The Northern Lights? At this time of year, in this part of the country, localized entirely within your kitchen?
Dec 26, 2007 2008 Draft, 2008 Season, Beer, Holiday posts, Predictions Guaranteed To Go Wrong, Reggie Bush, Rumors, Self-Referential Stuff, Spanish, The Future, Zoolander's snazzy handwear
There is something about the first day of really shitty weather each winter that makes me bust out the old guitar and waste the afternoon. As I was playing today, however, I thought to myself, “I really don’t do this often enough…I should make a New Year’s resolution to play more often!”
Anyway, lameness of my inner conversations aside, I was struck by the fact that no one ever seems to make resolutions that reflect the hedonistic, self-destructive, and questionably-legal things they actually want to do. All we ever hear are “I want to lose weight” and “I want to learn a foreign language” and “I want to catch up on my child support.” Where are the “I will have much more meaningless sex” and “I will drink my body weight in bourbon weekly” that would actually please us if we carried through with them? Think about it–if someone gave you the choice between learning Spanish or having sex with 40 members of the gender of your choosing, which would you pick? Si usted dijo el “Spanish,” usted es un mentiroso. [Author's note: my Spanish sucks.]
To that end, I present the first annual DGDB&D New Year’s Blogolutions. In 2008, I will:
- use the words “fuck” and its derivatives (fucknut, fuckstick, fucktard, etc.) more often.
- make at least one post questioning the heterosexuality of random players and coaches each month.
- continue to mock David Carr and laugh at his failures, even as he becomes less and less relevant to Texans fans.
- continue to make bets of liquor with people I have never met. (Hopefully, I will win one at some point.)
- make a trip to Austin next season to watch a game and get as drunk as possible with people I met on the internet.
- embrace the dorkiness inherent in blogging. And then molest it.
- push fake conversations to the point that someone sends me a cease and desist letter.
- run better between the tackles than Reggie Bush.
- maintain my dominance in Google searches for “Filipino tranny porn” and try to improve my ranking for “houston bukkake parties” and “texans blog.”
- create wildly speculative pre-draft rumors, and proclaim my brilliance for any that might come true.
- convince myself by February that the Texans will make the playoffs in 2008.
Feel free to leave yours in the comments.
Jason Babin approves of this message
May 20, 2007 Amobi Okoye is 19, DeMeco Ryans, Demarcus Faggins sucks, Dunta Robinson, Jason Babin, Michigan Wolverines, Secondary issues are primary, Spanish, Super Mario
It is possible that the following is only of interest to Jason Babin and a few of his relatives.
Anyway, though I don’t think I’ve just come out and said it, it’s my not-so-radical theory that the starting defensive line will be Super Mario, Manchild, and Dos Anthonys*. I am generally ok with this. However, it does raise one interesting question: ¿Dónde es Jason Babin?
Fans may recall that Babin was the second of two first-round picks by the Texans in the 2004 draft. A defensive end out of Directional Michigan, Babin ended his collegiate career with 299 tackles (including 202 solo and 75 for a loss) and 38 sacks, despite missing all of his senior season with a broken leg. He was described in various scouting reports as “one of the fastest down linemen in the game of football” and having “tremendous potential as a pass rusher.”
At the time Babin was selected, the Texans were still running Dom Capers’ 3-4 defense. Babin was therefore converted from defensive end to outside linebacker; Capers apparently assumed that a pass rusher was a pass rusher, regardless of where he lined up. (Gee, I wonder why Dom wasn’t successful…)
So it went for the 2004 and 2005 seasons. Babin put up 63 tackles and 4 sacks in his first year, then followed that up with 37 and 4 (and 2 forced fumbles) in ‘05.
Prior to 2006, as the team converted from a 3-4 to a 4-3, Babin was unconverted back to defensive end. Of course, by this time Babin was a man without a starting slot (he started only three times in ‘06). Still, now that he was being asked to do what he was actually drafted to do**, he turned in a career high in sacks (5) regardless of his diminished playing time.
And my point is?
I suppose the underlying point is that Babin has talent and loads of untapped potential, thus it is far to early to relegate him to permanent backup. However, the point of this post is this: I propose that the starting d-line should be (from the right) Williams, Maddox , Okoye, and Babin. Weaver would still get plenty of reps spelling Babin and Okoye (and possibly playing Nose Tackle in certain situations).
Crazy? Hardly. Weaver is a solid run-stopper and he has played tackle on passing downs numerous times before. More importantly, this line would (in theory, at least) give the Texans a very strong pass rush from the front four, meaning the LBs would be free to assist in short pass coverage. Given our secondary of “Dunta and these friggin’ guys,” ANY assistance from the LBs would be worth its weight in cliches.
I realize that the biggest possible question mark in this scenario is how the line would fare against the run. Weaver as an outside run stopper was probably the best on the team last year. I think this question is the wrong way to look at things, however. The biggest problem facing this defense right now is the complete lack of a dependable secondary; having a dominating pass rush would alleviate this. There is no reason to think that the downgrade in run defense from Weaver to Babin would even come close to outweighing the upgrade in pass rush ability. Besides, with Orr (whom I fully admit my bias toward… Go Blue!) behind Babin, you have the ability to run blitz with effectiveness. (Side note: That Orr holds the team single game sack record with three is sad, but illustrates the pressing need for a real pass rush.)
Will my plan be implemented? Unlikely. Kubiak is a fan of using Weavs primarily as an outside rusher. Moreover, it appears that Babin has–in Kubes’ mind–established himself as a ‘tweener, relegated to spot duty at a couple different positions.
Bother.
That means, this is probably all just an exercise in wishful thinking. That does not make it incorrect, however.
*That would be Anthony Maddox and Anthony Weaver.
**Novel concept, eh?
