Big Picture
Oct 14, 2008 2008 Season, Curious Coaching, Fire Richard Smith, Gary Kubiak, Ranting
After Sunday’s win, there will be people, especially in the fair-weather media, saying that the Texans have finally turned a corner and that they’ve become better overall because they were able to go in there and put together a big game-winning drive. Someone will point to how this was a telling rebound from last week’s crushing defeat and how that resilience is proof that the Texans are developing. And I suppose there is some nugget of truth to the idea that your older brother’s Texans would not have won that game, but, Christ, you are talking about a team that was piloted by David Carr. It’s not exactly earth-shattering news to say that today’s Texans, with the best DE in football, one of the five best WRs and MLBs, and a better RB than they’ve ever had are better than any pre-2006 squad.
No, the question should not be whether the Texans are better today than they were in 2005. The question should be whether the path they are on right now will make them appreciably better in 2010 than they are in 2008? If today is the first day of the rest of their collective football life, where does that life wind up?
To be sure, there are a number of positives on this team, many of which were evident yesterday. Mario Williams in an absolute beast. He gets held on every single play, sometimes by both blockers, yet he never complains and he still gets to the QB with regularity. Andre Johnson, unfortunate fumble notwithstanding, is a fantastic wide receiver with a combination of size, skill, and speed that you rarely see. DeMeco Ryans is everything you could ask for in a MLB. Along with Johnson, the Texans’ receiving corps as a whole is one of the better ones in football, with every person unselfishly playing his role very well. The offensive line, while still not perfect, is doing a very good job of keeping Matt Schaub clean and creating running room for Steve Slaton and will only get better as the system takes hold and Duane Brown develops. Heck, even Vonta Leach is playing the role of blocker for Steve Slaton at a very high level, finishing his blocks through the second level.
Combine these positives with the 8-8 finish of 2007 and it would be very, very easy to believe that we are on the right path. Seeing a comeback win last yesterday’s only serves to strengthen that perception.
But, as with anything, if the perception itself is flawed, the strengthening of it is all in your head.
Which (finally) brings me to my point: If I may be a little grey cloud of gloom right now, I am going to say right now that I don’t think we are on the right path, or, perhaps more accurately, I don’t think we are on a path that will culminate in sustained success and–gasp!–being a Super Bowl contender. I think there are some serious organizational and personnel problems that, until they are resolved, are going to keep submarining the team’s efforts, leaving fans saying “man…we’re this close” over and over.
Some of those problems are readily apparent. Richard Smith is not qualified to call defenses in Pop Warner, let alone in the NFL. He has no defined defensive philosophy that I can see, he seems confused on how to use his assets (Mario, DeMeco, Bennett, Okoye) and how to hide his liabilities (Faggins, Diles, Johnson). He refuses to put the best possible defense on the field at any one time and until recently he seemed to be ignoring the mounting evidence that Earl Cochran is the ONLY other consistent DE on the roster. His players—especially his favorites, like Petey Faggins—are piss-poor tacklers, take poor angles, give way too much cushion to receivers, seem easily fooled by even the slightest trickery, and (as evidenced most recently by Bennett) seem to regress right when you think they are ready to make The Leap.
Likewise, as discussed here recently, Joe Marciano’s squad, at least in this writer’s opinion, is poorly coached from the top down. They are lazy when it comes to lane integrity, they (like Smith’s charges) seem easily tricked, they allow the opponent to start seemingly EVERY drive past its own 25-yard line, and they botch simple things like FG snaps. Even worse, it seems like Andre Davis is always running half-speed, looking for a hole rather than just getting up field as quickly as he can on every kickoff.
While those are the obvious ones, I am beginning to think the problem goes even higher. Yes, I am talking about Gary Kubiak. I have reached a point where I wonder whether he can actually be a good NFL head coach. I wonder if he has “it,” whatever “it” is.
Here’s what I mean: Can you think of a single game in Gary Kubiak’s tenure where we won because he outcoached someone? Because I can’t. What I can think of are:
- Utter inability to properly use timeouts or manage the clock, especially when time is the most important. See, e.g., his unawareness of the lost time in last year’s Atlanta game or the random bits of time we let slide away on Sunday in the last drive.
- Complete cluelessness when it comes to challenges and a tendency to be scared to challenge later in a game if he was wrong (like he usually is) early in the game.
- Play calling that looks like it was scripted by someone who just learned the game of football. See, e.g., the passing offense scripted by Kubiak and Baby Shan against Tennessee this year.
- Tendency for the team to play down to the level of its competition. See, e.g., getting owned by a 2007 Falcons team that was so bad its own coach quit before the season ended or barely squeaking by a Dolphins team that won ONE GAME all year.
- Inability to put away games because the team seems to have no philosophy on how to grind clock, move the chains, and avoid turnovers. (This partly goes back to clock management.)
- Tendency of team to be unaware of situation and proper responses to it. See, e.g., Eugene Wilson’s INT on Sunday, where NO ONE, coach or player, was yelling for him to simply get the hell down and preserve the win. That is a coaching mistake because that is the type of thing that should be drilled into players, just as you saw the Colts do when they picked off Rosenfels’ last throw.
- Continued tendency of team to fumble the ball and and throw INTs. This is a coaching issue when it is endemic.
- Inability of team to be prepared for team-specific wrinkles. See, e.g., our confusion re: defending the WildCat, despite having two weeks of film on it.
- Refusal of Kubiak (or his staff, save Alex Gibbs) to yell at a player when he really screws up. Did you see a single coach really get in Eugene Wilson’s ear? I sure didn’t.
- Steadfast refusal to get rid of people like Richard Smith.
That’s an awful lot of flaws for a guy whose only current positive point is that the team likes him.
Now it’s totally possible that we will rattle off 11 straight wins, in which case Kubes will have proven me wrong. More likely, however, is that we stumble to 7-9 (i.e. go 6-5 down the stretch) and people talk about how “man, with a couple breaks earlier in the year, this team could easily have been 9-7.” Which sounds a helluva lot like what we heard at the end of last year. Then you have to start wondering how many this-close years are we going to have before we change coaches or, worse, miss the window on guys like Andre Johnson?
I fear the answer to that is higher than it should be, simply because Kubiak is such an upgrade over Dom Capers. But that ignores that Capers was at least hamstrung (to some extent) by a GM that ate paint chips as a child. Kubiak, on the other hand, is blessed with one of the best young GMs in the game. That difference has to count for something when you start evaluating just what Kubiak brings to the table.
Please don’t get me wrong here. I am beyond thrilled that we won Sunday. I agree with Tim that the win renews ones hope and faith as a fan in the team. My only concern is that we might currently be on a path where our faith and hope are CONSTANTLY tested because we lack the leadership to get to the next level. Last week’s game was a microcosm for the experience of being a Texans fan—it seemed like the team was doing everything it could to lose, yet you could see that they were WAY better talent-wise than they were playing, and even though they won it still kinda felt like a loss in some ways.
In the end, if it’s true the Kubiak isn’t HC material, that is no sin. There are plenty of guys who make good coordinators but poor head coaches. But while it’s not a sin, it IS the kind of thing we need to figure out and address. Quickly.
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October 14th, 2008 at 9:38 am
I have to admit, I’m questioning Kubes for the first time myself. And I was a huge proponent of “Kubiak for HC” 3 years ago.
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The worst offense was our attempt at a 2 minute drill in the first half Sunday. First we can’t get the playcalls in right. Then we go conservative against a prevent D. Then, somehow, with 48 seconds in the game and 25 seconds still ticking off the time clock, we punt and give Miami 30 seconds to drive. (For some reason Miami wussed out, too, but that’s besides the point).
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Good coaching would have prevented a lot of the confusion on the field Sunday. A lot of it.
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That said, here’s the schedule from here on out. If we play like we did Sunday (uneven but still productive), this is the likely result:
DET (home) – W
CIN (home) – W
MIN (at Minny) – L (?)
BAL (home) – W (Mario eats rookie QBs)
IND (at Indy) – W (revenge of the Sage?)
CLE (at Cle) – W (Quinn is QB at this point)
JAX (home) – L (overconfidence)
GB (at GB) – L (because it’s cold out there)
TEN (home) – W (yes, I said “W”)
OAK (at Oak) – W (it’s Oakland, people)
CHI (home) – W (we need the W more than they will)
that’s 8 more wins… so don’t call it a comeback!
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October 14th, 2008 at 9:47 am
@grungedave: I agree with all of that, but, in a way, that’s kind of the point. This team is talented enough that, even at 1-4, you can look at our schedule and say we should beat 8 of the next 11 opponents. If that’s the case, is 9-7 really a good finish for this team? I mean, you can chalk a huge part of the Tennessee loss up to the playcalling, you can chalk the J’ville loss up to poor defensive coaching, etc. If this squad, with the secondary that evolution forgot, can finish 9-7 DESPITE those coaching gaffes, what could it do with a good staff?!
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Also, the fact that we can see 8 “likely” wins is even more painful when you figure we are all but certain to drop at least one of those wins due to some stupidity.
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Finally, I think I have a solution: If we finish with less than 9 wins, I say we throw a shitton of cash at Steve Spagnuolo. He would make this D dominant in two years and our offense is good enough that any good OC (maybe even Baby Shan, who knows?) can get 24 ppg out of them.
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October 14th, 2008 at 9:48 am
@grungedave: Also, isn’t it kind of blasphemy to quote L.L. Cool J on a post that references Biggie Smalls?!?
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October 14th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Good post bro….lol…see we think alike.
After your HC publicly blames himself so many times for the mistakes, does the team start to lose faith in their fearless leader. Some of the players on the team surely have enough snap to not call the plays we make, time mgmt, etc.
Indirectly, Mario won the game for us.
If he makes that tackle on Ronnie Brown late in the game, the Phins run the clock out on us and make a last second chip shot fg to win. I kept thinking back to Holmgren in the Super Bowl when he told his team to let the Broncos score so they could get the ball back. As insane as it sounds, letting them score quick was the ONLY way we had a chance to win. It happened, but I seriously doubt it was by design.
Did anyone else think Kubiak looked more like the Muddogs coach in Waterboy, like he just got owned again, in the last minutes rather than a fearless leader willing his team to win?
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October 14th, 2008 at 10:19 am
I didn’t know LL and Biggie had a beef?
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Also, it’s quite possible that a 9-7 finish would be the WORST thing for this team – as it would reinforce the bad coaching habits in some assbackwards sign of “progress”.
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October 14th, 2008 at 10:24 am
@Will the Thrill: I meant to cite you as part of the inspiration for this post. My bad.
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@grungedave: I agree with that. 9-7 will keep everyone’s jobs safe and will doom us to more of the same. (Also, my LL/BIG reference was regarding Biggie being great and LL sucking ass.)
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October 14th, 2008 at 10:36 am
We all agree that Dick Smith has gotta go! Clearly, the man is an idiot and clueless. Now, if they wise up and shitcan this baffoon, who would they seek? I hear Frank Bush, Jethro Franklin, or heart attack in the making, Ray Rhodes named by the fandom but, is it Smith handcuffing the asst. coaches or is the entire staff worthless? Which part of the defense progressed with these guys coaching?
The time is ticking on alot of these player’s…
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October 14th, 2008 at 11:27 am
I’m 50-50 on Kubiak. Clearly he’s an improvement over Capers. And I suspect that his learning curve is pretty steep, so I’ve got to give him some leeway for that.
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What concerns me is that he may not be making it up the learning curve at all. A lot of the mistakes that the team makes when it comes to challenges and clock management are ones that you can write off as learning experiences the first time around. But when they keep happening, you gotta wonder if the staff is learning from them.
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I’m also on board with the fire Richard Smith bandwagon. I wouldn’t mind seeing Ray Rhodes take over the reins. Fairness, however, prompts me to point out that outside of Mario, DeMeco and Amobi (and with Dunta still out) we have almost no talent on D. We’re probably another year or two before guys like Molden and Adibi can make their mark. Until then we’re stuck with Petey and Greenwood, etc.
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I still think we need to fire Richard Smith, but we should also realize that we don’t exactly have the Baltimore Ravens circa 2000 defense either.
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October 14th, 2008 at 11:35 am
@WillFist4Food: You left out Fred Bennett, but, yeah, that’s a fair point. However Smith’s biggest problem (which is REALLY saying something) is that he has no idea how to best use his talent to hide his flaws.
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Also, not too many Ds can brag about having a top 3 DE and a top 5 MLB. If you can’t find role players to build around Mario and DeMeco, you just ain’t tryin’.
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Since I am being critical, I should at least offer my suggested starting D:
Mario
Okam — You need to know NOW whether he’s the long-term answer at NT or not. Because Trav ain’t.
Okoye
Cochran
C. Thompson — Only SLB-sized LB we really have, plus he’s best moving forward.
DeMeco
Adibi (as soon as he’s healthy) — See explanation for Frank, supra
Bennett
Dunta
Demps
Harrison — Both Demps and Harrison need to show something or neither should be starting next year.
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October 14th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
[...] – some recommended reading. Matt takes a very realistic look at the big picture here. I have to say I agree with almost everything in the article. Nice work from Matt as [...]
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October 14th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Uh, I have no idea why my site has automatically created a pingback comment or whatever you call them. I don’t have it set to do that, and it’s never done it before to my knowledge… sorry for the spam… WTF?
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Anyway – great article. I’m a fervent Kubes supporter, but I can’t ignore that this season we’ve seemingly had one huge gaffe per game from him.
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October 14th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
@DiehardChris: I think the pingback is a setting on our end. No worries.
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I’m a supporter, too, I guess, but I really got irritated when I couldn’t come up with a single instance of him outcoaching some and getting us a win.
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October 14th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Ironic:
http://www.houstontexans.com/news/Story.asp?story_id=4749
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October 14th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
@Matt: Fred Bennett is a good one, point taken.
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On paper, the defense you lay out is a good one (making the assumption that Adibi can play). I’ve wanted to see more of both Thompson and Bentley at lb. Obviously Bentley is playing in DeMeco’s position, but he has been impressive in special teams and other limited action. I’d like to see if he can handle SAM.
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But, like you said, it doesn’t do too much if the guy making the calls sucks.
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As far as games where we outcoached other teams, maybe Denver last year? Other than that, I think there’s not too much to go on.
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October 14th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
@Eric: Glad you posted that.
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Matt and I were chatting about this yesterday, and let me say that I agree with all of the above.
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Let’s look at the offense. We made some serious gambles putting guys out there who don’t have experience (Brown) or pedigree (Brisiel) and signing role players who have excelled (Walter and Davis), but we have no such success on the D side of the ball. One can argue about Demps, but I really haven’t been as impressed with him as was the Emmy committee last year. I can *see* improvements in the offense, and that’s my expectation. Hell, we’re 5th in total yards/game right now, and we’ve played three of the top 5 defensive teams in the league (Miami was #5 before last week). Playcalling, obviously, is not our strongest suit.
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I’m concerned about the D. Smith simply does not field his best players, and every time Zgonina sees time over Okam, we lose.
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And I’m concerned about the inside football skills necessary for a HC. Kubiak appears to lack basic skills most of us have perfected playing fucking Madden for crikey’s sakes.
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I see a lot of wasted talent, but it’s still a lot of talent so it’s hard to get too pessimistic.
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I’m one of those “in the media” who feels we did turn a corner with this game. This is a game the Texans would’ve lost 100 out of 100 times before Sunday. Now, we have some confidence, and confidence is huge when you’re an athlete. Hopefully, this confidence slices through the entire organization, including Kubiak.
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I say again: Fire Richard Smith now, fire him today, fire him often.
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October 14th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
@bigfatdrunk: The main reason I don’t buy the “turned the corner” angle is because I don’t think you can judge those things in the instant. After all, if we play like ass this week, lose to Detroit, and looks as inept as we did against Tennessee, did we really turn a corner?
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@WillFist4Food: I’d like to see LVJ get some time at WLB as well. I’m officially saying “my bad” on hyping Morlon Greenwood.
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October 14th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
@Matt: Oh, I do agree with everything you said, including that. It’s a matter of…I dunno, semantics?…with me. I’m just happy we won a tight game rather than not, and that there is the added bonus of confidence. It doesn’t mark some new period of Texan Dominance or anything like that. It’s at least something to hang a hat on for the team and remind them that, hey, we can do this shit.
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October 14th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
@Matt: There’s a part of me that believes that the first six weeks of the season were nothing more than a bad dream, sort of like that season of Dallas (the TV show, ldo) where it turns out that that one character dreamed the whole thing.
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In this scenario, all of these little mistakes that add up to losing (to say nothing of the big ones, like not calling TO during an obvious fake punt or the Rosencopter) suddenly go away, Kubiak finally gets it, we successfully pressure the qb with only a four man front and Jacques Reeves learns to look for the ball.
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And despite the fact that a significant part of me feels like we lost last week, I still feel like that scenario is entirely possible. Rationally I take on board the points about Kubiak’s faults. But emotionally, I hope that he is learning from his mistakes and I’m willing to give him some more time.
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There’s all kinds of examples that indicate coaches can improve over time: Jeff Fisher, Tom Coughlin, etc. Of course just because these guys did it doesn’t mean that Kubiak will. We’ll see, I guess.
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Oh, and fire Richard Smith.
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October 14th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Thanks for rockin the flip side of my manic depressive high, but you guys are dead on about Kubes. Besides, what good coach goes 4-15 on the road? That’s just sad. And it’s not like most of those losses are competitive.
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October 14th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Kuharsky’s by the numbers:
http://myespn.go.com/blogs/afcsouth/0-5-88/Numbers-game–Houston-Texans.html?post=true
The first stat is an abortion!!
Yes, fire Dick Smith!!!
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October 14th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
@Eric: Fuck me running! That’s obscene! Those numbers should come with a parental advisory!
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October 14th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
“it seems like Andre Davis is always running half-speed”
I’ve noticed that too. Even last year when he took a few to the house, it seemed like he just got good blocking. Maybe he just looks slow because he’s tall and lanky, but I get the feeling that he doesn’t take off immediately like Mathis did. Hell, I even thought that back-up CB we used for a few games last year looked pretty good returning kicks.
As for Kubiak… You may be right. It pains me to say it, as a former Broncos fan. But he definitely doesn’t make good adjustments at half time, and he’s absolutely horrible at closing out a game. That said, I think he’ll be a successful head coach some day, but it might not be with the Texans. That’s the way the league works; he needs time to figure it out, and we don’t have the luxury of sticking with a coach when he’s not winning. The guy does a hell of a job working without stars on offense. Andre Davis couldn’t even succeed in New England, and Kevin Walter certainly never seemed like he’d near four-digit receiving totals.
I’d like to see what he could do with a halfway decent defensive coordinator though. Unfortunately, I don’t think McNair will keep him around long enough for us to find out. And ultimately, whoever our next coach is will get all of the credit for the work that he’s done.
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October 14th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
It sure as hell looks like Gary is running the offense. He needs to ditch that crap and give the responsibility to his offensive coordinator so he can actually watch the game and make head coaching decisions. Every time they show him, he’s got his head buried in a playbook or something. I wonder how often head coaches have been successful with this approach…
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October 15th, 2008 at 10:15 am
A slightly alternative view.
In a pass heavy league, I like what Kubiak brings to the table. And what he has been able to do without really using that many resources on the offensive side of the ball. One first round pick on the line and a bunch of patched together guys. Good value with a 3rd round pick Slaton. There’s Andre Johnson and a bunch of TE/WRs that no other team in the league valued highly but can move the ball.
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The biggest plus that Kubiak has is that he actually wants to be coaching the Texans. It is not a stepping stone for another job–it is his dream job. He’s relatively young so you don’t have that pay a named coach a bunch of money and then see him retire on you and than have to start over. Most *name* coaches are like Phil Jackson–they are looking for $$$ + a great situation. The Texans for better or worse have never had a winning record and have no tradition. Even with boat piles of money, it is hard to attract named coaches here as opposed to east coast teams with tradition and will be on TV a bunch who also have boat piles of money.
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His team had a 0-4 start, and the best thing Kubiak has going for him is that his lockeroom didn’t fall apart with that sort of start. I think Kubiak should get more time to overhaul and work with this team–usually teams do best when players have played together for a while–we haven’t had that luxury. I know that usually if you have two teams that are basically the same on talent, the team that has played together longer (without getting too old) will usually win.
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Kubiak’s biggest failing is not terminating the Richard Smith experience earlier. Smith’s defenders point to the lack of talent on that squad and their youth and that the offense doesn’t do them many favors with turnovers and short fields, but there are all sorts of teams in the league that thrive on young players and don’t have multiple 1st round picks on the line or super stars in the secondary. They have looked poorly coached from the beginning. And, if you are acquiring more talent for the future, you have to make sure it fits what you are doing on defense, and right now, and over the last two years, what the defense is doing is sucking.
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As you expect, I couldn’t disagree with you more on special teams’ coach Joe Marciano. First of all, realistically, you do you get to replace him who is better at coaching special teams? Second of all, it is undisputable that his players love him and play hard for him. And most importanly, his units tend to outperform the rest of the team, and often the rest of the league in special teams.
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Check out the most recently Football Outsiders on Texans:
http://footballoutsiders.com/dvoa-ratings/week-6-dvoa-ratings-3
Offense: 19 (even after that bad start)
Defense: 31 (FIRE RICHARD SMITH!!!! Year 3 of awful defense!!!! GAH!!!!!)
Special Teams: 7
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Most interestingly, the Texans past schedule is considered 2nd hardest in the league and the future schedule is considered 22nd.
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The defense is ranked WORSE after the Dolphin game than before it. They are 31st in the league against the run and 26th against the pass. And their variance ranking shows that they are consistent–consistently bad. Houston’s Defensive DVOA for 2006 and 2008 after 5 games is among the worst 5 games starts that they have measured. (GAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!)
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As for the poor road performances, it is my belief that dominant defenses are what bails out teams on the road. Helps with field position. That all offenses struggle a little bit on the road versus home, but that it is your defense that is supposed to keep you into games. The Texans defense is an albatross of spectacular proportions. It is no wonder than Rosenfels feels like he needs to press to keep them off the field.
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Richard Smith was over his head from the beginning. With the other coaches, you can see good and bad like any team has good and bad things to say about decision making. It is easy to lose sight as a fan of an individual team that all NFL teams have issues. But under any metric and with your eyes, I don’t think there is any doubt that Richard Smith is an awful defensive coordinator. If your defense underperforms the Vic Fangio 2005 Texans defense, you have to go. And I say that as someone who is not a raging off with their head sort of fan. He. Must. Go.