Hello all,
I occasionally talk football at another forum and thought it was interesting to read another NFL fan's thoughts on our football team:
Here is what he said when comparing Denver to Houston:
"Its rather interesting to see Denver and Houston make moves. Shanahan, and now Kubiak, keep most things in house. The teams are complete opposites right now. Denver is stacked at skill positions, Marshall, Stokely, Walker, Scheffler, Graham, Henry, Cutler, Champ, Dre, Lynch. Outside of AJ and Dunta there are not too many playmakers on the team. Then our lines and LBs outside of DJ are POOR right now, but Houtson has Okoye, Williams, Ryans, and the rest of the Texans line and LBs are pretty stacked."
I disagreed with him on his assesment of our WR/TE core as well as his overrating our DL/LB. I think he looked at the talent more than the production jmo though.
Your thoughts?
My thoughts on Denver and Houston comparisons.
I think they are having a twinish situation.
Their offenses are systems and the coaches have strong philosophies as to what they want for their offense. Though the offenses look good at times, and put up some fat stats sometimes, their offense struggles with youth at the skill positions, particularly quarterback. Denver's offensive line is not what it should be, and their run game is not consistent like it used to be, and maybe their are some questions at line coaching. The Texans line is improving, but having the different styles of offensive line blocking makes it harder to disguise what they are running on offense, which is a part of what Kubiak likes to do. They've had difficulty having a consistent running game.
The best part of the offense is that the head coaches know what they want on offense. Kubiak knows the run game is an issue, so he get Gibbs.
The worst part of both teams is that though they know what they want to do philosophically on offense, they are completely lost when it comes to the defensive side of the ball. Both teams throw talent on the defensive side of the ball (Denver mostly in the secondary and Houston mostly on the line), but there is no Denver-style or Houston-style defense other than putrid. They figure if they put enough talent there, something good will happen.
The Broncos got a defensive coordinator and canned him after one year. We have an inexperienced defensive coordinator and our defense has performed worse than Denvers but so far there aren't significant coaching changes in the offing on that side of the ball.
So the philosophies are: get the system guys on offense, and hope to throw enough talent on the defensive side of the ball so that something eventually good happens even if they don't have much of a defined philosophy. That if the offense gets good enough, the defense can be aggressive because they are playing from ahead.
The biggest differences in the teams, as I see them is two-fold:
1. The Texans care about special teams. They have had to because that is a way that bad teams can steal wins. If their STs can stay good, while improving the rest of the team, that could be a cool thing.
2. Character. Kubiak/McNair/Rick Smith care more about the character of their players than Shanahan does. Shanahan will take more risks with that sort of thing, mostly because he has enough good will with the owner and fanbase that he can. Maurice Clarett was a Shanahan pick, (Smith was not a fan).
I think Shanahan misses Kubiak and a lot of the personnel that have left over the years. I think the Denver team would be much better if they still had Kubiak, Pariani, and Gibbs in particular. I think both teams could use a stud coordinator for the defensive side of the ball--someone with a proven philosophy and the ability to identify, acquire and draft the kind of guys he needs to run his defense.