It is real funny to see McClain now spouting what a number of us have been saying for a long time.
To begin with the 1st mistake made by the organization - probably in this case Casserly - was to hire Capers not realizing how inflexible he was to various aspects of the game. He was hired because he was organized, he was considered a very good guy and a role model, and he was considered to be one of the better defensive coaches around.
Then Palmer was brought into the picture and his views were very much different from Capers, but people simply didn't realize it at the time.
Then they went and picked available players from other teams to play for the new team called the Texans and knowing who their 1st round pick was going to be. They picked a vertern aged defensive group with the hope for LT of Boselli. The key to this once again was an aged defensive group. Little thought was given to offense, because they were going to pick up FA's and use the draft for their offensve figuring that defense would carry the day and the offense could be developed.
When it came draft day of course I believe their number 1 pick was going to be either Carr or Harrington and Casserly had been following David for a long time and probably felt Carr fit the mold of the Texans better than any other offensive player on the board. He was a very decent young man with a lot of character who could throw the ball very well. He was thought to be an excellent candidate to become one of the better QB's in the league. However, he did not fit the mold of the type of game Capers wanted to play. David was a passer with outstanding strength in his arm, but not known for handing off the ball. Capers on the other hand wanted a ball control offense. That was not David's forte. The Texans had not drafted a fit that was comfortible for Capers.
Things began to fall apart when it was found that Mr. B was not going to be available the 1st year. However, with a young spirited group and Mr. B leading the charge on the sidelines we seemed to perform the impossible feat and beat Dallas on the opening day. To this date that might have been our best game although we certainly have a couple of others that could push that envelope. We had a spirited 1st year and I believe that Mr. B was a big part of that while he was on the sidelines and our vertern defensive group had spirit and were playing up to their potential. At the end of the 1st year all of us were looking forward to year 2 and the upcoming 2nd draft. The draft came and we were all excited about year 2. In year 2 we drafted Wand and we picked up Brown, but they still had hopes for Mr. B up to the end.
Year 2 was the beginning of the down fall of the Texans. We suffered an almost extraordinary number of injuries and many of those were to our aged vetern defensive players and Mr B was no longer roaming the side lines. We saw us playing very conservatively with a QB who could throw the ball, but basically wasn't given the option or the time to do it. Carr had some injury problems himself, but the number of sacks were going down and DD had had an outstanding year and we thought year 3 might be the beginning of something good.
However, in the off season Capers and Pendry began to plan the shift to the Zone blocking scheme. We didn't have the personnel to do it and it went away from the stength of the QB. We began to see a transtition into what we are not. However, the worst part of this 3rd year draft was that they were now having to some how repair an aged defensive staff who had not recovered fully from the prior years injuries. We simply floundered in year 3 and were told by McNair that year 4 would be different, because David would be protected. Year 4 came along and they drafted defensively in the higher order of the draft, because that's Capers' comfort zone. Actually, we probably procurred a player who may be the talk of the league before he's through with football. That player is Mathis. We got rid of vertern players who were catching on to the Capers problem and everything began to fall apart, because the vetern defense fell apart and that was the end of the plan.
Again who have we drafted who most would consider keepers -
AJ
DD
Carr
Mathis
DRob
Gaffny
PITTS
The majority of these people are offenisve in nature with a defensive minded coach with an aged group of veterns who were falling by the way side due to injury. Did the coach elevate his offensive team and try to compensate. No, he became more conservative. This was a team doomed to failure from the start simply because the key coaches - Pendry and Capers - were incapable of adapting to what they had and made things worse rather than better by what they did. I have stead fastly stated that the year 2 injuries this ball club suffered were the nail in the coffen as far as Capers was concerned. He has never recovered from that season and never will. The so called 5 year plan, if it exsisted, went out the door with those injuries.
I still say Casserly has done his job and drafted reasonably well given the directions of his coaching staff. It is the failure of the coaching staff, however, to develop what we have. You see this well when other teams suffer injuries and someone comes on to replace the downed player. It doesn't always happen, but it seldom ever happens with the Texans.
After the 1st game of the season, McNair should have known he had been misinformed - I could make a stronger statement - about what had transpired to fix the O-line. They should have been fired at the end of game 1 or 2 and said its time to go in another direction. I say that simply because most coaches know that no one is normally fired during the season. The coaches felt safe for the rest of the season and that was not good for the team.
Perhaps the most damning thing you can say, however, about this coaching staff is that they simply did not play to the strengths of their players. Carr is anything but a ball control QB. PBuc is certainly not adapting to our defensive system what ever that is. TJ is there, but is certainly not a number 1 impact player, AJ has been ineffective to say the least. Gaffny quite frankly has suprised me and I was dead wrong on him this year. The O-line has been a blooming mess and the Defense is atroucious. The one bright spot has been Marciano and Mathis doing their thing. Its funny how people are just now catching on to this. What I'm saying is yes I'm defensive of Carr, but also everyone else on this ball club. I have stead fastly stated to evaluate any player on this ball club based on the coaching they have received is pointless. People have been made to play in a way that is extemely nonproductive and stupid. Get rid of the coaches and get a competent group of coaches. They may have to conclude that some players have been so damaged by this regime that they simply can't be rehabilitated. That is indeed a sorry state of afairs.
