BFD’s take on the Texans’ 2008 Draft - the first time, at least…
Apr 27, 2008 2008 Draft, 2008 Season, Alex Gibbs, BFD's Real Doll, Broken Record, Chaun, DRC, Duane Brown as Eliza Doolittle, I really dig my readers, Jacoby Jones is unheralded, Morlon Greenwood, Posts that list too many players
Well, it’s all done but the crying. I gotta admit that I’m still disappointed that we lost out on DRC (note to self: do a better job discrediting who we want next year), and I will forever hate the Cards because of it. Or something. That said, I’m gonna throw up (sic) some grades for our draft this year, and I would love to hear your feedback. I’m not going to do any purposeful agitating a la Little Dickie Justice, age 12. I’m going to try and be as honest as possible with my subjectivity and objectivity.
1st Round (#26 overall): Duane Brown, LT, Virginia Tech. I originally wasn’t too excited, and then I slipped quickly into acceptance. Considering he was taken with the 26th pick of the 1st Round, it’s definitely an over-draft. That we traded back eight places and still got the guy we allegedly wanted the entire time earns some points, though. For now, it’s a bit of a wash on the good and bad, and I am still worried about his ability to have a short-term impact on the team, so I will go with a Grade B. No, not great. I think it’s average right now, and it’s a full grade higher because of the trade down and acquisition of additional picks. Mr. Brown and Smithiak are certainly welcome to make me eat that grade, however.
3rd Round #1 (#79 overall): Antwaun Molden, CB, Eastern Kentucky. curtisdisco had some good things to say about Molden at BRB, and if you check out the entire thread, the guy is definitely a work-out fiend. Seriously, the guy seems to be a slightly lesser version of DRC: small school and huge combine numbers. Considering what the guy has had to deal with as a human, and how *pissed* he was at his badass workouts, I am prepared to go JJ on him. Grade B+.
3rd Round #2 (#89 overall): Steve Slaton, RB, West Virginia. I do worry he’ll be a Chris Perry at the highest level due to his size and seeming inability to run between the tackles, but he definitely has game-changing ability. Used in the proper role, I can see him excelling. Grade B+. I do think we need to set realistic expectations that he is not a true #1 RB, but I have no problem with that, either.
4th Round (#118 overall): Xavier Adibi, OLB, Virginia Tech. Here’s my take…so, we didn’t take a DE in this draft, yet I believe it to be a serious area of need. We signed Chaun Thompson, who could line-up at DE as a serious speed rusher. Yes, that’s where I am going with this. Chaun will see a lot of time opposite Mario at DE, and I have absolutely no problem with this. Chaun *is* 6′2″, 250lbs, so he’s not terribly undersized. But if he can become a demon off the outside, yeah, I’m liking this.
As for Adibi, as I said previously, I see a lot of Morlon Greenwood. Others in the Draft Thread said DeMeco, but that’s a little too far for me. And again with the b0ng hit of Adibi. He’ll definitely challenge Zach Diles and Kevin Bentley at SAM. An interesting pick with some seriously high upside. Grade A-. As stupid as this may sound, if any of our picks have a big impact in 2008, I think it’s most likely to be Adibi.
5th round (#151 overall): Frank Okam, DT, The University of Texas at Austin…bitchez. Yes, an alum from my beloved alma mater. And, yes, I am super-excited about this pick (though not as excited as Tim). He has a first-class body, a top-of-the-class mind, but he has the motor of a moped. He also needs some serious work on his technique. The worst thing about him is his ability to disappear for stretches, but when he’s on, he’s Shaun Rogers good (when his engine is running, of course).
Going into the 2007 season, I thought Okam would be a legit 1st round pick. That he slid is more of an indictment of the motor, technique, and (oh yeah!) conditioning than it is anything else. A motivated Okam would be an absolute steal and the acquisition of a 1st rounder in the 5th. Grade A-.
6th round (#173 overall): Dominique Barber, S, Minnesota. I just don’t understand this pick. We took Molden, we have enough DBs to hold up against Andre Ware, and we took the slowest S on the board? I mean, I think even I could hang with this guy in the 40 (20 years ago). Look, he may be Marion’s brother, but I hate that SOB. Grade D.
7th round (#223 overall): Alex Brink, QB, Washington State. I watched only about half of one WSU game this year, and I don’t have much of an image of Brink. He’s mobile but smallish, and he definitely has a “West Coast Offense” kinda arm, which means it ain’t the strongest. I will reiterate that I believe that Kubiak carries three QBs on the active roster, and Brink will be practice squad fodder. Grade who cares.
Overall Grade:
I think we are seeing a trend of sorts with Smithiak, which is taking safer picks in the earlier rounds and going for the homerun in later rounds. I’m OK with this. Brown, for all the smack, was a fairly safe pick. Mario and DeMeco were a fairly safe picks. In 2007, ManChild was an easy call and not a gamble, but they went Jacoby Jones in the 3rd, Fred Bennett in the 4th, and Brandon Frye in the 5th (looking forward to seeing him in the summer).
This draft just seems similar to me. A safer pick at the line early (Brown vs. Okoye), l33t skill position in the 3rd (Slaton vs. JJ [nod to JJ here, though]), a DB with upside (Bennett vs. Molden) in there, and another lineman with talent in the 5th (Okam vs. Frye).
Overall, I give this draft a very sold B+ with a greater possibility of upside than not. Molden and/or Okam could make this grade an “A” by themselves, much less Brown or Slaton. I’m excited.
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April 27th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
Agreed on Adibi. He’s probably the guy who has the best chance of winning a starting job out of training camp. Although I think we have some good competition at SLB. We certainly can’t lose with any of those three.
The rest though are all either depth picks, or long-term picks. I heard somebody say that Brown might not be ready to play LT until two years from now. I don’t buy that; Bennett wasn’t supposed to be able to play at a high level last year. How’d that work out? I think Brown will be on the field getting some reps by week eight, and he’ll be our opening day starter in 2009.
I’m excited about Steve Slaton. Like you said, we just need to temper our expectations. He’s not going to run between the tackles, but he will make some big plays off of screen passes, and hopefully break away for a few long runs.
The 6th and 7th round picks were pretty weak in my opinion. Granted, it’s going to be much harder to make the team this year than it was last year, but you should still try to find somebody capable of doing it, and a QB has no chance.
Molden and Okam will both give us depth at a couple positions we were pretty thin at. If Dunta can’t come back at CB, the Molden pick will be great methinks. If Okam decides he actually wants to play football, he could wind up being a monster.
I’ll go B+, mostly because we were able to trade down. That moved it up a letter grade for me. Yea, we maybe reached in the first. But any OT we grabbed in the third probably wouldn’t be a starting caliber LT. Whereas Molden has a chance to be solid.
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April 27th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
They stepped over Otah at 18 and went for Brown, and got an additional 2 picks taboot…grade A.
Slaton..is going to be a winner. See youtube, he runs inside as well…A-.
Okam…hmmm…I hope he becomes what his body says he’s capable of…B
Brink I kind of like. Seems to have talent which Kubes could develop….and get something like your DE from someone in a trade for Sage. .. B.
Overall, I’m happy, I question the 6th round pick, but who knows the kid may show up and take his spot. I see a lot of contributions being made next year except for possibly Barber and Brink…and give them a year or two.
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April 27th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
I’m guessing that Barber was taken as a pure Special Teams player right now. He’ll have the summer to prove if he’s worth a roster spot in that role.
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April 27th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
This might…*might*…be the dumbest thing I have ever seen.
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http://blogs.chron.com/sportsjustice/archives/2008/04/texans_draft_sm.html
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Every time I go into Chron-land, I have the urge to get a lobotomy.
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April 27th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
I greatly appreciate you helping me become dumber by reading that. The Count’s winning t-shirt sums it all up for Justice.
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April 27th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
btw, shake, did you have to deal with that nasty weather this morning? At about (drops everything, pulls out abacus, carry the blue bead) 10:30 this morning? It totally sucked up here. We got almost an inch of rain in about 15 minutes. No kidding.
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April 27th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
I am convinced that Richard Justice’s blog is bot-generated. It is programmed to troll for blog hits by tweaking the Texans’ fans.
speaking of the Chron, I think McClaine and Zierlein did a great job on the draft. McClaine seems to have stepped up his game over the past couple of months.
I give the Texans a B+ (I think that everyone is forgetting the acquisition of Chris Myers for a 6th).
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April 28th, 2008 at 7:48 am
As much as I disliked the reach for pick #1 (and anyone who says it is not a reach is just lying to themselves)…
the rest of the draft was excellent. Not sure about the QB in round 7 pick, but, hey… maybe he’s the next Tom Brady?
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April 28th, 2008 at 8:59 am
B+ is a fair assessment, and it seems we’re grading out that way amongst ourselves as well as to folks in general. We reached in the 1st, but without a 2nd, sometimes that happens. If we had to reach, at least we traded back and picked up a 3rd before we did it. I’m not used to evaluating a draft where the main goal is building for the future rather than desperately searching for immediate starters. Hopefully, we’re done with top 5 picks for a while, and when we get some practice at this “smart draft” stuff, we can become an A+ drafting club.
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April 28th, 2008 at 9:09 am
Well said, sir. I agree with pretty much everything. I do maintain that Slaton was a system pick and I think he will be excellent in a one-cut ZBS. And the Okam pick just made me so happy.
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April 28th, 2008 at 9:09 am
I like the draft. They added players at positions of need (though I would have liked to have seen them take a shot on a RDE), may have gotten the riddle of the LT solved (in the long-term, not sure that Brown will have an impact right away), and got two more picks than they had going in.
I wouldn’t give them an A, but a B seems about right.
I almost think if Richard Justice is playing some kind of meta-reverse psychology double game on everyone. Or maybe he’s just that stupid.
Also, I took this draft as an indicator that the Titans have given up on making VY a real quarterback, and content to let him hand the ball off to LenDale White and throw 5 yard outs to Chris Johnson. VY’s qb rating might go up because some of those 5 yard outs to Johnson will go for big yardage and we’ll have to listen to the sweet smacking sounds of Justice slobbing VY’s nob for another year.
I look forward to that.
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April 28th, 2008 at 9:29 am
I’m so glad to find your blog. I’ve been looking for an all Texan blog for a while. On with the draft talk:
Brown was a reach, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t a good player. Otah is a fatass and a non-athlete… the kind of lineman who would have been awesome in 1976. I’m ok with the Brown pick, but still have this sinking feeling that Mendenhall is going to come back and bite us somehow.
Moulden will hopefully pan out well. I don’t like this pick too much, but I hope i get proved wrong.
We don’t need Slaton to be our #1. If he can make a slight impact with 8-12 touches a game, great. Will either hit home-runs or fly out to the warning track. I see him getting tackled by safeties with lots of green in front of him all season.
Adibi was a steal for where we got him and is a great athlete. I like this a lot.
If Okam decides to play like he looks, awesome.
Let’s hope toughness and a general pissed off demeanor is a family trait for the Barbers. I listen to a ton of Marion knob slobbing up here, so with any luck his brother gets some down there.
We drafted a QB? Why?
Overall, I call us a C+. I don’t think we got immediately better, but have a ton of upside. I would be happy if 2 of these guys (Brown, Adibi) started and thrilled if one of the others was an instrumental surprise.
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April 28th, 2008 at 9:37 am
I generally liked the entire draft overall. I think I read somewhere that due to the big concern about okam’s desire for law school, they brought him in for an interview before the draft which makes me happy. Also with the 7th, I think zirlein said it best that maybe after three years he can become good trade bait with kubes guidance. Overall I liked the draft and think we filled some thin areas.
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April 28th, 2008 at 9:46 am
What makes Brown a reach, because Kiper says so? What other athletic, potential left tackle was available for Gibbs to mold. If I remember correctly, when Gibbs signed on a 2 year employment window was stated. If you wanted to train a LT within that period you have to start now. Besides going to round 3 probably would not have landed Brown and Zuttah may already have too many “ZBS Bad Habits”.
Just a thought and BTW this site is more entertaining than Monty Python of the ’70s.
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April 28th, 2008 at 10:20 am
@Bull - the consensus opinion, not just helmet-head’s, was that Brown was a 2 or a 3. Grabbing him in the 1st makes it a reach. But, without a 2…
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April 28th, 2008 at 11:20 am
@ BFD: Fuck you for posting that link. I’ll never get those brain cells back. It wasn’t even fun like if I had lost them hittin some Adibi.
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April 28th, 2008 at 11:55 am
You’re welcome, Vega. I’m happy to help.
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Awesome comments above, and welcome to the new peeps. I’m in meetings for the rest of the day, so I don’t have time to respond yet, but I will.
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April 28th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
“[OK, let anyone on here that watches the games make the case the guy was a dominant pass-rusher last season. Maybe I'm wrong. I've been wrong about this guy in the past. He got some sack numbers, but he didn't disrupt defenses the way great players are supposed to disrupt them. This is no VY grudge. Mario has been the best player of the 2006 draft and may be be a great one. The Texans got it right. But he's not a great player. Not even close.--Richard]“
Huh?
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April 28th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
@ Bull - I’ve got no problems with Brown being on our team, but if we were going to trade out of Mendenhall and draft Brown, I think we could have given up several more spots and gotten more/better picks for the trade (I really think we should have gotten a second round selection for that). No one was going to steal Brown from us in the first round and likely not in the first 10 picks of the second.
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April 28th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
I thought the whole “’s not a great player. Not even close” line was the verbal equivalent of a giving VY a rusty trombone. You know, everyone knows you’re giving it to him straight up front, but you got something sneaky going on around the backdoor too.
Good times.
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April 28th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
My draft grades even tho draft grades cheese me out:
http://sports.aol.com/fanhouse/2008/04/28/nfl-draft-grades-houston-texans/
On Slaton:
http://sports.aol.com/fanhouse/2008/04/28/houston-texans-coach-loves-steve-slaton-calls-reggie-bush-thir/
I’m okay with the draft. Brown was the ZBS guy they thought would be left at 18 that they still wanted. They traded down and got him anyway. Further trading down might have screwed them over.
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I love Frank Okam. Played a ton of games for a good program. Used to practicing in Texas heat. Wants to be in Houston Texas. Gives us different options other than just another 305 guy in the middle–that can come in handy. I sometimes thought that the DTs wore down in ends of games.
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Okam might be one of those players who is caught up in the superficiality of draft analysis. If you get pegged as something, it is hard for you to get unpegged unless a team is interested in getting to know more about you.
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Kubiak likes guys with something going on behind their eyes.
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April 28th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
@Dallas Texan: You might be right, but I’ve seen a couple of comments that either Green Bay or SF would have taken him. But my point was more along the lines that the clock is ticking on Alex Gibbs and our offensive line. Say we did trade back and Green Bay took Brown now you either have to make a trade for someone who may or may not fit well in the Gibbs’ ZBS or take a “Texan Preceived” lessor tackle/guard for Gibbs to work with. I’m not sure waiting until next year for a tackle was an option.
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April 28th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Just to echo what da Bull said, I have read San Fran, St. Louis, and Green Bay would have taken Brown so he would not have lasted past the second pick of the second round. He was going to be over-drafted, LT’s always are(like Sam Baker). So if he was our guy we had to make the move. I’m glad we did. If he is who they believe he is then we are set at the most important o-line position for the next decade.
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April 28th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
I have no doubt that our staff got an OT they wanted, one that other teams wanted, and maybe one we had rated higher than a other OTs. I’m not so sure that they weren’t forced into the decision. This staff (esp. Gibbs, his much bally-hooed Foster pick notwithstanding) aren’t usually too worried about developing later round “underrated” OL types. I believe we were targeting a CB(most likely DRC) with our 1. When he went to AZ at 16, I think we thought we could trade back and still get Jenkins (2nd choice). When Stetchface and his cowgirls jumped ahead of us and took him, we were left a bit exposed, and we extended ourselves a bit to get Brown. To reply in advance to those that say “but the staff said Brown was their guy even at 18″: What would you expect them to say?
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April 28th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
@24 that’s supposed to be Stretchface. It makes more sense with the “r”….
@Steph thanks for posting that link of Kyle calling Boosh a “3rd down type back” that brought a big smile!
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April 29th, 2008 at 7:13 am
@ Steph (21)re: Okam. I brought this up on one of your blog points, about the Houston “heat, humidity, melting, ect.” weather that we offer, as opposed to some more “pleasant” climates, other player’s might be accustomed to.
With pratices, two-a-days, and OTA’s, can take a huge toll on these guys! Amobi hit the wall after 5 weeks (according to some) and wasn’t as productive during the remainder of the season.
My point is that until one acclimates to Houstons “sultry” weather, then year one is a bitch for those not use to Houston heat. Most players, when asked, claim the humidity is the biggest adjustment.
Your (or anyones) thought’s?
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April 29th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Can someone look to see how much time elapsed from when Jenkins was picked to the time it said “The Pick Is In” from us at 26? Seemed like it was pretty darn quick for us to be so down about missing Jenkins, which “left us a bit exposed.”
So, in summary, what I’m saying, thatguy, is that I think you’re wrong, and you’re being a bit douche-tastic about the whole thing.
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April 29th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
@6 BFD (2-day late reply)
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Nope. Somehow the whole storm pretty much broke apart before hitting the north side of H, and then reformed to be what looked like all hell breaking loose when it hit the Gulf Coast and moved offshore. Sucks, because now my lazy ass will have to go put some sprinklers out this week. Or just let the grass die. It’ll definitely be one of those.
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April 29th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
@dallas texan.
Welcome. And fuck the Cowboys.
@BFD
You’re draft grade was generous. At best they get a C+ only because I don’t see any of these players making a major impact this year (except Slayton). But this class has treeeeeeemendouusssss upsiiiiide POOOOOtential (in the words of Hubie Brown)….Lots of atheletes but they need a bit of coaching up. MY Fav Picks are Slayton, Okam, and Adibi
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April 29th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Awesomely warm welcome for DT, tyler. Thanks!
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The grade is based on both present and future values, not just present. The upside of this draft is tremendous. But, the entire draft could be Reggie-Bush-esque, as well.