At what point will fans stop defending McNair and Smith. In 12 seasons as GM, the Texans have been to the playoffs 4 times and have 3 playoff victories. The Texans are now 92-99 under Smith and that is a huge sample size. Bob McNair in 16 seasons has led the Texans to a record of 110-145. We had to hear crap about the Texans "dominating" their division the last few years, when in reality they went 9-7 both seasons they won the division and it was one of the worst divisions in football. At some point everyone needs to realize what this organization has been and is right now.
Boswell made Rice look good in football... which should be enough to get a statue outside the stadium.
There have been a number of posters defending Smith..... AirLanghi, Mr.Scarface, CoachBadlee and even HeyNow!. Even more fans have defended the owner. BobbytheGreat has numerous times. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but it has to be getting harder and harder to defend the Texans.
Hey they were scoring 35 points a game! They were almost a .500 team with an explosive offen.... OH LULZ
The Texans will be better and obviously they have converted some high draft picks into productive players with guys like Clowney, Watt (assuming health), Hopkins and Watson (assuming health). However they also gave away a high second rounder to get rid of Osweiler. They absolutely raped and destroyed their offensive line for no real reason. They let the top young cornerback in the NFL leave. They did weird things like pay a tight end elite money when he showed no signs of being elite. Watson, Hopkins and Clowney will cover a lot of problems for the Texans against inferior opponents. However we SHOULD be going into next year with a solid OL and secondary and the GM decided to **** that away.
I got into a twitter discussion with someone yesterday about replacing Ricky and Billy. My argument was and is, you’ve got a proven record of mediocrity. If winning a super bowl is your goal, I don’t think those two will get there. And the guy asked, “who specifically would you get to replace Rick?” My answer was and is.....anyone else. What do you have to lose by going in a different direction? I don’t see this team getting better because of the crippling inability to build a roster with quality depth....as we’ve noticed this year, coupled with Rick’s horrific mismanagement of the cap and the Osweiler experiment. Rick must go. In a perfect world, both must go, but in a logical, sense-making world, Rick needs to go. But.....when did this world make sense?
I think this take would be VERY different if not for the Texans losing nearly all of their key players to injury. Have the team fully healthy this season and you are likely looking at a 12 win team or better.
Watt may never be healthy again. If you think the Texans are 12 wins or better with health, what would the Texans be with Bouye and Brooks and Brown?
Not just key players but the key back ups to key players. The only thing I ask for Rick smith is to re-sign the diamonds in the draft and undrafted market that this org tends find but the local media omits by focusing on the the guys that eat themselves out of the league. You find an all pro bouye then who cares if you missed in the 2nd and 3rd. So sign him at all cost. Secondly can we got get Earl Thomas? and I don't like that he didn't go after the 49ers LB when he was released or the Buffalo bills disgruntled player the Jags picked up, if it were up to me they'd be texans. Which goes to show you Rick smith respects and knows not to cross the boundaries of the systems in place, both were 4-3 guys. The most difficult thing for this organization to do has been finding that holy phenom under center. He's here. Rejoice!
Well Brown was never a possibility due to him being a little b****, but yes, Bouye would have certainly helped....just not as much as having a healthy Watt (meaning at least being able to be on the field), Mercilus, Covington, and Reader. When you are missing 4 starters in your front 7 which was going to be the strength of your defense.....you are screwed. When it comes to Brooks, clearly that was a mistake, but it was a defensible mistake given that they thought they had drafted his replacement....and just about all national people agreed. Certainly there have been missteps along the way, but the team would be considered a Super Bowl contender THIS year if they had remained healthy.
If you took just the players that missed time this season for the Texans, that's probably a playoff team.
Thank you for answering my question. FWIW I do believe that the Texans are a playoff team if healthy next year. If they had kept Brooks and Bouye I believe they would have a shot being one of the 4-5 best teams in the NFL next year. Bruce Arians is leaving the Cardinals. I am still not sold on O'Brien being back because he and Smith are not exactly friendly.
I think they still have a shot at being one of the best 4-5 teams if healthy. Watson was playing like an elite QB (despite the relatively high interception rate) and when you have that, you can make up for a lot. When it comes to Brooks and Bouye, it'll be on Smith to go out and draft another Brooks and....well Bouye wasn't even drafted so I doubt he can repeat that miracle, but my point is if he got those players once, he can do it again.
Exactly. Keeping the guy who gave you 12 years of below .500 football thinking he's going to "get better" at it is like going back to the plastic surgeon who botched your wife's surgery asking him to fix it.
My point is, with better quality depth, they most certainly wouldn’t be 4-12 team. Which they will be.
No team in the history of the NFL has enough depth to not be a total trainwreck if they lost as many key players as the Texans.
But they started the year with a horrible O line and sketchy secondary. The sketchy secondary could have held up had there been any form of a pass rush or decent play from the front 7. That didn’t happen. You can attribute it injuries or whatever. The o line along with the fact that Savage shouldn’t have been starting got Savage taken out after the first half of the first game. Watson’s mobility and ability to move in the pocket is the only reason that horrible O line looked decent. Then, once Watson got hurt, it all went downhill. I have to say that Monday was the best the O line has looked, and I’d love to see Quesenberry and Mancz at guards next year, then pick up 2 starting tackles and a whole bunch more depth. Quesenberry actually was looking pretty good out there.
Yep, you can't keep subtracting good players and expect success. It's almost as if that was the plan all along, to make it harder to win.
