Good response, but you're in denial...keep waiting. I rather be competive, even if it was every other year. Face it, to have a team last a decade in the NFL is very hard to do... you need a Manning/Brady. I don't see Schabb in that catergory. Funny, I'm not even looking to the playoff's, I want the division. If that happens, then want the playoffs to come to Jax. Did I say the Jags were a superior team? Nope...but, I think they are starting to "click"...the defense, in the 1st time in 2 years won the game vs. Browns. Good teams "click" in November and December. You find ways to win, does not matter on style and grace. Jags on a 3 game win streak...big test Sunday in NY. Probably will lose, but Giants are playing poor now..not "clickin'" We'll see? As for the Texans, redeem yourself and kick some Titans butt!
I'm not in denial. I have different preferences. I have the advantage of having been through this in another sport. The Rockets for the better part of a decade (92-2000) were not just competitive. They were at the top of the league year in and year out. We won 2 championships and almost never played a game that we didn't have the expectation that we would win. Contrast that with the Yao Ming era. We are perennially competitive but never win anything. We are a borderline playoff team sometimes as high as 3rd or 4th in the conference but we know that when push comes to shove we're not an elite team.
Guess what. I'll build for 20 years if I get 8-10 like the Rockets of the 90's give you. Oh. And I'm old enough to remember the 85-86 Rockets too. We went to the NBA finals one year and were a mildly competitive team for the rest of the decade but not elite until the 90's.
As a Jags fan you don't know any better. I've dealt with it with all three sports. The Oilers, while they never actually realized their potential were among the top 3 or 4 teams in the league for at least half a decade in the Moon era and we went into almost every game (save the 1-4 start before we won 11 straight) with the expectation that we would win. Yeah, that was better than the one and done.
Maybe you're under the impression that we don't really know what its like because the Texans are a young franchise. Maybe you think that my football fandom started with the Texans.
I have been a diehard fan of UT, the Astros, the Rockets, the Oilers and the Texans. We have a long history, some of it rich and some of it not so rich. I don't know who you followed before the Jags but you have basically one experience. You've had a team that's had promise almost every year and seemed like you guys realized about 75% of the promise at best. Save your first playoff appearnance you guys are the pre 2005 football version of the Houston Astros. Always decent never great.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you are a Lakers fan or a Yankees fan.... Or even a Marlin's fan. Either way, save me the lecture about denial. I'm not the one annointing a team that is long on heart and short on talent the division crown.
As for Schaub, I don't know why you seem to think he's THAT far below an elite QB. His numbers aren't as good as they were last year but I'll argue that over the last two years he's done everything you could ask of a QB to win games. There were 4 games last year that he put his team in the positon to win or tie the game on the last drive (2 missed field goals and 2 times the RB couldn't gain a yard) and then again this year he's done it 4 times (Washington, KC, Jags, Jets). The last time he had the ball in each of the games he gave his team the chance to win. That is pretty clutch. The fact that the defense is a sieve doesn't really mean much when you're evaluating him.
Is he a Manning/Brady? Certainly not yet, but lets remember that it wasn't until Bob Sanders got to Indy that everyone said that Manning was another Marino and not a "clutch". Get Schaub a defense and we might have a different conversation.
As for redeeming ourselves. That won't happen until we make S and CB a real priority. I'm not a fan of "big name free agents"... but in our case, if we were able to sign Jacque Reeves twice this team is probably a 11-13 win team. That's how big of a flaw our secondary is. AVERAGE players/Average secondary coaching would make this a borderline elite team.
Mike
