Saturday notes
Sep 6, 2008 Kickoff, Winstonsaurus
Eric Winston has signed a contract extension that will leave him with us for another 5 years (presumably). It includes $10 million in guaranteed money, and purportedly makes him one of the three highest-paid right tackles in the league. I gotta say, I think that’s a pretty fair deal. Score another one for the Smithiak.
Update: Battle Red Blog and Houston Diehards have commented on this as well. Marroncita @ BRB called Winston a franchise right tackle. I wonder, is there a such thing as a “franchise” right tackle? I’ve always thought “franchise” was just some ephemerous attribute that you applied to a player that you plan on building your franchise around. On the list of positions to build a team around, I’m not sure right tackle is in the top 5. But then again, we’ve seen teams use the franchise tag on back-up tackles (Bengals on Stacy Andrews, 2007), and we could easy have envisioned the franchise tag one day being applied to Winston. So I suppose the term can be applied that way. It still struck me as a little odd, though. Maybe we can now get our franchise tight end locked up, eh? 
Slaton will play tomorrow.
Football Outsiders has adjusted their win projection for the Texans based on the absence of Salaam and Weary. 8-8, they say. The Giants (no Strahan, no Umenyiora) and the Jets (add Favre) also get notable projection adjustments. One thing to keep in mind is that they are assuming that Duane Brown will be your run of the mill #26th-overall rookie left tackle. This illustrates how little difference there is between a 9-7 and an 8-8 team in the league and how important offensive line continuity is, not how crappy Duane Brown is supposed to be. I’d say that the playoffs are still a good possibility.
In other news, my girlfriend got me a picture frame for my birthday, and then placed the latest ESPN: The Magazine in it. You know, the one with Mario on it. Cool, eh?
Kickoff
Aug 13, 2008 2008 Season, Babyeating-Sisterfuckers, Kickoff, Peyton Manning's lovelife, Teams that aren't the Texans, Winstonsaurus
Overexposure Redux. I have another article up (and in print) for the Houston Banner. Nothing groundbreaking, but I’ll be damned if I am going to miss a chance to link to myself. You all should know that by now.
Where’s Winston? Total Titans has the All-AFC South team up. I agree with most of it, though I think Bennett should be in the mix and there is no way in hell you leave Eric Winston off of it. Also, only slightly related, Dallas Clark is overrated. There, I said it.
Awesome. Andre Johnson is back working out with the team for the first time since the groin pull. This is good news.
Finally. Caption away, peoples!
Kickoff
Jun 12, 2008 Anna-Megan is retarded, Bloggerating, Bob McNair, DeMeco Ryans, Football 101, Kickoff, Winstonsaurus
Your balls are shaped funny. As the U.S. Open kicks off today, you might notice one duffer, Bobby Collins, with a Texans logo on his hat and bag. That’s the kind of thing you do when Bob McNair agrees to sponsor you in the Gateway tour, brining you back from the verge of early retirement. Hey, maybe he’d like to sponsor a couple ne’er-do-well bloggers…
Winstonsaurus smash puny baseball! Grr! Texans players hit the field at the Juice Box yesterday for the 6th annual charity homerun derby thingy. Contestants included DeMeco Ryans, Mario Williams, and Captain Tradebait, among others, but the big bat of the night belonged to Eric Winston. Three of Winston’s four homers even reached the upper deck, an area that Darin Erstad and Michael Bourn have only heard legend of.
Slut. It seems that Shake’s interest in the Texans extends beyond smart-assed comments and witty observations. Shake: From the defensive side of the ball, what specific improvements do you see in the O-line this offseason? DeMeco: Hey, ain’t you that dude who comments on those dumbass blogs? (One of those quotes might not be accurate.)
80=80. Chris has been doing a great job of breaking down some of the logistical concerns behind guessing who will make the 80-man roster. One thing that makes it so tough this year is that the 80-man roster really does mean 80 human beings. In years past, teams were allowed the use of up to 6 additional players through NFL Europa roster exemptions. Now, of course, Europa is dead, but the league has not increased the 80-man limit.
The Houston Comicle - Still an accountability free zone
Jun 2, 2008 2008 Season, Andre Johnson, Bloggerating, Chris Taylor gets you stoned, Dancing With the 'Tards, Jacoby Jones is slighty less unheralded, Pancakes McTard, Winstonsaurus
And I’m not even talking about this.
For a while now, we’ve had to put up with the Comicle’s incessant clamoring over Chris Taylor, which has been, not surprisingly, led by Pancakes himself. After all, he is the King of the ‘Tards.
But, something funny happened on the way to OTAs. Here’s Eric Winston:
Well, I tell you what, there’s a big battle going on there. You can really tell that all those guys really want to play and they all have really good skill. And that’s good, because you want a lot of guys at that position because you never know what can happen. Sometimes, you have four there and everyone stays healthy and a guy doesn’t get to play. Then, when you’re a little thin there, then all of a sudden a rash of injuries hit. So you’ve always got to be prepared, because in our system it’s such a vital point to have a guy that can really go at that part, and with Ahman (Green) looking healthy, Chris Brown coming in and (being) just real familiar with the zone scheme, and you’ve got Steve Slaton just carrying on what he’s done from West Virginia. So I think we’ve got three different kind of backs but, at the same time, three very exciting backs.
What? No mention of Chris Taylor??? Didn’t Winston ask permission from Pancakes to leave him off???
I was just as excited as anyone after Taylor’s performance the last game of the 2006 season. However, it’s 1. not realistic that he was the reason the Texans didn’t take a RB in the 1st round, and 2. he’s not likely in the picture to play a significant role even if he makes the game day roster in the first place.
I’m not saying it’s the best decision. But, as long as Ahman Green is healthy and we are on the hook for his 2008 salary, he’s staying (we have to pay him one way or the other, so it’s almost a why the hell not? kinda thing). Chris Brown looks like he’ll get plenty of carries. Then, what do we do? Drop Slaton? At best, Taylor is #4 on the depth chart, and, even then, he’ll still have to beat Darius Walker for a spot.
That their rampant speculation is so far off base isn’t surprising, and it’s part of the problem of being an insider: the Texans staff simply don’t have to tell the truth to the Comicle writers, and they gain little, if anything, by doing so. As an outsider, there is a certain reliance that the insiders aren’t complete dumbasses and, well, we know how that’s looking. But the Comicle will never have to pay a mea culpa as long as they aren’t held accountable for their poor reporting.
(For the record, if I screw up badly at my job, my company will be in the headlines. I have to deal with accountability every day)
Chris Taylor!? YAY! The savior of the Texans running game? Not so much.
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From the Texans’ All Access celebration:
“First of all, I’d like to thank all you guys for coming out. We’re really excited about this season coming up. All the guys are excited. You know, we finished 8-8 last year. If you are worried about my knee, my knee is doing fine.” - Andre Johnson
Again, I warn of reading too much into this and remind you to ask yourself, “What do you really expect him to say?” It’s good news, but let’s see how he looks in camp and, most importantly, in the pre-season.
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One last nugget for the day, courtesy of rotoworld.com:
Jacoby Jones has been running with the Texans’ first-team offense with Andre Johnson (arthroscopic knee surgery) sidelined.
I couldn’t be more thrilled. As exciting as Apostrophe Davis was for us last year, the fact is he’s 29 and coming off his best year since 2002, if not ever. In other words, we have seen his ceiling as a wide receiver. But, damnz, what a badass 4th WR to have (especially if Andre misses time), and what an awesome weapon to have in the return game. I still have my man-crush on Jacoby thanks to TPL from battleredblog.com, and Jacoby was awesomely impressive in the pre-season last year. He just seemed to lose his confidence after being tackled by a punter, getting injured in the process.
As we get closer to the season, Matt and I - with all of you pitching in awesome wisdom - will flesh out our team. I will tell you that I am super-excited about WR heading into 2008.
Zone Blocking - The Video!
Feb 7, 2008 Alex Gibbs, Demarcus Faggins sucks, Hype, Winstonsaurus
Bumped from my pathetic post, the lovely, talented, and extremely sexy Eric links us to a video discussing zone blocking.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvtJHq_0YvA
For me, this does two things:
1. Gibbs adds a new dimension to our offense.
2. The RB is a part, not the piece. The video is helpful in the sense it’s easier to visualize the one-cut system. Denver was able to cycle through RBs because of the system, and while the RB is not entirely irrelevant, he’s only a piece of the system. The focus is getting the right OL for the system along with the proper coaching, and it’s yet another reason I don’t believe that a RB is necessary with our first round pick.
