD and needed O-line. Not one of those guys, except a center, was an O-lineman. Your 3rd rounders aren't supposed to be guys who might be good down the road, they are supposed to contribute. That was our second pick of the draft. That is like the pick we wasted on Ragone. Plus we already had given up the supplemental pick earlier for Hollings.

Do I like the guy and wonder why he was cut?Yes. But at the time, he wasn't what we needed with that pick.
 
NATHANHALE said:
I've never seen a coach get rid of players like Kubiak has-and doing this after he said he was going to coach to a player's strength and put them in positions to succeed...notttttttttttttt. Instead, Gary has done just the opposite as he has cleaned house of virtually any player that has not played in his system. And, the really sad part, is the replacement players did not play better and those that weren't cut are on the bubble.

Capers and Kubiak share a lot of coaching similarities and-sad to say-one of those same-o's is they tell us one thing but then do another. We all know Capers watch word was 'execute.' Kubiak's is 'gotta find a way.' Are they similar? "We've got to execute those plays." "We've got to find a way to make that play work."
Click to expand...

Casserly hamstrung us with his awful moves and future cap implications. Moreover, the scouting dept failed us. Kubiak has indeed failed with Carr, but outside of that he had a good draft, threw some guys in off of the waiver that will add depth if re-signed, increased our win count, brought more excitment to Reliant than I ever recall, beat the Colts and continues to make moves that are right for this team except for his inaction around one player.

If you expected to win more than six games last year then I could see how you would be disappointed. There is coach speak that each coach has from the coaches they developed under, but trying to link two very different coaches due to their "go to" phrase is overboard in my opinion.
 
houstonhurricane said:
It seems that during the first five seasons, the franchise's approach to its roster has been to draft/bring in young players who will be long-term solutions. It now seems that for some key positions (RB/QB/WR), we have slowly been looking at alleged quick fixes that may only "help" us for a couple of years (Ahman Green, Jeff Garcia/Plummer).

Am I reading too much into this or does it appear there is a franchise rush to win/improve now without regard to the long-term viability of the franchise. I am not saying this is the incorrect approach, just wondering if I am reading too much into recent activities...
Click to expand...

well, it's kinda hard not to bring in young players through the draft.

But I can't remember brining in any young free agents, much less any free agents that have actually helped this team, until Kubiak that is, and with the exception of Moulds & Cowart, the FAs he brought in were younger than all the FAs Casserly & Capers did.
 
A Texan said:
Morency was an excellent pick at 3rd. One reason Ahman Green has not been resigned is the Packers are satisfied with Morency. I have been to the Packers message board and many of their fans are shaking their heads about why we would give hiim up so easily.
Click to expand...

I agree with Morency... one of the reasons I wasn't too worried about DDW not playing last offseason, was because I expected Morency to be able to do as well. I also expected our line to play better, since it was simply a tweak & not a totally new system... I was way off about that, I'll admit.

I was also impressed with what Gado did in '05, and couldn't imagine the Pack letting him go...

I'm also satisfied with Hogdon where he was picked, and Jerome Mathis.

TJ was a miss... Babin... I didn't care for Babin really, but he's been growing on me ever since the first time I saw him. Worth a 1st round pick?? I don't know about all that, but he is a football player.
 
I think we've changed our approach from just a couple months ago. Kubiak and Smith had said a number of times that we would be very active in free agency and so far nothing...not that that's a bad thing, but it's obvious we are being much more careful this year than in past years.
 
TexanFan881 said:
I think we've changed our approach from just a couple months ago. Kubiak and Smith had said a number of times that we would be very active in free agency and so far nothing...not that that's a bad thing, but it's obvious we are being much more careful this year than in past years.
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Active and Careful aren't necessarily exclusive. We can be both. Let the insane contracts get offered and pick up some key solid free agents when the dust settles. It's beyond me why some folks think Free Agency lasts 48 hours.
 
i like the idea of bringing in vets for 2-3 yrs. from a winning atmosphere to change the culture of the team while our new regimes draft picks mature
 
houstonhurricane said:
It seems that during the first five seasons, the franchise's approach to its roster has been to draft/bring in young players who will be long-term solutions. It now seems that for some key positions (RB/QB/WR), we have slowly been looking at alleged quick fixes that may only "help" us for a couple of years (Ahman Green, Jeff Garcia/Plummer).

Am I reading too much into this or does it appear there is a franchise rush to win/improve now without regard to the long-term viability of the franchise. I am not saying this is the incorrect approach, just wondering if I am reading too much into recent activities...
Click to expand...

DUDE..this is the NFL...at this point...its almost like PRO WRESTLING....the whole show is a gimmic and a business...Fans wanna see wins...there's no more building for the future anymore..its ridiculous to me, but thas the way it is...We cut Eric moulds after one year...and he signed a 4year deal! Every guy out there is a hired hand...They are PAID to figure out the system quickly and to gel and to win...
 
houstonhurricane said:
It seems that during the first five seasons, the franchise's approach to its roster has been to draft/bring in young players who will be long-term solutions. It now seems that for some key positions (RB/QB/WR), we have slowly been looking at alleged quick fixes that may only "help" us for a couple of years (Ahman Green, Jeff Garcia/Plummer).

Am I reading too much into this or does it appear there is a franchise rush to win/improve now without regard to the long-term viability of the franchise. I am not saying this is the incorrect approach, just wondering if I am reading too much into recent activities...
Click to expand...

I agree that appears to be a temptation to sign older players for a quick fix. That's why I'm glad some of these free agent QBs are getting picked by other teams. At least we won't get stuck with them.
:highfive:
 
houstonhurricane said:
It seems that during the first five seasons, the franchise's approach to its roster has been to draft/bring in young players who will be long-term solutions. It now seems that for some key positions (RB/QB/WR), we have slowly been looking at alleged quick fixes that may only "help" us for a couple of years (Ahman Green, Jeff Garcia/Plummer).

Am I reading too much into this or does it appear there is a franchise rush to win/improve now without regard to the long-term viability of the franchise. I am not saying this is the incorrect approach, just wondering if I am reading too much into recent activities...
Click to expand...

They are clearing cap dollars. Look at the thread Vinny just put up. We have roughly...14 Mill (guess by me with the AJ redone contract and DC gone) in '08 the slate should be pretty clean...74 million so far. They've got the mop out and they are clening the poo poo that CC and Capers left on the Texan's floor. It was a very big poo poo. Reality is as of now...we have four picks that can come in and help the club in '07, the #8, 39, 71 and 104. Make your own "needs" list. Then look at what is going on in free agency with the elite guys and what they are being paid. Now think about the four new guys you bring in via the draft. There are only so many holes they can plug in one off season.

IMHO, You're reading in too much. They're just clearing cap dollars. Smith and Kubick are setting up for the '08 off season and putting the most competitive football club on the feild for you they possibly can under the circumstance and resrtiction that they find themselves in in '07. They are a good coach and GM. Give them some time.
 
threetoedpete said:
They're just clearing cap dollars. Smith and Kubick are setting up for the '08 off season and putting the most competitive football club on the feild for you they possibly can under the circumstance and resrtiction that they find themselves in in '07. They are a good coach and GM. Give them some time.
Click to expand...

I completely and totally agree.

We might disagree on who and what we need but on this point, we don't.
 
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