Interesting observations about the quarterback - holding the ball too long last year was what was blamed for all those sacks. Certainly not the line.
And in the first few weeks of the 2007 season, the Texans offense did very well with a lightning-release from a much-improved quarterback. He did struggle when he took anything more than his speedy attack.
I've had this insane idea that maybe if the line was better, the quarterback would have more time than is needed in a lightning-release attack. He could have the kind of time Joey Harrington and Mark Brunell have had when their respective teams played the Texans. He might not be taken out of the game. But this is probably crazy talk, blaming the line for these problems...
So I agree with you completely, as long as everything is done to circumvent the line (e.g., asking the quarterback to finish his end of the job before the defensive linemen can take three steps), the Texans will excel. But in games where the quarterback takes a more "normal" time, it will be very hard to win.
Well, let's just go down to O Lines R Us and get us some good linemen OK?
Oh wait...we can't do that. We'll have to just wait and address it after the season.
Afraid we won't address it after this season? That's actually a logical fear to have, I admit it as much.
But here's the deal: Due to a complete and utter lack of management by the previous HC and GM...we had too many holes to fill in too short a time.
We HAD to get the d line shored up, and we have. I doubt we see a 1st day pick on d line in 2008.
We HAD a pretty good LT named Charles Spencer until he went down. IIRC, we drafted o line back-to-back in the third round to get Spencer and Winston. Winston is doing OK, IMO. Spencer in there would help a little.
Other teams are locking up their good o linemen, which is smart. We didn't sell the farm to get Orlando Pace...aren't you glad? He's sitting on a couch and costing HIS team a lot of cap space, not ours.
Perhaps we can pull a 49ers and spend big on o line the same way they spent big on Nate Clements.
Until then, the best we can do is do what got us the win in weeks 1 and 2: Get the ball into our WRs hands--3 and 4 WR sets, and get it into their hands so they can make the plays.
If that's MY fault for seeing that THAT'S the only thing that's getting us anywhere, then continue to bash me.
Everybody wants to know what we can do? We can do what we can do. And what we can do, right now, is to have Kubiak stop pretending that this offense is going to turn a corner and become some powerhouse team that can do whatever it wants as long as we "wish and hope and believe enough in it."
My ability to say "Hey! Get rid of the ball, it's been working when you DO it.." is not also a statement by me that says I think we should stop scrutinizing the o line.
I'm not THAT blind or ignorant.
But if you want to stop the bleeding, if you want to see us stop getting steamrolled early and often in games...well, maybe we should play to our strengths and then attempt to address this fractured oline when we CAN.
Crying about the oline is not going to make the coaches and the GM go "OH! Let's cut 'em all and go find us some good olinemen! They might be near the aisle where RBs and DCs are located..."
Free agency is dead. The draft is where you have to build your team at every position, and then you LOCK UP those guys and keep them like Indy does.
We've had two years, and I think Kubiak/Rick Smith have done all they can do in terms of what you can do in two drafts and virtually no free money to wave at free agents.
Until 2008, we gotta' get rid of the ball and play hide-and-go-seek if we want to NOT get slaughtered.
Sorry if this peeves people off, but the other solution is to (A) pretend we can do what other teams do on gameday, which we cannot...or (B) go out and get us some big name free agents, which we cannot until we get the free'd up cap space.