DGDB&D: a Texans blog.

7 Teams in.  3 or 5 spots remain.  Preferably 5.

Email me for the info.

Update: Chris points out an added bonus to being in this league.

Hey, I don’t know if you want to reference it in your FFL post or not -
but it may or may not help participation to mention that we will be
talking about the league when we do our (hopefully) weekly fantasy
football podcast.

So, if they’re in the league, they have a unique opportunity to be praised
and/or mocked relentlessly on a weekly basis for all the world to hear.

So there you go.

From reader and occasional guest-poster, Will “The Thrill”:

Here’s a point that hasn’t been brought up anywhere yet, and I think it’s the biggest problem facing the Texans.

We have to avoid, at all costs, getting into the “funk” we got into many of the games last year.  Not playing physical.  Not hitting people in the jaw.  Jags play physical and so do the Titans.

I remember being so mad during the second Titans game I left the sports bar at the half and watched the rest of the game from the house.  It wasn’t necessarily talent, it was just playing on their heels.

It’s a mental aspect, an intangible.  Is it coaching, or is it scheme?  It’s contagious, whatever it is.  At times it looked like the team wanted to curl up in a fetal position and find a happy place rather than hit someone in the mouth.  We need more “mean streaks” like you see in O-Line scouting reports.  BTW, is that the same as saying a girl is “sweet,” meaning their technique isn’t the best, but they’re mean?  She’s kinda fat, but she’ll still fuck.  [Awesome. --Ed.]

The strange thing is someone finally steps up, and then it’s like the team gets a Popeye can of spinach, and then everyone’s back in the game.  My favorite Maddenism is so true, “90% of the game is half mental.”  I forget what the spark was to the Titans comeback, but a big part of it could support the next argument.

We came back on the Titans when they started playing back on their heels on defense.  I firmly believe non aggression on defense can lead to playing on your heels.  Whether or not this is THE issue, it’s a major issue, as we’ve cited numerous times last year.

Maybe it’s coaching, and guys like Alex Gibbs and Ray Rhoades will keep a fire lit under people’s ass.

Speaking of Rhoades, when will some of the local media quit copying each other’s stories and look at Rhoades some more?  The Alex Gibbs deal has been re-run to death.  Give us some damn ax-cess!

You know, I hadn’t even thought about it because the season ended on such a high note, but Will is exactly right–there were times last year when it looked like the Texans were scared.  The Chargers game comes to mind [Side note: Fuck you, Drayton Florence] as one where they never snapped out of the “funk.”

I have two theories as to why this is, at least on our defensive side of the ball.  First, Richard Smith is mildly retarded and has no idea how to play aggressive defense and get the most out of what he has.  Unfortunately, he is still here.  Fortunately, Ray Rhodes is lurking and might give him a pointer or ninety.

Second, the Texans are a young team.  I haven’t looked at the numbers to back this up, but it’s my guess that young teams are more prone to getting overwhelmed early in a game and then being on their heels the rest of the day.  Of course, it’s that same youth that comes out fearless when they get some early breaks.

What say the rest of ye?

Making the leap? Paul Kuharsky has five questions with Amobi Okoye.  In them we learn that Amobi wants to make a leap similar to the one Mario made last year.  Also, Amobi and LeBron are friends and “obviously, we talked like people of the same age talk.”  Fo’ realz. (h/t Eric)

Consistent.  How does Mike Florio manage to say something retarded every time he writes about the Texans?  You’d think that once he’d get through a whole article without looking like a fool.  Not this time, though.

Guh.  Titans fan with a preview of the Texans.  Don’t you love how someone can spend the majority of the analysis talking about a large amount of talent on both sides of the ball, then conclude with a dismissive “I see another last place finish” for the Texans?  That’s fun.

Finally.  Programming notes:  I hope to set up the Fantasy Football league this weekend and have the information up come Sunday or Monday.  I’ll recap the people who’ve said yes when I post the info.  Also, at some point this weekend, I hope to have a fairly detailed post about why the Jags are going to stumble this year.

This might be the most gay sexually challenged post in the history of this blog, right after Matt’s unpublished mash note to Mittens, but, you know, fuck it.  Yesterday was my 13th wedding anniversary with my wife (obviously, please send prayers/alcohol/prozac her way), so I’m feeling a little mushy.  And gassy, natch.  Here are the questions, and here are my responses.  If you’re feeling equally dumb, play along!

If I were not a football player, I would be:

When I’m not at work, I’m most often:

Favorite all-time song:

Favorite non-football sports moment:

Favorite cartoon as a kid:

What actor would play you in a movie about your life?

Favorite guity pleasure:

Special talents:

Ideal SportsCenter highlight:

Oh yeah, this is a bad idea, so here I go!!!!!

f I were not a football player, I would be:

A baseball player.

When I’m not at work, I’m most often:

Begging my wife for sex.

Favorite all-time song:

Brent Best’s (of Slobberbone and The Drams) rendition of Cortez the Killer with The Gourds, back when when The Gourds was publishing their live stuff.

Favorite non-football sports moment:

Any time J.R. Richard pitched.  I know it was a kid-crush, but he absolutely dominated in his prime.  In person, he was a gentle giant.  He’s one of baseball’s greatest failures yet best successes all at once.

Favorite cartoon as a kid:

Even as a kid, I knew they all sucked.  Probably The Jetsons.

What actor would play you in a movie about your life?

Some pasty-faced Fat Albert.

Favorite guity pleasure:

Southern cooking.  All of it.  I mean, fried chicken, greens, wings, cajun, creamed anything, you name it.  And especially BBQ.  When it comes to Southern food, I am a stereotype.

Special talents:

Masturbating.  I *have* been married for 13 years, donchaknow.

Ideal SportsCenter highlight:

I was kinda shocked at the player answers.  I was honored to watch VY win a Championship for the Horns, and I still cared about the Rockets in the Akeem days.  But of everything, my beloved Oilers never won the big one, and I want the Texans to make that highlight come true.  The day Mario is holding the Lombardi Trophy is the day that highlight comes true.

Because you can never have enough Matt in your life.  I was lucky enough to be the guest on Houston Diehards’ inaugural podcast.  Listen as I speak way too quickly—complete with nasal-y twang!—while trying to pretend like I have a clue what I am talking about. (Seriously, though, Chris did a bang-up job of leading the discussion and I could see HD’s podcasts becoming a must-listen as the season progresses.)

Wait…what? Look, mister, there’s two kinds of dumb—a guy that gets naked and runs out in the snow and barks at the moon, and a guy who does the same thing in my living room. First one don’t matter, the second one you’re kinda forced to deal with. If yesterday’s KSK comment was the latter, this article is a good example of the former.  Still, it warrants posting because, well, I’ll be damned if I can follow the logic in it.  Apparently, the Texans are an incomplete team, but the Raiders aren’t.

More Peter King stupidity.  Apparently, Peter King thinks the Texans would be interested in Chris Simms. “The reason I pointed out Houston in MMQB is the Texans have a need for a third guy behind Matt Schaub and Sage Rosenfels, plus the new offensive coordinator, Kyle Shanahan, is Simms’ buddy from their days at the University of Texas.”  We have a “need for a third guy,” Peter?  Really?  And Chris Simms would fill that need because…um…Kyle knows him?  Do me a favor…just don’t ever mention my favorite team again, ok?  Because every time you do, you say something ridiculous.

Finally. This has NOTHING to do with football or the Texans, but it is funny enough to be worth posting.  (h/t Rendhel)

Update: How much interest is there in a DGDB&D fantasy football league?  I know the BRBers are doing a pretty elaborate one, so I was thinking something smaller (12 team max) with QB, WR, WR, WR, RB, RB, TE, K, DEF, D as the positions.

Forward Thinking.  Rosy Colvin likes his new team and likes the role of situational pass rusher.  Says Colvin, “I would love to be going forward. A lot of the guys up there in New England used to say all the time when I’d drop back in coverage, ‘Keep that guy going forward.’”

Cinco.  SOLIS has a great run-down of Day Five of Training Camp.

OHMYGOD, STOP THE PRESSES AND HOLD EVERYTHING!!!!! Vince Young was inconsistent in practice yesterday.  This is a shocking and wholly unexpected development.  In other news, the sky is blue, water is wet, and I am a jerk.

Programming Note.  I am kind of busy for the rest of the day, so odds are good that I won’t post anything else before this evening at the earliest.  As always, BFD is at the mercy of his job.  And you thought doing gay fetish porn was easy.

Back when I still had Comcast cable—before the tornado made my trees go bye-bye and allowed me a better view of the Southern sky–I did a post about how Comcast was trying to piss me off.

It seems DirecTV has decided to one-up them.

I called today to order my Sunday Ticket (plus SuperFan) package and, when I was placed on hold, whose voice should come on the line but Peyton fucking Manning?!?  That’s right—I had to listen to that inbred, Chesney-blowing assmaster give me a three minute spiel about how “aww shucks, I’m gonna be ready on Sunday, will you be?”

Son. Of. A. Bitch.  What could I do?  I had to order the package, so I waited and tried to ignore him.  And I’m pretty sure I confused the operator when she came back on the line and I said “that person who was just talking to me was very, very insulting.”

Fuzzy math.  The Titans claim Haynesworth’s one-year tender offer makes him the highest paid player in football.  Haynesworth’s agent disagrees.  Haynesworth responded by punching an eldery lady and squishing a newborn baby with his bare hands. (h/t Eric)

Irritating trends in national sports journalism. I post this article merely as further proof that Morlon Greenwood is the most underrated player in football.  He is lumped into the guys who are “holes around” Mario, Amobi, and DeMeco.  Fred Bennett is also, apparently, part of that group.

The is your brain on drugs.  Following up from BFD’s Kickoff yesterday, Chris has added a second round of numbers to the predictions for the BE-SF’s 2008 season.  Suffice it to say that, should these numbers pan out, the Titans will be one of the greatest offensive teams in the history of football.  Which will be even more impressive, since they are doing it without WRs.

Finally.  Some retard wrote a breakdown of the Texans’ running back situation.

Better 40-time than Buzz Aldrin. My internet connection is slow at work [fucking county government -ed.], so I can’t get a good read at what is going on in this video.  My guess is that NASA wants a bad motherfucker to go to Mars and they are recruiting DeMeco.  It’s either that or something to do with Liberty White Liftoff.  Dunno.

Banner?  I barely even know ‘er! I mentioned it off-hand in my 100K post (go look for yourself if you don’t believe me), but thanks to Liston the Houston Banner offered to let me write a little Texans content. OK, technically, it was “sports content” in general, but I don’t write about basketball and I’m not an Astros fan, so it’s football time in Houston. Or something like that. Here is the Banner’s website, though they don’t have the July articles posted yet. If you want a hard copy (though I can’t imagine why you would), you can pick one up in and around Northwest H-town.

Finally.  Another “Create Your Own Caption” photo:

(bfd edit: A gift from Eric to Lee.  I was at this game!)

Just wanted to let everyone know that the funky little grey (gray?) arrow beside the commentors’ name in the comments to each post is the reply-to function.  So, no more having to type “@ Asshead” before you write.

As I write this, the ol’ Sitemeter sits at 99,997, meaning that we will roll that thing over the 100K mark at some point in the next hour or two.  I’d been telling myself that I was going to write some big post celebrating that milestone, but doing that kind of post so close in time to my big discussion on blogging in general seems redundant.  (Besides, I know for a fact that the Sitemeter has crashed at least three times for hours at a time, so we should have rolled over the meter some time last week most likely.  Whatever.)

ANYWAY, instead of doing some kind of big, introspective piece, I thought I would take this chance to offer some thanks to random people reasonably related to this blog.  If you are not on this list, it either means that I don’t like you or that I simply forgot.  Or, I suppose, that I have nothing to thank you for, but I still like you.  You figure it out.

Thanks to bfd for being a fantastic co-blogger and a heckuva person in real life.  He and I have become close enough (in a hetero way) from doing this gig that I don’t feel at all weird referring to him as “my friend.”  He also doesn’t complain when I bombard him with text messages, which is nice.

Thanks to Tim for all sorts of stuff.  Jeez…the man has bought muliple rounds of drinks, hooked a brother up with a ticket to the HOU-TEN game last year, let me crash at his house when I made the trip to H-town to pick up the smoker.  Totally above and beyond.  Also, he doesn’t complain about my million text messages, which seems to be a pre-req for being my friend.

Thanks to Liston for hooking me up with an actual paying gig writing about the Texans.  (I’ll have a more detailed mention of this next week.)

Thanks to stacy for being the first reader of this place to ever email me and cheer me on in the early months.  I really think it wouldn’t have become as good as it has (I’ll leave the actual “goodness level” determination to each of you) were it not for his early urgings.

Thanks to Whitney Pastorek for giving me the chance to help with the Deadspin preview last year and for just being awesome when I pester her via email.

Thanks to beef, SOLIS, and Shake for routinely cracking me up in the comments.  Also, SOLIS gets credit for inspiring me to switch from blogspot to a real host in an effort to keep the Man from censoring me.

Thanks to Eric, without whom the morning Kickoff posts would be WAY more labor-intensive.

Thanks to anyone who has ever emailed me to suggest a story, a picture, or a restaurant, or just to comment on something I said or did.

Thanks to my wife for putting up with her football-obsessed husband blogging away while we watch television.  “No, dear, I can’t feed the baby because someone is wrong on the internet!”

Thanks to any of you who I have met in real life for not kicking me in the nuts or setting me up to stumble into a dark alley where Travis Johnson is hiding.  That’s really cool of you.  Also, any of you who have ever bought me a beer are on the shortlist of people I will give money to should I ever win billions of dollars.

Finally, thanks to everyone other than Douchebag Tom who has ever bothered to comment, even if it was just once.  The comments are what keep me doing it, you know.  (Extra thanks to Dave for being lame awesome enough to be the MOST prolific commenter.  I’m sure he has it on his resume.)

Let’s be honest: their love flows kinda like this….

I {heart} you all,

bfd

PS: Consider this a weekend open thread.

PPS: h/t Boing Boing

My mom.  She was in a lot of pain.

Closing comments.

Instead, please send some thoughts my sister’s way.  She has been taking care of our mother essentially full time for over a month now.  It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.

As for me?  Y’all can just buy me a beer at the next Texans mash-up.

Leg hugs to all,

bfd

As you may have noticed, things have been pretty damned quiet in BFD-ville (which, I believe, has nothing to do with Podunk, OK but much to do with Fucking, Austria).

Fact is, things have been extremely stressful for me personally lately.  I’ve tried to write a couple of times, but I’ve had the worst case of writer’s block evar.  And, when you write on a blog with possibly the best in the blogosphere, Matt, if your material looks like shit, it’s gonna stick out like my boner in a porn flick.  Well, there’s that, and the floggings when Matt doesn’t like your work.

If this gives you any idea: I had knee surgery today a couple of weeks after a near hit and run while I was on  bike.  Going the opposite direction, somebody turned left dead-on flush on me.  She missed, but only because I jumped the curb at an angle, forcing me to land pretty damn awkwardly.  Unfortunately, I completely wrenched my knee in the process…the one that’s already had four surgeries on it.  Fortunately, she was classy enough to peel off after this happened, though I did manage to get her license plate (yes, she knows what happened).  So, I get to deal with the local PD on this clusterfuck.  The surgery, at least, went quite well.

When I went in today, and they checked my blood pressure, it was 153/113.  Seriously.

All this on top of normal life, a death in my wife’s family, AND, most stressful of all, a pending death in my family which has created an enormous strain on me.  But, the burden has been mostly on my sister, who officially deserves saint-hood for all she’s done.  The last two months of my life have been an epic contrast on the difference between being alive and living.

I haven’t pooped in over 48 hours.

I do have some points to make, so bear with me a bit longer.

1. Thanks to Matt, who, in reality, is the Internet equivalent of a snuggly teddy bear.  Really.
2. Thanks to a couple of others who venture around these parts, but especially Eric.  Cept when the jerk makes me tear up at work.
3. My sister kicks ass.
4. Carpe diem.  Which, yeah, seems obvious.  But I’m watching yet another person dying of cancer, and I have a hard time releasing that concept.

My point isn’t too solicit “I’m sorry”s or anything like that (really and truly, I don’t want them).  Consider this another adventure in online carthartic moments.  I hope to start posting regularly, both here and at WTP, as soon as possible.

As I’m sure most of you have seen by now, Will Leitch took The Big Lead to task (kinda) in response to this LA Times article about how Buzz Bissinger’s [likely drunken] tirade against Will made bloggers change their tone and become more serious.  Will’s article was well-written, even if (as other’s have pointed out) it’s a little ironic for him to be complaining about blogs changing, given the number of writers, many of them horribly shitty, who have guest slots on Deadspin now.  After all — and I’m paraphrasing a number of comments and blog posts — selling out is selling out, no matter what the impetus, right?

But none of that is why I mentioned this whole thing in the first place.  Honestly, I don’t care about the fallout from Bissingergate at all because I don’t see that it’s had any affect on what we (or other Texans blogs) are doing.  Nor do I care about whether other sports blogs are changing their tune because, honestly, other sports blogs don’t cover the Texans enough to really draw more than a passing interest from me.  (Honestly, unless the material is (a) consistently hilarious or (b) extremely well-written, I might go weeks without reading a given blog.)

No, I bring this whole thing up because of Will’s final sentences in that article.  In a piece of advice to all bloggers, Will opines:

Just take care of your own business, figure out what you do best, pray everyone just stays out of your way and then start ripping shit up. Fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke.

If I were trying to sum up the mindset of DGDB&D in one sentence, that part in bold would come pretty close.  I hope BFD doesn’t mind me speaking for him here, but our goal has always been to entertain first and inform second, and I feel like we do a pretty good job of it.  There aren’t too many blogs, Texans or otherwise, that do in-depth Xs and Os talk sandwiched between fake conversations and jokes about sodomy.  Do we go a little over the top at times?  Definitely.  Is it possible that we are offending some people, including families of some of the people we write about?  Sure.  But so what?  No, seriously — why does that matter at all?  I mean, for Christ’s sake, I have a photo essay about Richard Justice that begins with a rhino having explosive diarrhea.  Do you really think there’s anything here you shouldn’t take with a huge grain of salt?

Now, I realize that, as with anything, tastes vary when it comes to blogs.  For instance, I love half of the KSK writers but can’t stand the other half, I find With Leather nearly unreadable, and I happen to think that Deadspin was best when it was just Will and Rick on a daily basis.  Your opinions may (and likely do) vary, which is totally fine by me.  Which is why I don’t understand people who feel the need to comment or email to tell me that what I’ve done is “offensive” or “rude” or “stupid as shit” or whatever.  You feel that way?  Great, more power to you…but your opinion means less to me than, apparently, mine does to you.  Why waste your e-breath writing something that is just going to get ridiculed or, more likely, ignored?  It’s not like you are going to change anything at all on this site.

I guess my point is that DGDB&D is never going to please everyone.  First, that’s more or less impossible, and, second, that would incredibly boring.  What we try to do is entertain the people who do like the site and just forget about those who don’t.  More accurately, what we try to do is bring something to the Texans blogosphere that you can’t get anywhere else.  To my way of thinking, that should be everyone’s goal.  For example, Battle Red Blog, the gold-standard of being entertaining while being informative, has cornered the market on doing in-depth features, hitting on breaking news first, and creating a comment section that is friendly and often hilarious.

Now, as a blog with a similarly-sized readership base, we could attempt to do the same thing as them or we could find another angle and try to make our site different, which is exactly what we’ve done.  By doing this, to paraphrase SOLIS, we’ve created a place that is like a local bar, where you recognize most everyone, you bullshit with your friends, you revel in the constantly stupidity, and you get into the occasional sports argument.

If we can entertain you while providing the occasional nugget of actual football insight — and if we can accomplish the whole thing through some well-written pieces — then I feel like we’ve succeeded in reaching our goal as a blog.  It may leave some things to be desired and it sure as hell ain’t for everyone, but no one is making you read it.  If you don’t like it, read something else; if you do read it, then realize that this site is the way it is for a reason.

And fuck you if you can’t take a joke.

This went over pretty well when BFD posted it last time.  So, same deal, what are you listening to these days?  I’ve been in a very eclectic (even for me) mood over the last week.

• Wade Bowen, Lost Hotel
• Aesop Rock, Labor Days
• The Band, Greatest Hits (side note: Apparently my mother-in-law knew Levon Helm in college…odd)
• Pearl Jam, Ten

He’s not dead.  I thought I would just mention that BFD is, in fact, still alive and will resume posting at some point.  I haven’t fired him (because, honestly, why the fuck would I) and he’s not been abducted by Titans fans that I know of.  I imagine he’ll return sometime around the end of the month.

Phallout.  Interesting discussion of my 4-3 post from the other day.  Not interesting so much in what they add to the post, but in their discussion of me.  “He has no wife.”  I had to laugh. (As an aside, I’ll point out in reference to a comment in that thread that the only way I think Reeves can do what the Eagles’ CBs do is in terms of getting to the QB in a very short amount of time. )

I want to punch that Verizon dude in the mouth. Article on DeMeco using the defensive headset.  Nothing groundbreaking, other than it quotes Richard Smith saying, basically, that this is a huge advantage for the defense.  You know what else is a huge advantage?  Not calling plays like a scared old woman.  Just sayin’.

Is this thing on? I’ll be damned if I can find any Texans news worth linking to this morning.  We have officially hit the summer doldrums, aka “the time of year when we are forced to talk to family.”  Damn. Because there is no news, I am just going to link to a bunch of random funny stuff.

Like the real thing, only smarter. You know what you need?  A Dom Capers bobblehead doll.  The description doesn’t say whether the doll comes with an inability to coach offense, but it seems so life-like I assume it would have to. 

Not so much funny, as awesome.  Sticking with the bobbleheads for a second, here is an Andre Johnson Draft Day ‘head.  I’ve never even seen this before.  Of course, it’s going for $54.99, so it ain’t cheap, but nothing good ever is.

Ice, Ice Baby. I know I’ve linked to this once before, but MJD’s take on David Carr being “too cool to QB” still makes me laugh.

Wasn’t me. Brandon Jones, another WR that Vince Young has little use for, was arrested for trying to take a gun through airport security.  Said the flanker, “uh, yeah…I, um, grabbed the wrong bag.  I meant to grab my suitcase and, instead, grabbed the bag where I haphazardly keep my LOADED firearms.”

Parting shot.  My wife, after reading the long post on the 4-3: “You make football sound like it takes thought to play it.  I read the first two paragraphs, but the rest are sounding like the teacher in a Peanuts cartoon.”

I realize that the last, oh, week (at least) has been little more than the kickoff posts and that such link dumps smack of laziness. Keeping in mind that BFD and I really are incredibly lazy, I promise that we have some more substantive stuff in the works. It’s just going to have to wait one more day, at least on my end, because I am playing catch-up today.

For now, I offer:

P.S. Totally unrelated, but the blockquote citation in the comments doesn’t make sense. All you have to do is the traditional <blockquote></blockquote>. I don’t know what the hell the “cite=”"” part is about.

1. I am still at the beach.
2. I am literally sitting on the beach, looking at the Gulf of Mexico, as I write this.
3. I am lame.
4. Incredibly lame.
5. BFD is doing an awesome job holding down the fort.
6. This place is not really a fort.
7. Beer is much better when you are on vacation.
8. I am posting by phone.
9. See nos. 3 and 4, supra.
10. Only asshole lawyer-types use the word “supra.”
11. I turn thirty in two days.
12. Petey turns 29 the same day.
13. Fate has a sense of humor.
14. I am not a fan of turning 30.
15. I am drunk.
16. I am wearing a ridiculous cowboy hat that is somehow acceptable because of my location.
17. I am probably fooling myself re: the cowboy hat.
18. DeMeco is a god in Alabama and people talk about him to me whenever I wear my Texans hat.
19. Alabamans (?) need to get out more.
20. Time for another beer.