All-Time Texans Team - Defense - DT
Aug 20, 2008 All-Time Texans, Amobi Okoye is an adult, Awfulness, Frank Okam is an evil genius, Inflamed body parts, Tremendous Busts
You saw the previous discussion of the paucity of talent at defensive end. You sobbed silently at your desk while discussing free safeties and strong safeties. You were sure the worst was behind us. But wait, there’s less!
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to talk about Defensive Tackle.
Now, if you’ve been reading this blog for more than about a week, you know that I scream and rant and rave about the need to differentiate between the Nose Tackle and the Under Tackle as two wholly different positions in the 4-3. And I would love to do that here. Unfortunately, even though the team ran a 3-4 for YEARS, Frank Okam is the first true two-gap NT we’ve ever had and he’s yet to play a real game, so I can’t hardly just pick him and move on. Thus, unfortunately, the DTs are getting lumped together.
The candidates:
Seth Payne
Steve Martin
Travis Johnson
Anthony Maddox
Amobi Okoye
*looks at list, throws up*
While he could have been a solid under tackle, Seth Payne was in no way, shape or form a nose tackle, even in a 4-3. Yet he played the position for years in a 3-4. Which goes a LOOOOOONG way toward explaining Jamie Sharper’s ridiculous tackle numbers. Now, to be fair to Payne, he busted his ass for us and played surprisingly well ok. His nine sacks, two forced fumbles, and 196 tackles over five seasons are not HOF numbers, but they are certainly better than nothing.
Despite being almost heavy enough to look like a nose tackle on television, Steve Martin made Seth Payne look like Casey Hampton. (Side note: That 2003 line of Corey Sears, Steve Martin, and Jerry DeLoach might be the worst front three ever assembled.)
Travis Johnson. Bah. In three years (24 starts), Johnson has 1 sack, 1 INT, 78 tackles, and 6 passes defended. He has never once forced or recovered a fumble. I’m not even sure how that is possible as a nose tackle, but whatever. But, hey, at least we didn’t waste a high draft pick on him! Oh…damn.
Anthony Maddox—a man who was delivering furniture when the Texans called him for a tryout and who only started 3 games last year because he lost his starting gig—has 4 career sacks, a FF, a FR, a 47-yard TD on that recovery, and 53 tackles. Which makes him better than Steve Martin and Travis Johnson combined.
Amobi Okoye had 5.5 sacks, 32 tackles, and a forced fumble in his only season. This despite it being painfully clear that he hit a real wall around week 12, which is what happens when you are drafted at 19 freakin’ years old.
Result: I am going with Seth Payne and Amobi Okoye for the all-timers.
*Note: I intentionally left out the guys who are really DEs but would move inside on occasion like Weaver and Smith.
All-Time Texans Team - Defense - DE
Aug 20, 2008 All-Time Texans, Anthony Weaver is a thief, Super Mario
Picking up where we left off a while ago. On the defensive side of things, we’ve already hit FS (C.C. Brown), SS (sadly, also C.CN. Brown), and MLB (DeMeco Ryans). I think BFD gave up on the offense, though, when he realized he’d have to pick a LT. Up next, Defensive End.
I decided to go with DE as a single position, but with the understanding that I will pick two players. This is because (a) the position is one of the more fungible ones, relatively speaking, and (b) the role of the 3-4 DE and 4-3 DE differs a bit, so it’s just easier if I lump all the DEs together and choose based on performance in the system at the time.
The Candidates:
Gary Walker
Jerry DeLoach
Corey Sears
Robaire Smith
Anthony Weaver
Mario Williams
The first DE spot is a no-brainer. Mario, welcome to the All-Time team.
The second spot, however, is a little tougher. Gary Walker transitioned from a DT in Jacksonville to become a Pro-Bowl DE in Houston in 2002 with 6.5 sacks and 52 tackles. Unfortunately injuries to his shoulder and his groin limited Walker after 2002 and, though he started 30 more games over three seasons, he was never close to his 2002 level.
Jerry DeLoach started two full seasons (and parts of two others) at DE for your Texans. And he sucked. Badly.
Corey Sears was a starter for 12 games in one season (2003) and was non-descript. Meaning, of course, that he inspired less anger than Jerry DeLoach did.
Anthony Weaver…guh.
Meaning, lame as it is, the only competition for Gary Walker on this squad is Robaire Smith. Smith never put up good sack numbers, but watching him play, you could hardly blame him. The team was using an almost-textbook 3-4, sending LBs (notably the woefully-out-of-place Jason Babin and Kailee Wong) on blitzes to get after the passer and smith was a 4-3 DT playing a 3-4 DE role. He did defend 13 passes in his two seasons and he also posted 121 tackles over that same time. Not bad. Solid, even.
SO…do you go with the guy who had one very good year and was then wrecked by injury or the guy who had two solid years where he did exactly what he was expected to do? Well, given the inability this team has in getting QB pressure over the years, coupled with my preference for big play DEs, I am going with Gary Walker. Congrats, Gar.
All-Time Texans Team - Defense - MLB
Jul 22, 2008 All-Time Texans, Awesomeness, DeMeco Ryans
I thought about avoiding this one until the very end. Not for the sake of suspense, mind you, but because it is difficult as hell and that difficulty is totally different than choosing the least-smelly turd at each safety position. I mean, you have two candidates who played in entirely different systems, but both of whom looked like the best defensive player on his team nearly every snap.
Damn.
Double damn.
OK…deep breath…obviously, the two candidates are:
Jamie Sharper
DeMeco Ryans
What is there to say here? Sharper gave us 441 tackles, 11.5 sacks, 12 passes defended, and 6 forced fumbles, 1 fumble recovery, 0 INTs and a TD in three seasons. Ryans has given us 284 tackles, 5.5 sacks, 14 passes defended, 3 forced fumbles, 4 fumble recoveries, 2 INTs, and a TD in two seasons.
I’m not going to lie; I was tempted to cheat and do two separate posts, one for ILB and one for MLB, and use the excuse that it was a different position altogether. But that would make me a namby-pamby pussy. So, instead, I forge ahead and choose…
umm…
DeMeco Ryans. By a hair.
Here’s the reasoning: Sharper was the RILB in a 3-4 that never featured a human being that could even pass for a NT, meaning that more or less every running play came right at him. Of course, the counter-argument is that the lack of NT meant that there was more potential for an O-lineman to get to the second level and block him. I’ll concede that, but raise you the fact that DeMeco hasn’t exactly had a murder’s row of DT talent in front of him (save for Amobi for about 12 games), and has faced a similar obstacle. However, due to the nature of the 4-3, plays are not funneled to DeMeco as readily and he has to use his impressive sideline-to-sideline speed to make plays. THAT is why he stands out when you watch the game–he literally is everywhere. Sharper, while very good, did not have to do that much side-to-side work.
Add to that DeMeco’s better play in pass defense and give him one bonus point for knocking the holy goddamned fuck out of Kerry Collins and scoring his first career TD at my first live Texans game and DeMeco wins. I expect, as time passes, the discussion won’t even be quite so tight.
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.)
All-Time Texans Team - Defense - FS
Jul 18, 2008 All-Time Texans, Secondary issues are primary, You'd like to think I was joking
Yeah, that’s right. BFD came up with the idea for these posts and I claim-jumped the defense. Because that’s how I roll. And because I didn’t want to pull my hair out figuring out our best LT. Since BFD is already balding, that won’t be an issue for him.
BUT, since he was a trooper and started with WR2, I can’t totally take the easy way out and start with, say, DE. So, let’s take a look at the FS position. In case of nausea, there are airsickness bags in the seatback in front of you.
The candidates:
Matt Stevens
Marcus Coleman
C.C. Brown
Von Hutchins
Will Demps
Ugh. Hold on for just a second.
*bangs head on desk repeatedly*
OK…so, it obviously can’t be Matt Stevens because he is on the short list of “Worst Texan ever.” It can’t be Von Hutchins because he was always nothing more than a stop-gap CB-turned-FS. And he was awful more often than not. Coleman, likewise, was a corner in free safety clothing. And Demps has yet to give us a full season (and, apparently, has manos de piedra).
Congrats, C.C.! Just like Corey Bradford, you win by default! You’re like the prettiest girl in Oklahoma!
All-Time Texans Team - Offense - WR2
Jul 17, 2008 All-Time Texans, You'd like to think I was joking
Preface: Probably the best baseball blog on the planet, USS Mariner, has been going through some awesome wankery as the team struggles to beat their own Rookie league team.
In that spirit, Matt and I - if we can keep our attention focused on this fucking project - are going to go through the Texans All-Time team. Yes, this is off-season wankery. So, you know, bite me. Because I am the junior here, I get the offense. Fuck.
First up is WR2. I mean, it’s not a mystery who WR1 will be, so kicking off with this.
The candidates for WR2 are…well, what’s that word I’m looking for?…..
…………
…………
…………ah yes, the word is pathetic. The problem is two-fold. First, Zoolander sucked ass. Second, Mr. Mittens was more interested in learning about hair-care products than he was banal things like, you know, the fucking playbook. Finally, WRs have not been part of our growth strategy, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing when you have a QB who can’t throw the ball five yards beyond the line of scrimmage. So, the finalists are:
- Corey Bradford
- Jabar Gaffney
- Kevin Walter
Drum roll, please. And the winner, somehow, is Corey Bradford.
Gaffney actually gained more yards than did Bradford, but Bradford has a huge advantage in TDs, 10 more than the next non-WR1 person. Believe it or not, Bradford had 18 TDs receiving, which is depressing but not suicidal.
Congrats to Corey Bradford, the winner by default! Next up? Left tackle.
- WR2 - Corey Bradford
- LT - ?
- LG - ?
- C -?
- RG - ?
- RT -?
- TE - ?
- WR1 - ?
- FB - ?
- HB - ?
- QB - ?
