DGDB&D: a Texans blog.

Recon. Chris gets the skinny on the Steelers from AOL Fanhouse blogger JJ Cooper. Which brings us something that’s always bothered me. Namely, why are some initials ok to use as your everyday name while others aren’t? JJ, BJ, AJ, DJ…what is it about the second J that makes that acceptible?

O captain, my captain, our dreadful offseason is done. Your Houston Texans have elected this year’s team captains.  Mario, DeMeco, Andre, The Schaub, and Kris Brown.  No surprises there, I guess.

The leap.  Marroncito returns to BRB with a question I had not really considered:  which player(s), if he raised his game to very good/great levels, would take the Texans to the doorstep of being a Super Bowl contender?  The most common answer in the comments is Amobi, and I tend to agree, but I can definitely see the argument for Schaub.

Finally.

Your Texans’ current practice squad:

Kevis Coley (LB)

Darnell Jenkins (WR)

Gabe Long (DT)

Jesse Nading (DE)

Derrick Roberson (CB and still better than Petey)

Mark Simmons (WR)

Adam Stenavich (T)

Darius Walker (RB)

Soooo…..notice anything, you know, missing?  Where are Shane Boyd and/or Alex Brink?

Unless there’s some piece of knowledge out there I don’t have, as in, for example, Brandon Frye is a particularly nimble and strong-armed guy, we are only carrying two QBs on our entire roster: Teh Schaub and Rosy Rosenfels.

Let’s set expectations: It’s not reasonable to expect Schaub and Rosy to be healthy all season.  I’m not saying they’re injury prone, but I am saying that quarterbacks get hurt (and having a rookie LT exacerbates the problem).  Hopefully, they aren’t injured at the same time like last year, and Rosy *was* able to stay healthy.

Still, having only two QBs on the roster scares me.  Practice squad members can be shifted at will, but the limit is the eight we have now.  I imagine Smithiak is still seeing what’s out there and available, but I definitely don’t think we’re done with roster moves yet…this week, I mean.

And do we sign the newly released Tatum Bell?

Edit: Because you know you want to.

Day 1 of minicamp is in the books. Which means that day one of the Alex Gibbs era, the return of Barbaro, the likely immolation of Jacques Reeves, and a whole host of other stuff. Mmm…tastes like chicken, err, football.

Anyway, most of the quotes coming out after today’s workouts were what you’d expect. The rookies were wide-eyed and thrilled to be there; the team looks good, but has to shake off some rust; everyone’s goal for minicamp is just to improve and get comfortable with the new pieces and plans; blah blah blah.

One thing jumped out, however–that BFD’s fear seems likely to come to fruition. At least if take Kubes at his word.

(on how T Duane Brown looked) “Well, I’ll have to go back and see but, you know, we’ve got to see how far we can bring this kid in the next month and so we put him right in there with the first group today. And I know it was very tough on Ephraim (Salaam), and y’all know I have a great deal of respect for Ephraim and I can understand why it was tough, but as I explained to him, I’ve got to see how far I can bring this young man. But I know Ephraim’s going to do his job and I’m expecting good things from him, but we felt like we had to put this kid to work right away.

(on if T Duane Brown is first on the depth chart) “Yes, he’ll be working with the first group, and that’s the only way we’re going to find out if this kid’s going to get to where we want him to go and how quick he can get there. You draft these kids in the first round to come in and play and that’s nothing against Ephraim (Salaam), as I said, and we’ve had this conversation. But I understand the difficulty in that, but we as coaches feel like we have to put this kid to work right away.”

Hmm…what to make of this? I’d say (a) Gibbs wants his guy to play and he wants it NOW, (b) Kubiak realizes that the better half of Black Salaami isn’t all that good, and (c) Duane Brown really is the archetype ZBS LT that we need. Plus, there is probably a little (d) “tell the fanbase the kid is a bona fide #1 just to keep the natives from becoming restless” in there as well. Lord knows no one wants restless Houstonians running around.

At this point, I am inclined to believe that Brown will be the opening day starter at LT. Now, I understand the fears of him being eaten alive by the various monster RDEs in the AFC South, but there are two things that make me think he’ll be okay if he is the starter from dia una (takes large swig of the Kool-Aid):

First, I am just telling myself (over and over and over) that, Gibbs’ pet or not, he will not be the starter until he can really be the starter. By which I mean, trial-by-fire only goes so far, especially when you are talking about the guy who is protecting the blindside of your franchise QB’s surgically repaired shoulder. So he is only going to get this LT gig if he can really do it. Will he struggle against KVB, et al? Possibly. But the question is not can he stop KVB on every single down; the question is can he stop KVB (or whomever) more consistently than Salaam can? If the answer is yes, then by all means, throw him in there and let him show me that I was wrong when I broke the TV remote after his selection.

Second, though, I am taking some comfort in this little snippet from BRB:

In his first game at right tackle he faced none other than Mario Williams. At his post-draft press conference, Duane was asked to comment about his encounter with Williams.

“I remember that night like it was yesterday. I was two weeks into the position; it was the opener and a night game at NC State. (Mario Williams) is a very intimidating figure. I held my own that night and it was the beginning of my transition. Being able to go against him in practice, he is one of the best defensive ends in the league. I think practicing against him will be great for me and will help me.”

He started at right tackle for two full seasons before moving over to left tackle in his senior year. In those three years, Brown racked up 42 consecutive starts.

In his senior season, Brown boasted an outstanding 89% blocking consistency average. By comparison, the overall first pick in the 2008 NFL draft, Jake Long, had an 88% blocking consistency rating in his final year at Michigan.

As we all remember, Mario was a bad motor scooter in college. If Brown really did hold his own against Super Mario in his first ever game as a tackle, then he has some serious natural-born talent hidden away in there. And, for all the effort he gave us last year, that is something that Ephraim Salaam just doesn’t really possess.

Of course, if I am wrong to optimistic now (and, conversely, right to have been pissed on Draft Day), I reserve the right to give him a horrible nickname and point out again and again that we already had a ZBS LT on the roster in Eric Winston. I’m a fickle mofo like that.

If there’s one thing on which we can rely on Pancakes (except for cleaning his plate with his tongue), it’s his ability to be the Texans’ stenographer.  In his latest dictation, Pancakes is told that:

Even though (Duane) Brown played left tackle for only one season and offensive tackle for just three seasons at Virginia Tech, he’s going to get a baptismal by fire. In other words, assistant head coach Alex Gibbs and offensive line coach John Benton are going to put him in and let him learn on the run.

*gulp*

I’m not sure how much of this was strategized (heh) by the coaching staff in the off-season because it seems more like happy/life-threatening coincidence than anything else.  However, if the coaches do expect Brown to start right off the bat, then that explains why we kept Rosie Rosenfels, signed Quinn Gray, and drafted Alex Brink.  It could also explain why we’ve been trying to lure Commander Cody Carlson out of retirement {scours Internet for proof of rumor.  Can’t find it.}  Awww, fuck it, you read it here first!

I’m not saying Brown can’t handle LT…in two or three years, that is.  There simply aren’t many college tackles whose names don’t rhyme with Darcus NcPeel who can start and play at a high level in the NFL their rookie season.  That Brown has only been an OL for three years and a LT for one just magnifies the dysfunction of this decision.

Of course, the sense of urgency is driven by the fact that we’ll only get a year or two out of Alex Fucking Gibbs (h/t Steph).  I can’t blame the man for wanting to get his pet into the starting lineup ASAFP, but I’m not looking forward to Brown matching up with Kyle “Baby Eating-Sister Fucker” Vanden Bosch, Dwight “Kitten Crusher” Freeney, and Derrick “Peaches” Harvey twice a year.  Just scary, actually.

Brown is a project, and while I am normally for “trial by fire,” I think that we are taking our QB’s health a little too lightly with this decision.

——–

Echoing Matt, thanks to everybody who stops by to visit.  Life’s been extremely stressful lately, which is why I haven’t been too talkative, but I sincerely appreciate y’all.

——–

Finally, is there a better hard reporter covering the Texans these days than SOLIS?  His work simply embarrasses those who should be doing this kind of reporting for a living (aka, the entire staff of the Comicle).  Well done, man.

Bear with me as this little ride might be a bit bumpy (translation: I’m a senile old coot, just happy to have my apple mush at the end of the day).

So, we know that our heroic Texans are willing to trade Rosie Rosenfels, and we know that we’re really, oh just super interested in re-signing Craig Nall to be Teh Schaub’s backup. We know that a certain team up north is willing to cough up a third round pick for Rosenfels. And we know (jeez, repetitive much?) there are reports the Texans are trying to trade back and flip 1st round picks with the Steelers and pick up a 3rd round pick for the effort (follow the link all the way down just above the comments).

What else do we know? Well, it looks like CB Fabian Washington is on the block. I think it’s fair to say that he has underperformed his expectations. While at Cornhusker U., I thought he would be a star at the next level. However, injuries and inconsistencies - and the occasional wife beating - have insured that his stay in Oakland Los Angeles Oakland Whatever will be short. Better yet, his contract is good for two more years, and it’s about as cheap as can be imagined for a player of his caliber.

With DeAngelo Hall on the cusp of entering Raider-land - a trade almost sure to not end well - the Raiders will have a complete log-jam at CB. But, because the Raiders will have to spend their 2nd and 6th round picks on that special head-case, they’ll be terribly short of picks come draft day. You don’t exactly have to be Travis Johnson to see where I am going with this.

Washington will be cheap to acquire due to the aforementioned injuries, inconsistencies, and his off-field transgressions. Plus, Washington isn’t the perfect player by any means: he’s weak in run support, for example. The Raiders aren’t exactly well-known for doing anything well these days, and with Washington only 25 this season, he has plenty of time to turn things around. Oh, and did I mention that he ran a 4.28 40?

This has “match made in heaven” written all over it. Trade the lowest 3rd round pick (probably the Steelers pick if that deal goes through) for Fabian Washington. Then, give me one part Fabian Washington and one part Ray Rhodes, and we might have a Chris McAllister caliber player at CB. Now, bugger off cuz Matlock is on, and I need to adjust the rabbit ears.

PS: Am I the only person who just really doesn’t like The Mountain Goats? I’m intrigued by “The Big Sleep,” so I got that one with my emusic subscription. Also got Levon Helm and the RCO All Stars, Flogging Molly, and Tinariwen tonight. IOW, my usual genre-cluster-fuck of monthly downloads. Weeeeee!!!!

Edit: Corey Smith re-upped with the Lions, so he’s out. I see this as: 1. another straw we go DE in the 1st round (though not a big, back-breaking straw), and 2. why we brought Chaun Thompson aboard to play the speed rusher role off the end. Yeah, he’s a LB, and he’ll compete for the SAM position with LVJ Bentley and Zach Diles, but Chaun does have the size (close enough) and speed to play that role if necessary. Total speculation, though.

According to Rick Smith:

[T]he team won’t hesitate to start [Sage] Rosenfels if he outplays [Matt] Schaub this season.

“That to me always plays itself out on the football field,” Smith said. “I don’t think you can let finances, ego, I don’t think you can let anything stand in the way of playing the best football player because that is going to win you football games on Sunday.”

I suppose, on its face, that statement is far more enlightened than what you get out of most general managers. Lord knows, you’d never hear something like that out of Dallas, even if Jesus Christ himself was the second-string QB. (Not that Jesus would ever deign to play for the ladies up north. Maybe I should have used “Troy Aikman’s assbaby” as my hypothetical QB. Whatever.)

ANYWAY…like I said, that is a pretty enlightened statement for a GM to make. Do I buy it? Depends. If you are asking whether I believe that Sage would get to play if Schaub flopped, of course. If, however, you are asking whether I think Schaub and Sage enter this season on equal footing with the starting QB job up for grabs, my answer is “hell to da naw, dawg.” Which I think means “no.”

Without rehashing all the same Schaub v. Sage arguments, can we all just agree that pretending like the QB you mortgaged the farm for this time last year is going to be given every chance in the world to succeed is asinine? Better yet, can we agree that if Sage and Schaub turn in identical pre-season performances that Schaub is the guy you go with? Finally, can we assume that I am just doing a paragraph of nothing but rhetorical questions so it looks like I have posted more?

I’m guessing we all sort of assumed as much but, in case you had any doubts, Kubes said yesterday that Sage Rosenfels will start Sunday’s finale.

I’m going to start Sage. Sage will be our starter going into the game. It will be a game-time decision on Matt on whether he’ll be our backup or the third. Over the course of the next couple of days, we’ll see.

Possible Translation: Sage’s trade value took a hit last week, so I am going to run him back out there, hope they play their second-team defense, and give him a chance to bring that stock back up. Also, I’d be a fool if I let Matt Schaub back out there before his shoulder was 100%. Since I already managed to get Andre Johnson hurt this year, I think I’ll pass on taking another stupid risk. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go remind everyone that Mario was the correct pick.

In all seriousness, though (or at least as much seriousness I can muster), this is the right move. As much as we would like to win this game, it would almost be a pyhrric victory if Matt did further damage to the separated shoulder (or suffered another concussion). Besides, right now, at this exact moment in time, I can’t honestly look any of you in the virtual eye and say that starting Matt gives us any sort of increased likelihood of winning.

Which is NOT to say that I don’t still think Schaub is the guy, both in terms of short-term competition with Sage and long-term health of the franchise.

Unless I am missing something, we have four answers to the question of “What about Sage?” 1. We can hold on to him, content in knowing that we have “The Best Backup in Football” should Schuab get injured. 2. We can take advantage of his reputation as “The Best Backup in Football” and use it to net ourselves players or draft picks to fill more pressing needs. 3. We can make him the starter based on what he’s done this year as compared to Schaub. 4. We can hold on to him and let him and Schaub battle it out next summer because we believe both of them are capable of being an NFL starting QB.

Numbers 1 and 2 both have their merits, but we’ll deal with them in a moment. To my way of thinking, #3 is asinine unless you really, REALLY believe that we messed up by trading for Schaub, which is a pretty hard position to defend and is generally shared only by the same sort of people that believe Tony Hollings was a smart pick. Number 4, though…that’s what this discussion is really about, isn’t it? Because there are intelligent people who honestly believe that Sage is capable of being the starter and that whichever one of the two QBs who wins the battle can be the future of this organization. To those people, I have to say that I respectfully disagree. (To the people in the #3 camp, I disagree, but there is no respect involved.)

I’ve said it before, but there absolutely had to be a reason that Matt Schaub was the most sought backup QB in the league before last offseason. True, he did not have much of a body of work to support that lofty position, but NFL heads had to have seen something they liked in him to drive his pricetag up as high as it went. And in his first two games of this season, when the team was reasonably healthy and there was a semblance of a running game, many fans (myself included) were thrilled about how great the Matt Schaub era was going to be. So, yeah, there have been flashes of starting-caliber ability from Matt. Additionally, red zone INTs notwithstanding, there is no substantial body of evidence that suggests Matt isn’t capable of being a starting QB.

On the other hand, for all Sage has done this year, can we really overlook the fact that in four years of mini-camps and training camps (not to mention the 13 games had played in) he couldn’t beat out such Dolphin luminaries as Jay Fielder, Ray Lucas, Brian Griese, AJ Feeley, and Gus Frerotte? Don’t you think that, if Rosenfels had shown even a glimmer of the ability to be a starter, that he would not have been the one constant on the roster as the Dolphins brought in all those other guys in an effort to find a real QB?

Is this dispositive? Of course not. There is nothing that says future performance has to be directly correlated with past performance. Besides, in theory, it is perfectly believable that a guy languished in an organization so bereft of common sense that he never really had a chance to prove his ability. But, while that sounds nice in theory, can someone point me to one guy–just one–who did next to nothing for four years on a winning team (the Dolphins were over .500 three of Sage’s four years) only to be reborn as a bona fide starter somewhere else? I honestly can’t think of one. The closest I can come up with off the top of my head is Rich Gannon in his four years with Kansas City, but that’s a crappy comparison because (a) Rich had already been in the league seven years when he got to KC, (b) he played much more during his time in KC than Sage did in Miami, and (c) anyone with any sense was screaming for Rich to remain the starter over Elvis Grbac. Still, I suppose Gannon is an example of a very late bloomer, so at least that part holds.

On the contrary, you can think of a number of guys who were thought to be better than they’d shown with their previous teams, only to also suck upon arrival at their new NFL addresses, even if they initially showed promise with the second team. David Carr had some Carolina fans calling for Jake’s head based on some training camp games. How’d that work out? People actually believed that Joey Harrington could be the guy in Atlanta based on…umm…I actually don’t know. Brian Griese has gotten multiple shots like this, always based on a couple good games he had in the preseason or in the previous season. So, do you really have enough faith that Sage is the exception to this pattern that you would let the future of the Texans ride on that belief?

Look, I’m not trying to suggest that Sage hasn’t had a good year, or that his year wasn’t objectively better than Schaub’s. Clearly, it was. I would suggest, however, that we are comparing apples and oranges when we put them side-by-side: one is a guy who came in with a ton of promise, lived up to it for his first two games, then saw his #1 weapon–one of the best three or four WRs in football–go down and his running game go kaput; the other guy is one that has a five year history of not being the best QB on a roster full of crappy QBs, led a nice near-comeback that caused people to ignore his turnovers in that game, then was at the helm when Andre Johnson was back at full strength and the defense began playing much better. Which, I guess, is my long-winded way of saying that Sage’s success this year can just as easily be chalked up to right place, right time as to anything inherent in him. There’s nothing wrong with that–a lot of guys get their initial breaks that way (Kurt Warner, Tom Brady, etc.). But how many of those guys previously lost playing time to Ray effin’ Lucas?

Trying again to make a long story short–if you had to bet your life on one of these two QBs being successful in Houston five years from now, would you take the guy who came into town with enough promise to warrant two second-round picks or the guy who came into town after four years of being the backup to guys who should never have been anything more than backups?

“But,” some of you are probably saying, “why not just keep both of them so we have a solid backup?” Thank you for segueing me into Numbers 1 and 2 from the earlier list. In a perfect world, where every Mario Williams is backed up by an Earl Cochran and every free agent WR can produce like Andre Davis, it would be a fantastic luxury to have a backup of Sage’s quality. Hell, it would be ideal. But, as we all know, this Texans roster is far from complete. Our highest paid player, Anthony Weaver, has been invisible or worse for much of the season. We don’t have a real first- and second-down running back. Strongside linebacker, nose tackle, center, right and left guard, free safety, all continue to be question marks as well. To make matters worse–at least when it comes to filling some of those holes–we don’t have a second-round draft pick this year.

Even if you don’t buy the idea that Sage’s past gives us any sort window into his abilities, the mere fact that we have so many spaces to fill should suggest that, if someone is willing to give us any kind of a package that includes the words “third-round draft pick” we owe it to ourselves to make that deal. We would be letting someone else take the chance that Sage 2008 will be more like Sage 2004 than 2007 and we would be addressing actual, pressing needs.

I have to believe that Smithiak realize this need to get something for Sage and that this is what is driving all the talk about Sage being a quality NFL QB. I mean, otherwise, by telling the fans over and over that Rosenfels is a starting-quality QB and will “push” Matt to be better, they would be creating an instant QB controversy as soon as Matt had one down game. I might have bought that the previous regime was that short-sighted, but I tend to think this group understands these things and would not set Matt or Sage up to fail. Besides, given that Kubiak is by all accounts a huge Matt Schaub fan and has been since the kid arrived, any scenario that doesn’t revolve around getting the best team possible on the field around Matt Schaub would be incongruous with what they’ve been telling us.

Wow…I really didn’t mean to write that much when I started this post. Sorry about that. And I realize that a lot of this is rehashing some old points, so I don’t know that much of it is comment-inducing. Such is life.

****************************************************************************

In other, non-related bits:

• You know how I use the Texans’ logo at the top-left of every post? Well, after seeing that the NFL “asked” HPF to remove team logos and whatnot (and factoring in that there have to be at least a few people out there who are unhappy with their respective portrayals herein), I’m beginning to think that I should get rid of that. Now, this place is pretty graphic-free as it is, so I kind of like having a little something up there for visual interest and to make it easier to see where new posts start if I am scrolling down the page. I think it’s pretty well-known that I am awful at photoshops (right, BFD?), so if any of you can come up with some sort of graphic roughly that same size that “embodies” this blog in some way, I’ll, like, give you my undying love. And a free DGDB&D t-shirt, if you want one. To the extent this is a contest, it ends as soon as I pick one.
• Two different people have asked me if I am rooting for the Titans this weekend since I hate Peyton Manning with such a passion.  No, I am not.  I am rooting for Albert Haynesworth to kill Manning and then get kicked out of the game for violating Peyton’s corpse, but I want Sorgi to lead the Colts to the win.  My reasoning?  Seeing Vince choke away a playoff birth would make Mario’s breakout season extra sweet.  (Also, if we can’t make the playoffs, I don’t want those turds to make it, either.  I am selfish like that.)
• Douchebag Tom the douchey banned commenter is still a douchebag. Which is not really news, but still seemed worth mentioning.

It wasn’t that long ago that Comcast cable decided to slip on the old sandpaper condom and bend me over by moving the NFL Network from basic cable to the “Sports Entertainment Package” and charging extra if I wanted to watch it. I have to say…that was the best extortion I’ve ever been victim to. In all honesty, following last night’s impressive win, I would have paid five times as much for the NFL Network. [Author's Note: If anyone at Comcast reads this and bumps the price up, I'll fucking blow your shit up. For real.]

Anyway, what you witnessed last night–from the pitch-perfect opening drive to the Mario Williams show–was the most complete and most dominant game your Houston Texans have ever played. Ohmygoditsbulletedlisttime!!!!

• Like you don’t know where I am going to start. Mario Williams–excuse me, SUPER Mario Williams–is a bad motherfucker. He’s like Shaft, but with a better 40 time. Who’s the defensive end/ that just sacked Cutler again?/ MARIO!/I can dig it. Seriously, though…wow. As one of roughly nine people in the world who liked the Mario pick from day one, watching last night’s game gave me a weird sense of satisfaction. 13 sacks on the season, our single-season and career sack leader (besting immortals Jeff Posey and Kailee Wong, respectively), and, by all accounts, a great guy and an emerging lockerroom leader? Fuck Reggie Bush.
• How great was that first drive to watch? The line held up well, Darius Walker ran just enough to make the play-action make sense, and Andre Johnson had his way with the Denver DBs. Seeing how much Andre’s mere presence changes this team, there are a whole lot of “what ifs” about this season that revolve around him not missing eight games. After all, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say his presence would have been worth at least one more win, possibly two. Atlanta? Tennessee? Indy? How much different is this year if he’d stayed healthy Kubiak hadn’t allowed him to get hurt?
• Morlon Greenwood continues to be the most underrated player on this defense. 12 tackles, solid in both pass and run defense, and a couple big hits. I don’t know about you, but I will take that out of my Will every single Sunday. Or Thursday.
• Two dropped INTs aside, this patchwork secondary continues to play miles above their heads. That play Jamar Fletcher made in the endzone was as good a recovery as you’ll see. Fred continues to develop nicely. Smoove Will might have butter fingers, but he is hitting people like they are standing between him and sweet virgin ass. Girl ass, even. Getting Petey out of there and getting the defense to blitz (more on that in a second) has made all the difference in the world for this unit. When (if?) Dunta comes back healthy, he and Bennett should be a better one-two punch than we’ve ever had. Or, if we really want to give me a raging boner, we could sign Nnamdi Asomugha and let Dunta play free safety, where he could hit people and go after the ball without worrying that the surgically repaired leg was going to hamper him in one-on-one coverage. Just sayin’.
• If you are Rick Smith, don’t you HAVE to sign Andre’ Davis to a multi-year deal with some guaranteed money and just tell Jerome Mathis not to let the door hit him on the way out (lest it break his fragile spine)? Davis was fantastic in the receiving game when Johnson was out and he’s become a kick return ninja of late. Why not ink him?
• Mario Williams. Just wanted to mention him again.
• ND Kalu…nice to see you again!
• Whether or not you are on the Sell Sage bandwagon, you have to admit that he did nothing at all to hurt his value last night. He even offered the slowest bootleg TD run in history and capped it off with a Special Olympics bronze-winning dive.
• I have no idea how he did it, but Ephraim Salaam managed to make Elvis Dumervil a non-factor last night. If you’d given me 100-1 odds that Salaam would pull that off, I still wouldn’t have touched it. That was beyond surprising.
• Early in the second quarter, a friend of mine in NY turned on the game and, almost immediately, sent me a text saying “was that a Texans blitz?!” You bet your ass it was. Over the last two weeks, this defense has worked straight linebacker blitzes (especially using Charlie Anderson off the edge) and zone blitzes with Anthony Weaver and/or Anthony Maddox dropping into coverage to fill the holes. Now, I ain’t sayin’ that the powers-that-be read my little truck stop/strip joint on the information superhighway, but I am pretty sure I’ve seen this before. Now…how is it that it took them 13 weeks to figure this out?
• As with any game, win or lose, there were some things that still need to be fixed. First, Jacoby Jones–seriously, what the fuck? How can he be Dante Hall in the preseason and Dante Hicks in the regular season? Second, can someone PLEASE explain to me why Vonta Leach is getting so many looks in the passing game? General rule: Your run blocking FB getting a one-yard TD run? Acceptable. Your run blocking FB getting a 23-yard pass thrown his way on a skinny post route? No gracias, amigo.
• It feels weird to be this far into a recap without having mentioned DeMeco Ryans. Playing on a bum wheel, he notched six tackles and was a half-step short of getting a sack. Meaning he is better with a bad ankle than a lot of linebackers are at 100% health.
• Finally, kudos to Darius Walker and Ron Dayne on a very productive night running the ball. 24 carries for 143 yards and a TD is something we’ll take from the running game every single week. I am right at the point where I feel like we should keep the Dayne Trayne around next year as our RB2. Preferably behind Michael Turner or Felix Jones.

So, that’s that. 7-7 with two potentially brutal games upcoming. It could be better. It could be a lot worse. Fuck it…bring on the Colts.

Random tidbits of stuff that I would normally do a full post on if this last fortnight hadn’t been ridiculously busy.

• Apparently, someone has kidnapped Richard Justice and replaced him with Pollyanna Sunshine. I replied to the old “he can’t play” email with a message that said simply “care to retract this?” I expected another smart-ass answer, or no answer at all. Instead, I received his answer two minutes after I sent my message. “Yes, I do. That was wayyyyyy wrong.” Color me shocked.
• BRB was all over this when it broke, but it appears Jerome Mathis (a) owns a number of pit bulls and (b) somehow managed to let some of them escape. Dumb? Sure. But also awesomely hilarious. Thank you, Jerome; you may not give the team anything on the field, but you just gave me an early Christmas present.
• Not to be Debbie Downer (who is Pollyanna Sunshine’s goth cousin), but how painful is that loss to Atlanta now that you see the wheels completely off down there? Seriously, your coach just up and walked away from the team during the season so he could take the job with a middle-of-the-road SEC team that’s about to lose Darren McFadden and Felix Jones? That cannot be a good sign.
• I realize I haven’t really posted anything about the win over Tampa Bay. Like a number of you, I was forced to follow on gamecast because the weather prevented me from getting a good Sirius signal in the house. My thoughts on the game, based on what I got from the live blog and what transpired on my computer screen, are as follows:

• Mario Williams is a bad, bad man. I look for him to knock Jay Cutler somewhere into the middle of next week.
• Morlon Greenwood is underrated (and I have been saying so since the preseason, thank you very much).
• Andre Johnson against regular DBs is a lot like when I play against some of the third graders I coach. The fact
• that we had to play without him for much of the year still pisses me off at Kubiak.
• Why was totally-unproven Matt Schaub the most prized backup in football, but Sage gets almost no press at all? Shouldn’t we be able to get a couple second-rounders for him?
• Will Demps is playing like a ninja. A love ninja. Really, other than gets rolled by Jamal Lewis a couple weeks ago, he’s been playing lights out. Which is really weird to say regarding any of our safeties since…um…ever.
• Fred Bennett continues to impress. Jacoby Jones continues to disappoint. Petey Faggins continues to be not playing very much. These things are good, bad, and awesome, respectively.

• I am strangely thrilled about having a Thursday night game. Which is only odd because, prior to this week, I was annoyed by the Thursday games. It’s a really cool idea (an extra night of football) that’s really poorly executed (a channel that a whole lot of people can’t get) and that gets in the way of my prognosticatin’ (because I generally do those on Friday or even Saturday). This week, though, it’s nothing but good.
• UPDATE: It was pointed out by grungedave that I failed to mention that I am the greatest football prognosticator of all time. Pay no attention to the previous week when I was awful, because I rocked a solid 15-0 last week. That’s balls, baby. Big balls.

I’m not really sure where to start. I actually felt ill watching the second half unfold. For everything that went right–Mario Williams, DeMeco Ryans, Andre Johnson–it seemed like just as many if not more went wrong–season-crippling injuries, poor special teams, poor run defense, continual mental mistakes.

One could easily argue that this game was a microcosm of our entire season, so let’s approach the recap that way.

The continued development of Mario Williams. The continued, Fox-News-like insistence of Richard Justice aside, most people agree that Mario has progressed well in his first full healthy season. After notching three sacks in his first seven games, Super Mario scored three in the past four games prior to today. So, all he does today is come in, put up a new personal single game high two and a half sacks (one was a gimme), and break the franchise single-season sack record. He is currently two sacks away from the franchise career record of 15 (Kylie Wong).

The continued excellence of DeMeco Ryans. His 14 total tackles today–a season high–pushed him over 100 for the season and gave him three straight games (and five total games this season) with at least 10 total tackles. Week in, week out, the one consistent thing about this team is DeMeco. If he doesn’t make the Pro Bowl this season, it will be a complete traveshamockery.

The continued demonstration of how much Andre Johnson means to this offense. This doesn’t need much explanation. Basically, Andre gives us a WR who, when healthy, is almost always good for 8-10 catches, 110+ yards, and a TD or two. More importantly, though, is that he catches nearly every ball thrown at him, regardless of how good a pass it really was. He is so good that I was actually shocked when he didn’t haul in the pass from Sage Rosenfels down around the ten yard line, despite the fact that catching it would have required him to stop on a dime, spin back 180 degrees, and snag a ball that was thrown at his back shoulder.

The continued enigma that is Ron Dayne. Don’t look at me; I’m as confused as you. In the first eight games of the year, Dayne played in six. Of those, only once did he crack three yards/carry. His single game high during that stretch was 62 yards. Since then, however, he’s been nothing short of, um, well above average. He’s been over four yards/carry every game, and he’s put up 122, 89, 78, and 86 yards respectively. Just when it was concede by nearly everyone involved in football that we had no running game whatsoever, the Dayne Trayne got on track and proved nearly everyone wrong. Perhaps the strangest thing about this, though, is that I still have no desire to go into next season with Ron Dayne occupying a prominent role in this offense.

The continued inability to beat the Tennessee Titans. 10-2. That’s the all-time record between the Titans the Texans. We have been beaten by Steve McNair six times, Vince Young three times, and Kerry Collins once. We have not beaten them since 2004, when we inexplicably beat them twice. It does not seem to matter who is under center for them or for us. It doesn’t matter how well or poorly we play. It doesn’t even matter how late in the game we manage to hold a lead. It defies explanation, yet somehow it defines much of the past 5-plus seasons. And now, it’s cost me two bottles of Jagermeister. Good times.

The continued plague of injuries. OK, now it’s just getting ridiculous. We can add Fred Weary (broken leg) and Chris White (injured MCL) to this list of players lost for the year, raising that total to 15. And that doesn’t even count Ahman Green, who has yet to finish a single game; or Matt Schaub, who has been knocked from games more than once and who might now be lost for the year with a dislocated shoulder; or Andre Johnson, who missed eight of our 12 games with a completely avoidable injury; or any of the myriad other players who have been listed as “questionable” or worse this season.

The continued sieve that passes as run defense. The 153 yards allowed to the Titans today was even worse than the 119 yards/game average we allowed coming in. In fact, we went from 22nd in the league to 25th in rushing yards allowed/game based on today’s (lack of) performance. In fact, this probably deserves its own post at some point.

The continued struggles on special teams. Early in the year, there were issues with Kris Brown (see, e.g., the Atlanta game). Then, we had issues with kickoff returns while Jacoby Jones was out (see, e.g., the first Titans game, when Andre Davis decided that kicks 9 yards deep in the end zone were still worth bringing out). Then, it was Matt Turk channeling Chad Stanley (see, e.g., the San Diego game). Today, it was Jacoby deciding that fair catches were for girls…until he muffed one that effectively ended our chances at winning the game. Oh, and let’s not forget the stupid holding penalty that negated our own recovery of a Tennessee muff (which sounds dirty, but isn’t). He’s not Richard Smith-level bad, but special teams coach Joe Marciano isn’t exactly doing a bang-up job.

The continued mental mistakes of both players and coaches. Sage Rosenfels‘ curious decision to run back toward the middle of the field at the end of the game, Richard Smith’s wussified decision not to blitz near the end of the game despite being shown repeatedly that the blitz was working while the “rush three” defense was being eaten alive (on the big completion to Eric Moulds, for example), Jacoby Merkel’s aforementioned boner, Kubiak’s odd insistence about making Vonta Leach an integral part of the running and passing game, and so on and so forth. Is it possible to get through one game–just one–where we aren’t left scratching our heads at the decision-making?

Today’s loss was just another dose of variations on any number of themes. Unfortunately, it is also the end of any realistic chance of a playoff appearance. Now, the more cynical among us might say that the playoffs were never an attainable goal this season. While that is debatable, what is not arguable is that the games are always more meaningful when you can delude yourself into thinking January football is a possibility. Without that, all we have is another year of draft talk in December.

I don’t want to be all doom and gloom. Certainly, we have pieces in place that should lead to a successful 2008 and beyond. This team is sitting in a better position than any version of the Texans that we’ve seen. We know what works on this team and, just as importantly, we know what doesn’t. Still, right now (and until I am sufficiently un-angered), I can’t help but say it over and over in my head. “Same old, same old.”

So, let me get this straight. The University of Missouri, the same institution where I spent my freshman year of college, is playing the Oklahoma Land-Thieving Criminals for both the Big XII title and the opportunity to play for the National Championship. Even more importantly for my purposes, however, a win by both MU and WVU means that the necropedophiles of Ohio State will be shut out of the title game.

Yeah, you could say I am interested. (As I wrote that sentence, OU took a 7-3 lead. Jerks.)

But, push coming to shove, I would take an MU loss and an OSU national title (ugh) if the Texans could go into Nashville and beat the holy living shit out of Vince Young. I’m not talking about a win–I want a win, but that would not be enough to offset Lucifer in a Sweater Vest winning a title. Rather, I am talking about Mario Williams separating one or more of Vince’s joints on a hit that makes my television rattle as time expires on a 27-3 JUGGERNAUT victory.

In Schaub’s name, I pray.

Last week: 4-9 (yikes)
Season: 103-69

Week 13 Picks

San Francisco @ Carolina. When Zoolander was signed by Carolina, a number of non-Texans fans told me “you’ll see…he’ll catch on somewhere else and be really good; it was all the Texans fault.” In recent weeks, no fewer than four of them have since retracted that position and admitted that, yes, David Carr does suck immeasurably. Then again, the 49ers are poster children for sucking. I haven’t seen this much sucking in one place since I let my subscription to SugarDVD lapse. Pick: San Francisco

Buffalo @ Washington. I would like to think that the Redskins are going to come out and lay a royal smackdown in memory of Sean Taylor. Unfortunately, they have played like ass when Taylor has not been there. Something has to give, I guess. On the other hand, Buffalo shat upon me last week, so I won’t pick them on the road in a game like this. Pick: Washington

JUGGERNAUT @ Tennessee. Prior to heading off to Nashville, where it is likely he will be arrested after shanking Bud Adams, Tim was stuck in meetings for two days. Because I am a nice person who has absolutely nothing to do at work most of the time, I sent emails to distract him. At one point, I was bitching about certain aspects of my job–talking to rapists, looking at pictures of dead babies, etc.–when I mentioned that two months ago, I was forced to take pictures of a prisoner’s dick. Yep. As if that’s not bad enough, it actually happened twice; first I took pictures in the “natural” state and then I was sent back two days later where I had to wait for him to get “ready” in a bathroom so that I could photograph it that way. Now, I work about twenty minutes per week, rarely get to work before 9 or leave after 4, and somehow I still feel like I am losing in this bargain. Pick: Houston

Atlanta @ St. Louis. ATL to STL / on them things and crunk as hell / Your system blast, then let it bump / Spark the L and raise it up. Pick: Atlanta

Seattle @ Philadelphia. The next person who says that the Eagles showed a “blueprint” for beating the Pats gets a mouthful of basset hound shit. I’m not even playing–I have the hound and I’m not afraid to use him. Pick: Seattle

Detroit @ Minnesota. I might have overreached last week when I said that there was no way the Vikings would shut down the Giants’ passing game. (Current game score: OU 7, MU 6.) So, we have a Vikings team that may have AP back against a Detroit Christketeers team that seems in a freefall. Seems too obvious. Pick: Detroit

Jacksonville @ Indianapolis. From Big Cat Country’s “Fyodor Dostoevsky’s guide to the AFC South: Absurd Metaphors for everyone!“: “Dimitri is a character obsessed with obtaining redemption, obsessed with rising above his background and overcoming the burden of sin in his heart. Jacksonville is at team obsessed with overcoming the Colts, of overcoming their reputation as an inconsistent and emotional team, and finally finding their Grushenka. The obsession only enhances their emotional intensity, and it’s not until they overcome that intensity and play with focus that they’ll find themselves at the top of the AFC South.” Umm, yeah. That’s what I was going to say. Copy cat. Pick: Indianapolis

San Diego @ Kansas City. New rule: You lose to the Raiders one week, I pick against you the next. Pick: San Diego.

New York Jets @ Miami. If you are the Dolphins, in addition to being ungodly inept at pretty much everything, you have to consider this game your last, best chance to actually win a game this year. Which you probably won’t. Assuming the Dolphins get the first overall pick, who do you think they take? If they assume Ronnie Brown will recover, they probably don’t take Darren McFadden. They just drafted John Beck, so it’s unlikely they’d take Brian Brohm or Matt Ryan. The defense is getting kind of old, so a pick like Glenn Dorsey makes sense, but do they take him #1 overall? In the end, they’ll find some way to screw this thing up. Go ‘Phins. Pick: New York Jets

Denver @ Oakland. Oh, Mike Shannahan, you wily genius. People say you can’t kick to Devin Hester, you show them by kicking to Devin Hester. Common sense can’t hold YOU down, Mike. No way, no how. Thankfully, you get a game this week against a team that is lucky to beat their scout team in a given practice. Pick: Denver

(OU 14, MU 6. Fuck.)

Cleveland @ Arizona. I was going to write something about John McClain right here, but I am going to rant instead. Why the fuck can NO ONE get the reverse/double reverse thing down? Missouri just got a two-point conversion on a reverse option, yet Kirk “I want to have sex with Darren McFadden” Herbstreit said “double reverse” no fewer than six times. Is this so hard? Hell, it wasn’t even an end around that started the play–it was an inside handoff to the RB, who handed to the WR on the reverse. This is pretty much the classic reverse, aside from Chase Daniel starting the play in the shotgun. Sweet Christ. (OU 14, MU 14. Halftime.) Pick: Cleveland.

Tampa Bay @ New Orleans. NFC South–catch the thrill! If you were building a team right now, would you rather have Earnest Graham or Reggie Bush? Yeah, me too. Pick: Tampa Bay

New York Giants @ Chicago Bears. If this isn’t the greatest picture ever, it is certainly on the short list. Ah, alcohol…the cause of and solution to all of life’s problems.  Pick:  New York Giants

Cincinnati @ Pittsburgh. I am generally a contrarian bastard when it comes to pretty much everything sport-related. The world hates Barry Bonds? I love the guy. The world wants the Pats to lose? 19-0, baby. I don’t do this on purpose, but it is an incredibly consistent part of my personality. Strangely, however, my feelings on Chad Johnson have mirrored the public sentiment; he’s gone from being outlandish and hilarious to annoying and contrived in a pretty short span of time. I sort of miss the Barry Sanders approach to being in the endzone–act like you’ve been there before and you plan to be there again soon. Pick: Pittsburgh

New England @ Baltimore. Correct me if I am wrong, but you do have to score at least two points to win a football game, right? Sucks for Baltimore. Pick: New England

UPDATE: Fuckin’ Mizzou. Well, at least WVU lost as well, so there is still hope that someone who can beat OSU will get in the game with them.

Because I aspire to be nothing moreso than evenhanded,¹ I should point to John McClain’s entry from today.²

If the Texans can keep from embarrassing themselves at Oakland the way they did at San Diego and escape with a victory, they’ll stop the bleeding momentarily.
[...]
The Texans need to run the ball like they did at San Diego, where they outrushed the Chargers 115 yards to 109 — thanks to Adimchinobe Echemandu. They also must continue to play that kind of run defense, something that had been lacking in recent weeks.

Obviously, the Texans can’t continue to turn over the ball. They’ve committed 23 turnovers, including 11 in the last two games.

And it would help, of course, if the defense could actually force some turnovers.
[...]
If the Texans defeat the Raiders, enter their week off 4-5 and get back Schaub and Johnson, those of us with the glass-is-half-full philosophy will feel better.

The rest of you won’t, because your glass is always half-empty, and you expect — indeed, almost welcome — the kind of incompetence the Texans have shown so you can say, “I told you so.”

While I still think the playoffs are out of reach already–losing your first three division games and being in last in your division at the half-way point is a big ass mountain to climb–McClain is right in his assertion that this is the last chance to really put together a “good” season. If we lose the Raiders and fall to 3-6, the odds of getting to even .500 are slim. That would require, obviously, a 5-2 record to end the year.³

Not impossible obviously, save for two things. First, teams that start 3-6 rarely decide to right the ship and finish 5-2; there is a reason you get to 3-6 in the first place. Second, the schedule only gets harder from here, with @Titans, Broncos, @Colts, Jaguars, and even a game with the upstart Browns @Cleveland.

Now note: With that kind of road ahead, I am not saying that winning this Sunday and going into the bye week at 4-5 makes us a lock for a winning record. Far from it. Still, I can at least fathom the idea that this team can finish 4-3 and sneak out a win or two against “better” teams. 5-2, on the other hand, seems less likely at this moment than the Patriots going 19-0.

Now we just need to find a way to win without Matt Schaub. Or Andre Johnson. Or Ahman Green. Or Adminchinobe Echemandu.

There’s a Halloween scare for you.⁴

¹ Not counting “rich,” “Paris Hilton hot,” “the owner of many, many monkeys,” “reincarnated as Monica Bellucci’s underwear,” “quoted in the Wall Street Journal,” “tall,” and “a ninja.”
² We haven’t done footnotes in a while, have we? This is fun. Wheeeeeeeeee.
³ Math!
⁴ Not for nothin’, but the giving out candy gets more entertaining with each passing beer. Father of the year, bitches!

Great. Fantastic. Yeah, this is precisely what I needed.

I take a break from painting the nursery (light yellow, if you must know) and log on to the ol’ laptop to see the latest news about my beloved Texans. Of course, the first thing I see is this post by Tim¹ telling me that uber-stud Andre Johnson might not be back until week 11.

Now, I know I asked this a couple days ago, but I’m going to ask again: Why in the world was Andre Johnson still playing when we had a 17 point lead with less than 12 minutes to go? Steph suggested that it was because Andre is so happy to be playing with a real NFL QB that there’s no way he would have quietly taken a seat when he thought he could be out there catching more TDs. Probably true. But that’s not his fault–every big time receiver wants to play and wants the ball. It’s on the head coach to make decisions like “hey, you, the large African-American fellow, sit down now.” I love the Kubes, but he airballed on this one and Andre’s injury is on Gary.

The one good thing that has come out of this injury, to the extent there was one, is that we’ve gotten a chance to see just how good Matt Schaub can really be. Playing without his number one target, without his only true running back (and, therefore, without any semblance of a running game), and without his game-breaking rookie WR for most of the past three games, Schaub has kept us in against Indianapolis, tried to lead a comeback in the Petty Faggins debacle that was Atlanta, and beat Miami. Sure, Matt had some assistance from a resurrected Andre Davis, a very good defensive front seven, and Travis Johnson’s knee, but I am officially ready to say that we didn’t overpay for The Schaub.²

Back to Andre The First, though. If he isn’t back until the 11th week, he’ll miss @Jacksonville, Tennessee, @San Diego, and @Oakland. Strangely, if you are going to be without your best WR, this seems like a decent stretch to do it. Jacksonville is going to be tough, but this game would be tough even with Andre, given how well Jackonville’s D is playing at the moment. Tennessee had our number last year, but I think we can all agree that a win against Tennessee will have much less to do with our passing game and almost everything to do with how we stop (or don’t stop) VY. The San Diego game seemed like a sure loss when the schedule came out, but they look imminently beatable as of now–especially by a Texans team with a stout run defense–thanks to the Norv Turner Experience. Finally, Oakland might be much better than anyone thought they’d be, but it’s not like they are invincible by any stretch of the imagination. That’s four games that are winnable without Andre Johnson. So, sitting at 3-2 right now, if we come out of this stretch with a record of at least 5-4, we will be sitting well going into the final seven games with a healthy Andre.

And, yes, it’s possible that the entire previous paragraph was just my way of trying to convince myself that Kubiak didn’t screw us by failing to sit Andre.

¹ I suppose “by Tim” is redundant when talking about BRB. It’s not like Scott is still around.
² Though I would not protest if he decided to have fewer fumbles.

Last night, NFLN showed the Texans-Dolphins game on NFL Replay. 90 minute games with all the superfluous stuff cut out and some coach commentary on the big plays…what more could you want? Well, other than some boobies and possibly free beer. Oh, and money.

Thoughts on week 5

• In re: Petey Faggins. By my count, Petey was targeted only five times. Three were completions in front of him, one was overthrown, and one was a fantastic defensive play in the end zone on Faggins’ part. This last one suggests to me that Cleo Lemon is clearly worse than Joey Harrington. Still, good job not costing us the game, Petey. How about doing that again this weekend?
• Mario Williams is quickly becoming dominant, yet no one outside of Houston notices because the sack numbers are not already in the double digits. His one-handed sack of Lemon was awesome and was a play that only four or five other guys in this league could make.
• If Ahman Green can’t go this week against Jacksonville, I think we should consider going with Hawaii’s 5-wide offense and losing any pretense of running the ball. That, or hold open tryouts in the Houston area. Something. Ron Dayne is suck personified.
• I know that others have said Fred Bennett looked “lost” out there and I can’t disagree because I couldn’t see everything that was going on. What it looked like on TV, though, was that his man made on great diving catch at the sideline and he played decent man coverage throughout. I am curious to hear details of his play away from the ball.
• I hope Kris Brown enjoys spending eternity in Hell. The only explanation for this season is that he made a deal with Satan in the offseason. (How did he miss last week, you ask? Easy. Lucifer’s favorite team is obviously the Falcons.)
• Dunta Robinson was in good position most of the day, but seemed to have a poor game by his standards. He was burned on at least three second-half passes (though one was a good sliding catch by the WR) and he was so worried about knocking Ted Ginn into next week on the Trent Green play that he blew the tackle.
• Speaking of Green, tell the next person who uses the words “stood over” in his description of the incident to eat balls. Travis Johnson did not break stride as he walked from where he landed on his skull to the bench.
• Owen Daniels is a stud. Plain and simple. We don’t win that game without him.
• Where did Andre Davis disappear to in the second half? He had one catch at the 8:45 mark of the second half and that was it. Did the Dolphins start doubling him or something?
• Jason Taylor’s first sack was just raw speed and talent getting by the OL. Hard to fault anyone for that. The second was on a twist-stunt, and both Salaam and Pitts got mixed up on it. The announcers said Taylor beat Pitts, but it looked like both linemen whiffed.
• Morlon Greenwood quietly had a fantastic game. 5 tackles and a nice pass defense, plus just generally good play throughout.
• I’m just going to say it: Matt Schaub’s fumblitis is becoming a concern. Just sayin’.
• Another concern? Our general inability to force a three-and-out.
• All in all, I was happy with the offense and slightly less happy with the defense. Getting Jacoby Jones back on special teams is a must.

1. Jerome Mathis is injured. This is not surprising. What is surprising, however, is that no one really seems to know what the problem is. They’ve narrowed it down to his fibula, but, otherwise, are still in the dark. Señor Cristal is going to miss “some time,” but, much like the injury, no one is sure about the details of that, either.

2. In other news that is good only for friends and family of Dexter Wynn, Jacoby Jones is out for the game against Miami as well. And how much does it suck to get hurt by any punter not named Matt Turk?

3. I know this isn’t exactly scientific, but Matt Schaub is currently on pace for 4020 yards, 20 TDs, 12 INTs, 74% completions, and only 24 sacks. FYI–all of those numbers except INTs would be team records. Also FYI–the NFL single-season record for completion percentage is 70.5% (Ken Anderson, 1982).

First off, let’s be clear: The injuries are not an excuse.

Would it have been nice to have Andre Johnson and Ahman Green and the rest? Of course. But this game was not lost because we didn’t have the primary weapons. It was not lost because ND Kalu couldn’t play. It was not even lost because our special teams were without Jerome Mathis and Jacoby Jones. Nope, this game was lost because of:

• Petey Faggins,
• Piss-poor clock management,
• Below average play-calling,
• Some questionable decisions by Matt Schaub, and
• Surprisingly effective play by Joey Harrington.

Let’s take these one at a time.

Petey Faggins. When he was abused by Steve Smith for two TDs in roughly 9 seconds, the excuse was “well, LOTS of people get burned by Smith.” When he allowed nearly every pass thrown his way to be completed by playing 30 yards off the line of scrimmage and allowed Joseph Addai to score two TDs by running right at him, the excuse was “the coaches put him off the line like that and, hey, at least Marvin didn’t score.” What, pray tell, are the excuses going to be this week?

Just for grins, let’s recap. On one play, he managed to hold the wide receiver, impeding said receiver’s progress (in theory), only to still find himself burned on the play. Now, the prudent thing to do at this point would be to try and recover (which he lacks the speed to do), try to play the ball and maybe knock it down (which he lacks the wherewithal to do), and/or try to be in position to deliver a hit as the ball is caught in the hopes of knocking it loose (which he has rarely been able to do). The thing you shouldn’t do–especially when you’ve been beaten for three straight weeks–is get a pass interference penalty while still not even preventing the catch. Because, if you do that, the opposing team will likely realize that you really are as bad as you seemed on tape and will continue to attack you until the even the TV guys are saying “wow, they are running pretty much every play to that side.” This would likely lead to you getting flagged for another hold and another PI before it is all said and done.

I am not surprised by Petey’s struggles; I have been railing against him since the inception of this blog. I am surprised at the extent of his ineptitude, however. I can honestly say that, right now, he’s the worst defensive starter in the NFL. Because of that, and until I am shown otherwise, I am going to continue to refuse to believe the company line that he is still our best option.

Clock management. Let me ask you something. How is it that the hundred-people on the Texans sideline collectively failed to notice that they had been screwed out of 14 seconds? Wouldn’t you assume that someone–say, maybe, the HEAD COACH of the team trying to score ten points in the last 3 minutes–would look to see that, because the play did not count, the 14 elapsed seconds would be put back on the board? Of course, not noticing was in keeping with how Gary Kubiak has managed the clock for much of this season. I believe in The Kubes, I really do, but a simple grasp on how to best conserve (or expend, depending on the score) time is pretty freakin’ important. Between the confusion last week just before halftime and this week’s willy-nilly use of time and timeouts, Kubiak continues to shoot himself in the foot. After the way the time had been handled throughout the game, seeing Jameel Cook (or was it Vonta Leach?) run toward the middle of the field with 8 seconds left and no timeouts just seemed like the icing on the mismanagement cake.

Poor play calling. A naked halfback toss to Ron Dayne at the one-yard line? Seriously? This isn’t Tecmo Bowl, man. That play would be near impossible for Dayne to manage from midfield, when the defense is spread out; there is no chance in hell he’s going to score on that play from the six, with the defense packed in tight. Besides, and here’s the bigger issue, after seeing us pound the ball up the middle with a modicum of success during the game, why the heck didn’t we try to punch it in from the one with either Dayne (who is supposed to be our between-the-tackles power RB), Gado, or even one of the fullbacks? Twice, while trying to mount the comeback, we had the ball at Atlanta’s one-yard line. We came away with three points TOTAL out of those two trips. Unacceptable.

This isn’t the first instance of odd play-calling, either. There was the curious decision last week not to kick the onside kick. There have been several random “run when we probably should have passed” or vice versa moments. I know that injuries have played into that to an extent, but still.

Questionable decisions by The Schaub. Far be it from me to cast stones at the Altar of Schaub, because God knows I wouldn’t want to revert to the old QB, and the positives certainly outweigh the negatives with Matt, but someone might want to sit him down and explain some things to him. First of all, throwing a two-yard pass to a crossing fullback on thirdfourth-and-three is never, ever a good idea unless the defense is made up of blind people and retards. Second, in the hurry-up offense, again you might want to avoid dump passes to people like Jameel Cook. (In fact, speaking of Cook, I think it’s fair to say that something went wrong in your game planning if Cook ends a game with 6 catches, especially for a whopping 28 yards.) Third, that “running to the right, throwing back against the grain into the middle of the field” thing? Yeah, rarely a good idea. And, by “rarely,” I mean “never.” Finally, the next time you think about throwing the ball to Ron Dayne, do me a favor and throw it directly into the ground to end the suspense.

Harrington. I was going to cite “inability for the defense to stop anything” as the reason, but that would take away from how well Harrington actually played. Still, when you saw how easily we were able to get to him and disrupt their offense near the end when we started blitzing, one has to wonder why we didn’t mix that in a little more. Sure, Amobi got his fourth sack and, yes, Mario was getting pressure, but for the most part, Harrington just avoided whichever defensive lineman worked his way free and threw to the open man being guarded by Faggins. I am generally not a huge fan of blitzing, but mixing a couple in just to get some shots in on Joe and force him to make quick throws would have gone a LONG way toward keeping Atlanta points off the board. But, because we didn’t, my hat is off to Joey for playing an efficient and intelligent game.

****

Not everything was bad, however. After a game like that, it can be hard to admit that there were in fact a few bright spots. First, the offensive line continues to play far better than anyone thought they would. Schaub was sacked once, raising the season total to 6 (1.5 per game). The old QB was sacked three times in his first start at Carolina.

Second, DeMeco Ryans. Six more tackles and a sack. He and Morlon Greenwood (11 tackles) quietly had a great game in the middle of the field.

Lastly, Apostrophe Davis. The man came into the game with a recently-dislocated finger, made a leaping one-handed circus catch for a TD, and finished the game with 5 catches for 117 yards. Considering he wasn’t even on the active roster a couple weeks ago, this performance was outstanding.

Let’s play a little Monday morning round of “Good News / Bad News.”

Good. Our next two games are against teams that have yet to win a game in 2007 and that are quarterbacked by Joey Harrington and Trent Green, respectively.

Bad. Our starting WRs against Atlanta might very well be Jerome Mathis and Kevin Walter (or even worse, Bethel Johnson and Kevin Walter).

Good. Atlanta is allowing 142 rushing yards per game.

Bad. There is a chance Sam Gado will be our starting RB this week.

Good. We have a top-5 run defense, which is amazing when you consider that the LBs are also having to protect against short passes to make up for our weaknesses at CB2 and safety.

Bad. Petey Faggins is still a starter, so our 234 passing yards per game allowed will not likely go down any time soon.

Good. Matt Schaub took full responsibility for the Gary Brackett INT, saying, “I made the wrong decision and we paid for it.”

Bad. That INT could not have been less timely, with the game at 24-10 and Jacoby Jones having just busted a 74 yard return.

Good. The team isn’t buying into the “moral victory” spiel, as evidenced by Chester Pitts saying, “[m]oral victory is trash. It’s a sin to say that. That was the [old] attitude and mind-set. It wasn’t to win the game — it was to keep it close. I want to call it disgust. We had four or five opportunities to put points on the board.”

It wasn’t that long ago that Stephanie admonished me for attacking Chad Stanley the person rather than simply berating Stanley’s performance. While I don’t agree with her, I understand where she was coming from. There are times, however, when a person’s performance is so bad that complaining about the player himself becomes part and parcel of discussing his contributions.

That person, of course, is Petey Faggins.

Last week, Faggins was beat-down to the tune of 3 catches for 47 yards and 2 TDs within Carolina’s first five minutes of possession. This fact was not lost on the Indianapolis Colts. In fact, they did everything short of pointing and laughing derisively at Faggins as they went to the line. Petey might as well have worn a bulls-eye in place of his number 38.

Think about it. A team with at least five weapons in the passing game (Harrison, Wayne, Clark, Gonzales, and Addai)–a team that is known for spreading the ball around among all the receivers–basically said, “you know what… screw it; we’re just going right at number 38.” And did they ever. I need to review the tape for a definite count, but I put the number of passes thrown (and completed) to Faggins’ responsibility somewhere north of 8.

Of course, it’s easy for a QB like Manning to complete passes when the DB is giving his responsibility an 8-yard cushion on every single play. Faggins looked like he was so scared of getting beat deep that he would rather let the person catch the ball in front of him and simply try to make the tackle. This is a bad plan in general. It becomes a truly horrible plan when your team absolutely, positively must have a 3-and-out to get the ball back. Rather than play up even in that dire circumstance, Faggins gave enough cushion that Harrison caught the ball past the first down marker and Petey STILL had to close on him to make the play.

This kind of coverage would be bad enough on its own. Unfortunately, Faggins also screwed up on both of Addai’s TD runs. I’m not sure what is more embarrassing–letting Joseph Addai jump over you because you go too low, too early, or ignoring your outside responsibility, running INTO a block, then failing to disengage in time to even get a hand on the guy who ran right at where you were supposed to be–but both plays were laughably bad. Unless you are a Texans fan, in which case they were still bad, but sans laughter.

Word around the campfire is that People Who Know Things just don’t think rookie Fred Bennett is anywhere close to ready to play CB2 at the NFL level. Well, guess what…neither is Faggins. Are you seriously telling me that Bennett could not play off his receiver, get burned by nearly every receiver he defends, be targeted by opposing offenses, and blow tackling assignments as well as Faggins can? Well that’s a risk I am willing to take. Besides, that would give us 13 games to see if Bennett shows enough skill to make us believe he can take over that role full-time at some point in the near future. If he steps in and does well, we have solved the problem and improved our defense at the same time. If he fails, he can’t be any worse than Faggins has been and it gives us even more reason to pursue Asomugah.

Look, I know all about how Petey is a “really nice guy” and “a hard worker” and all that. Thing is, I don’t care. Not one little bit. Until I see Bennett and Jamar Fletcher look like Moe and Curly out there, you will not be able to convince me that one of them is not better than Faggins.

The good news, Texans fans, is that even with Faggins’ “performance” and enough injuries to make Florence Nightingale say, “yo, hold up,” we still had a chance to win that game with 2:30 left on the clock. That is not something that Texans v. 1.0 would have managed. I smell a list.

Da Good

• Amobi Okoye. That’s three sacks in the last two games for Manchild. The impressive part, though, is the strength he’s shown in blasting through double-teams and closing on the QB once he breaks free.
• The offensive line. While Schaub was technically sacked thrice, the third one hardly counts (other than on the stat sheet), as Schaubby had to hold the ball long enough for the WRs to get 30 or 40 yards downfield. Other than Salaam getting bowled over by a bull rush, the line did a fantastic job against a much quicker front four than they’d previously faced. Their work was even better when you consider that we presented NO running g