I blame Davis Mills.
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Welcome Home, DeMeco Ryans
- Thread starter Mollywhopper
- Start date
It's naive to think this schedule is easy.
Most of the teams on it have their arrow pointing upward.
Some of them were dealing with injuries; others were tanking just like the Texans.
When you're already rock bottom, that's the only direction the arrow can go.
Yes and No.
Many of those teams weren't at rock bottom.
A quick look at the first four opponents:
Ravens were 8-4 before Lamar went down and finished 10-7.
Colts missed an All-Pro and two of their Pro-Bowlers were playing hurt and missed many games.
They tanked toward the end of the year, at least when they yanked Matt Ryans.
The Steelers missed TJ in the first half. They finished the season strong by going 7-1 at the end.
The Jags were young and building; they finished the season similarly by going 6-1 at the end.
Number19
Hall of Fame
Power Rankings is a better tool. Still subjective but at least there's the attempt to take into account the current strengths and weaknesses of the teams. The last time I checked, there were 10 teams on our schedule in the bottom half of the ranking, which the Texans should be competitive with.
True.
But some teams have a history of doing things right & have some expectation of consistency. Of course, that too changes over time. A team like the Texans can go from worst to first over a season, then first to worst the next.
When I look at the schedule I'm looking at that team over a period of time.
Off-season Power Ranking is worthless.
It's especially way too early at the moment.
Look at this Power Ranking a month ahead of the regular season and see how wrong it became.
Number19
Hall of Fame
No not worthless. What else is there, that's better, to give the casual fan something to work with.
Way too high on Lovie’s Texans.
A Power Ranking after the Pre-Season just ahead of the regular season seems like a better starting point if you're after something like that.
Personally, I think it's best to wait until they had played at least one real game.
Number19
Hall of Fame
That's no fun. We're not to drink cool-aid and forecast the season for the next month and a half?
Haven't seen her in a while!
I didn't say the only way to be successful is to do things the way I would do them. What I did say is with the added talent and weaker schedule they should win 10 games. This fanbase has been conditioned to have low expectations.
Is the Texans org not in this same boat? Do you not think the defense will be a top 15 defense? Do you not think the ol will be better as well as the run game? The only game they will be less talented in will be the Bengals game. Why dont you think they cant win 10 games is a better question.
Texansballer74
The Marine
Won’t know that until we see some real time football action. Nobody can predict none of that right now.
The talent is there though. Just gotta stay relatively healthy and get avg to slightly above avg QB play.
Carr Bombed
Hall of Fame
Not all win totals are created equal though.. a 7 and 10 record in the AFC North is probably equal to a 10 and 7 record in the AFC South
Well that's taking the scenic route, innit..
For example. With this WR group. Can anyone really predict their production? Do they even have a WR as good as Cooks on the roster? Who is the #1 WR on this team?
heymak
"I know nothing!". (Veteran)
Posted for dramatic effect.
Fans league wide are saying their teams do
Texansballer74
The Marine
Exactly.
You said they should win 4-6 games last year.
The schedule turned out to be easier, yet the Texans still underachieved your benchmark.
2022 Strength of Schedule.......Uh Oh!
The Texans have the 5th most difficult schedule in the NFL. Our 1st game is against the team with THE most difficult schedule.........the Chief. (Although the official schedule has not been released yet, I am hearing that it will be a home game.)...
www.texanstalk.com
Colts were weaker and they tanked.
Only reason why the Texans could muster out the win.
Bears were weaker (3-14) yet they still beat the Texans.
Broncos were weaker (5-12); they still beat the Texans.
Same for the Raiders, Titans.
You had low ecpectations for them before, knowing that they were going to have more draft picks and more cap space.
You knew the roster is going to improve.
Yet, you still said that they won't be able to compete until 2024.
In fact, you even proposed for them to tank again this year so that they can draft Williams or Maye next year.
You knew that they will have "an easy schedule" again as you predicted that they would win only 4-6 games last year.
.....
But now that they drafted Stroud (whom you don't like at all), you simply do an about face on everything.
Just admit that you have an agenda and move on.
It doesn't matter what I think of the team.
We've been discussing about your view, or rather, your agenda.
Texansballer74
The Marine
The Texans were tanking too. Ole Speedy was spot on.
Dejaview
Wahoo Sabi
Wow that took some math. Or you could just ask do you think the Texans will have a winning record this year
Texans weren't trying to tank early on.
Bears, Broncos, Raiders were early games.
Texans just weren't good enough even against bad teams.
We all figured in some losses in our prediction (maybe not your rosy one) due to tanking to predict the total win numbers (in my case): about 4 wins, maybe 3.
Yes, I wanted them to tank again, because I think next yrs QB class is much better and tanking 1 more yr is clearly worth it. IMHO.
They chose not to go this way and added veterans like Ward/Rankins/Ridgeway/Perryman/Littleton/Griff to the defense.
Adding Schultz/Mason/Singleton/Woods etc... and drafting Scruggs/Dell/Patterson etc... to the offense gives them more than enough fire power on offense to win 10 games against this schedule.
Surely you can see why expectations have changed. Ryans and company have higher expectations than many on this MB have. If the OL can stay healthy and there's more depth this yr, then there's no reason Stroud shouldn't be 75-80% of what Purdy is and that should be good enough to win 9-10 games.
I matters, I notice you wont call your shots before the season starts. That's the way cowards operate. (Not saying you're a coward, just talking about thought processes.
What agenda
The I think they should win 9-10 games agenda? If that's an agenda then I'm guilty as charged.
Texansballer74
The Marine
Yes they were brother. They had a bunch of placeholders and they wanted a top 3 pick. Which worked out perfectly because they got two top 3 picks.
Didn't you predict that they would win 10 games or sumthing?
Nah, just setting the record straight before going into the arguments.
You're the only one who has two sets of expectations, at least from what I can see on the board.
I saw people saying anywhere between 6-9 wins with a few exceptions.
You, yourself had 6 wins.
Poll - win total/reasons for optimism
Let's see if we as a bunch of Texans fans can get closer to reality than the fancy pundits who seem oblivious to the quality of the off-season Texans FO have navigated. How many wins will Texans have in 2023 season? This is the poll question. The discussion can center around the reasons for our...
www.texanstalk.com
That is until you decide to talk down on Stroud.
I've already stated that my thinking on the team has nothing to do with this particular argument.
But for the record, in the thread I just brought up, I had voted 8 wins.
austins23
Hall of Fame
My wife and I drove 13 hours to Denver to watch our Texans take on the Broncos last year. That game was ripe for the W. What I remember most about that game is the D playing its Arse off and the Offfense coming out with a crap game plan and never changing it up. Granted, Mills was not sharp that game but he didn't have to be. He just needed to be average and that game was an easy win.
Texansballer74
The Marine
Yep . And that’s why I gave Speedy his props for being spot on. You did read that part as well huhDidn't you predict that they would win 10 games or sumthing?
Speedy
Former Yeller Dweller
Just gotta look at it with an unbiased view and not get caught up in the fluff pieces. Believe me, I want the Texans to win every damn game, but the talent they had the past couple of years suggested that they were not even close.
I will say, doing a hard look at the roster this past week and comparing it to last year, I do see an uptick in talent in a few areas. DL, LB, RB, TE. I think the OL even has better talent. Now, Green improving helps out a ton there. We'll see. QB will be better ... eventually. Who knows how the WR room turns out. There's not a true WR1, but I think there's better depth.
The weakest areas might be secondary depth. Stingley has to stay on the field. It's sounding like Nelson is out. King, Griffin and Thomas gives you a little depth but definitely a fall off. And it's worse at safety. After Pitre and Ward, it drops off pretty hard.
It's looking like I'll have them somewhere in the 5-7, 6-8 win range this year. Probably depends mostly on QB play. Even if it's Stroud starting early, rookies don't typically win a lot of games their 1st year. There's exceptions, sure. But if it's Mills starting for any significant length of time, I don't feel too confident the wins will come.