All-Time Texans Team - Defense - SS
Jul 21, 2008 All-Time Texans, Awfulness, Secondary issues are primary, Stats
Continuing the series and sticking with positions that make the prospect of drinking bleach seem pleasant, let’s do the Strong Safeties.
First, the candidates:
Eric Brown
Glenn Earl
C.C. Brown
Be still, my beating heart. Eric Brown gave us .5 sack, 1.5 INTs, 1.5 FFs, 1.5 PDs, and about 70 tackles per season in his 2 years as a starter. In two-seasons worth of starts, Earl averaged 1 sack, 1.5 INTs, .5 FF, 5 PDs, and about 70 tackles. Last year, pressed into duty as the strong safety, C.C. (whose real name is Ceandris Nehemiah, so I don’t understand the two Cs) Brown offered up 0 sacks, 1 INT, 2 FF, 3 FR, 8 PDs, and about 80 tackles. (All number via Pro-Football-Reference.com)
Hmm.
Blech.
I guess C.N. Brown wins again by default, purely on the strength of his turnover numbers and the fact that he bothered to defend some passes.
(Side note: I left Marlon McCree off the FS discussion, not that it would have changed anything. My bad.)
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July 21st, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Best SS….what a backhanded compliment that is. I’m curious to see how Harrison and Barber do during training camp. Although, iirc, Harrison’s skills set seems better suited to FS.
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July 21st, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Brown isn’t horrendous, just merely awful
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July 21st, 2008 at 8:48 pm
@Lee - UofTOrange: Yay?
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July 21st, 2008 at 8:49 pm
I hope this list, like many others so far, have a few different names after the next few years.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 8:21 am
@Charlie: They almost have to… we’re a young franchise, I mean the candidates for stuff like this is pretty much “everyone who played that position for us, ever.”
Still, I think you want to have at least one good safety in your defense, and it hurts that we haven’t had that, ever.
I kind of wanted us to draft Reggie Nelson in 07, but 10 was a little too high to take him… Amobi is starting to look like he’ll be a monster, too, so I’m real happy about that, cuz a good DT is at least as important as a good safety.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 9:18 am
The problem is that safety is not a priority position for most teams/coaches, and we’ve been drafting for serious priority spots since day one (except when Casserly was holding the reigns, because who knows WHAT the fuck he was thinking most of the time?). Bottom line is, as much as we’d all have loved to be able to take a Reggie Nelson, or Kenny Phillips this year, we’ve just always had much bigger fish to fry.
This is another time when Rhodes name has to be mentioned, because hopefully, he’ll make the safety spots more than what they’ve been in the past.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 9:40 am
@Matt: And shame on you for not mentioning our beloved Matt Stevens in this post. You tee’d yourself up for a wonderful tirade, and left yourself hanging. You getting soft on us??
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July 22nd, 2008 at 9:42 am
@beef: Matt Stevens was an NFL SS like I am an NFL SS. Considering I already labeled him the worst FS, I didn’t figure he deserved mention for his “play” at SS as well.
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Someday, though, I need to do a post solely on Matt Stevens. Assuming my head doesn’t explode as I write it.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 12:20 pm
I had totally forgotten about Eric Brown. Thank you, alcohol.
Now, booze–get to work on erasing Matt Stevens from my memory…stat!
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July 22nd, 2008 at 7:02 pm
@Matt: I think it’s the little things in life, don’t you?