DGDB&D: a Texans blog.

The loser will be taunted and booed until my throat is sore.

Oct 19, 2007 2006 Draft, 2007 Season, Andre Johnson, Gary Kubiak might be high, Injury bug, Vinsanity

Stephanie offers up a great column on the likelihood of Vince Young playing in Sunday’s game. I am a sucker for solid medical research and logical arguments–two things certain writers don’t even come close to offering–and I think Steph is on to something here.

Given Young’s annoyance in talking about his injury, I am guessing it is not likely he is going to play because he sounds like a guy who is grumpy about not playing. Don’t take my word for it, this doctor guy says that re-injury to the quad is a real possibility. Also the less time the injury has to heal, the more likely that re-injury could occur, or perhaps a worse injury. Even a basic look-see on the internet has tons of stories of these sorts of quad injuries gone bad. Like this one:

Resting may be the common sense approach, but it is one that is often ignored by competitive athletes. This is unwise, since it does not take much to turn a grade one Thigh strain into a grade two, or a grade two Thigh strain into a grade three.

Why? Because athletes feel like they can function with this sort of quad strain unless they try to do something like kicking or sprinting. I’m guessing a double-threat quarterback with a chronically bad wheel would not be something that Fisher would want to cause by starting Young. A grade three thigh strain is one that requires surgery.

If he does play and, as Steph suggests, manages to further injure the quad, we in attendance might actually get to bear witness to a Madden Curse injury firsthand. That would be kinda cool.

On the other hand, I’ve said before and I’ll say again that I don’t care one iota whether Vince plays. I don’t buy into the “hope he plays so we see if we can beat him” spiel. If we were 6-0, maybe I would be pulling for him to play; at 3-3, the only thing that matters is the scoreboard. So, if he plays and I get to see him get hurt alongside a win, it’s all good. If he doesn’t play and we win, it’s still all good. If we lose, the name on the back of the Titans QB’s jersey should be meaningless to any sane Texans fan.

When you look at it that way, something else becomes painfully obvious. Namely, that this is the most important game in the franchise’s history. For the sake of clarification, let’s remember that the Colts game from earlier this season was our biggest (though not most important) game to date and that the inaugural game victory over the ladies from up north remains our biggest (and possibly most important) win. Prior to this Sunday, our most important game was (arguably) the week 17 game against Cleveland in 2004. Glad we cleared that up. Moving on.

Anyway, October 21 is the most important game we’ve ever had for a number of reasons, the overwhelming majority of which have nothing to do with the 2006 draft. First, there is the simple fact that, despite starting 2-0 for the first time ever and having our first winning record after five games ever, we are currently on the doorstep of falling below .500 on the year. Now, following that 2-0 start, people started actually believing in the idea of our first winning record. While it’s certainly true that people might have been expecting too much, too soon (like the people who were suddenly talking about 10 or 11 wins), some of those expectations were justified. After all, this is Texans v.2.0. The old Texans were the ones who went on 1-4 slides; the new bunch are supposed to be better than that. Right?

Second, but somewhat related to the first, is the finality of a loss this week. Fact of the matter is, lose and we can completely forget about the playoffs. We’ll be dead last in the best division in football, 1.5 games behind third place, and without a single divisional win. Were the playoffs ever a realistic goal for this season? That part is debatable. What is not debatable, though, is that at least the idea of the playoffs was something that fans could suddenly buy into. Losing that possibility this early in the year was not supposed to be part of the new Texans reality.

Third, a loss on anything other than a last second miracle or a fluke play is going to cause people–myself included–to question Gary Kubiak’s coaching. The first two weeks of the season, when our defense looked stifling and our offense was running roughshod over the Chiefs and Panthers, Kubiak looked like a genius. Hell, even in week 3, when we managed to keep the game against the Colts close all the way to the end, despite the lack of Andre Johnson, Kubiak looked like he was more or less in control. Since then? Yikes. We have had absolutely no red zone offense, yet Owen Daniels doesn’t have a TD catch because all of our red zone plays seem to be ill-advised fades and/or runs right into the back of our o-line. Speaking of, we’ve had nothing that would resemble an NFL running game. Some of that can be chalked up to injury, but a bigger chunk can be placed on the steadfast reliance upon Sam Gado and Jameel Cook. Oh, and while we are on the subject of injuries, the fact that Andre Johnson is still not back in the starting lineup is at least partly Kubiak’s fault for not taking him out.

In short, one could argue, Kubiak has been flat out-coached for the past three games, as evinced by his shoddy clock management, his inattention to details like being cheated out of 14 seconds, his horribly predictable play-calling (raise your hand if you’ve more or less known what we were going to do inside the 20 every single time), and even his complete surprise and the surprise of his team at the idea that an opponent might kick onside in the second quarter. Up to this point, though, the complaints about all of these things have been nothing more than whispers from the media and from blogodelphia. A loss on Sunday stemming from running right into their strengths and not scoring in the red zone will make those whispers much, much louder.

Finally, and despite my assertion that the only thing that matters is winning, this game has importance to many people because of Vince Young. To that not-small-in-size group of fans and detractors alike, beating Vince (and beating him handily) is the only thing that will ever exorcise those demons. Losing to him for a third straight time, on the other hand, will make the backlash from his OT run last year look like a spirited bridge club conversation.

Clearly, Vince alone does not make this the most important game in team history? But Vince’s presence–if he plays–definitely adds to the emotional pain that would accompany a loss. If this were any other team coming into Reliant, those first three points above would still be valid and it would still be arguably the most important game in team history. When you throw Young on top of that, though, the longterm mental well-being of a majority of the fanbase makes winning that much more important.