how about not getting demolished in the 2nd rd by the patriots every year? or a 12 win season? competently addressing the QB position?? do you think if carr is behind center we win that game this year? what about the chiefs game the year before? every time we face the patriots? sorry, occasionally winning the worst division in football on 9 win seasons and routinely being embarrassed in the play offs isn't some sort of feat to hang your hat on.
Wait - did 2011-12 not happen?? Why would we take that out (other than the fact it bolsters you "mediocrity" angle)? If there's *any* outlier that should be removed since 2011, it's the 2-14 record in 2013, which looks nothing like even these past three seasons. Now, take THAT season out and they're 49-30. And a defensive situation that gets better every year... I don't understand what future they've mortgaged - if Tom Savage is, let's say league-average good - they're not a playoff team for the foreseeable future? I think bobby nailed it - fans are confusing "mediocre" with "haven't won a championship." I suppose it's understandable if you're frustrated that they're not *better* than 9-7... but we all know *why* they're not better than 9-7 and it's not some organization-wide blackout of stupidity. The Texans are not an overall bad team that is overachieving; they're an overall good team that's underachieving because it doesn't have a QB.
Why start at 2011-12 then? Why not include the years before? Or why not just start in the era of Rick Smith heading the front office? McNair obviously trusts the guy to lead the FO. They don't seem to think Savage is league average good, after all they started the terrible Brock over him in the playoffs and appear to be very interested in drafting a QB. Yes, they don't have a QB....because they are mediocre and can't find one.
A few counterpoints... They won 12 games five years ago and fans wanted the GM and coach fired. Also, news flash: the Patriots have demolished *a lot* of teams these past 15 years; if you're standard is "be as good as, if not better than, the Patriots," you should.... well, become a Patriots fan because you're going to be perpetually disappointed. Lastly, they haven't "occasionally" won the worst division in football; they've won it four of the past six seasons. They've struggled to find a long-term answer at QB; you can certainly rake them over the coals for that. But doesn't that only make their other accomplishments *more* impressive?
If you are inept at something and it causes you to be overall mediocre, it doesn't make your other accomplishments better. It just means you can't put it all together. Also, the architects of the 12 win season are long gone, and it wasn't McNair and Rick.. I don't have faith that anyone in the FO currently can recreate that.
Not sure why 2011 is the bar. McNair isn't a terrible owner, he is just a mediocre owner and it is reflected in the people he hires and the performance of the team on the field. The Texans have gone better than 10-6 once in 15 seasons. The Texans all time are 107-134. The Texans have never been beyond the divisional level in the playoffs. Even using your arbitrary bar of 2011, the Texans are only 51-45, or an average of around 1 game over .500% a season. The Texans have been just about as mediocre as possible. A lot of fans can handle really bad seasons when there is optimism of some really good seasons mixed in. That isn't the case with the Texans under Bob McNair. You tell most fans over a 15 year span the team will be under .500 with one season being better than 10-6 and see what their reaction is. I don't think McNair is a "good" owner. I don't think he has a passion for football or winning. He is more concerned with what the other owners think about his club than winning and in preserving his relationship with Rick Smith. I am grateful that McNair isn't like Brown or McCaskey but is not being terrible now the bar? Ultimately it is like small market baseball teams complaining about free agency... nothing we can do about it. We are stuck with mediocre McNair and even when he passes away; we get left with his bumbling son.
82-78 with only two losing seasons (out of 10); four division titles, three playoff wins. They're not the only team that can't find a QB; short of falling ass-backwards into one (Indianapolis, Tampa Bay) or getting beyond lucky (New England, Dallas) - it's HARD to find a QB. There were 17 QBs last year that posted a 90+ QB rating... Bradford, Cousins, Tannenhill, Dalton, Smith, Kaepernick........ the 49ers have moved on; how many of those other teams would upgrade if given the choice? (Answer: all of them.) I'm not excusing them: they have failed to find a QB. But it's not like they're the ONLY team in the NFL struggling with it... they all do. IT'S HARD.
So... McNair and Smith are responsible for the OVERALL mediocrity of the franchise, minus their good years? Seems convenient.
Yes, it's hard. But isn't one way of defining mediocrity the inability to do hard things? Anyone can do the easy things.
No they get credit for that, but then they fired those guys who actually built the team into a contender for a short period and have replaced them with mediocrity.
Talk about arbitrary bars... Better than 10-6? Yes, all-time, the Texans have been a bad team. I don't believe I'm arguing otherwise. But 40% of those all-time losses were prior to Smith arriving in half the time (five seasons v Smith's ten seasons). And I'd be willing to bet, if I came to you in 2006, when the team was collectively winning about 30% of the time, and offered you a +20% increase in wins over the next decade, you would have jumped all over it. I get the frustration; I just don't get the intensity of the frustration. It's not great... but it sure as hell beats each and every season 2002-2010. AND... QB aside, this is a VERY good team. They have arguably the best player in football and top-flight talent around him. If they ever get lucky with QB (and I believe it's as much luck as competency), they're going to be VERY good.
Which by definition means that they are not "mediocre".....but we'll keep hearing a certain segment of the fanbase pushing that narrative no matter what.
Here's another problem. You're crediting Smith. And so is McNair, giving him an extension after signing Brock.
I think you should just repeat this post every time this discussion repeatedly comes up. This whole line of argument is ridiculous. Yes, getting a QB is hard. It's made a lot harder when you don't repeated don't even try to get one, despite being pretty good all around on the rest of the roster. How the hell are we on Year 4 of a new coach and we still haven't found a QB he likes and can work with? Trade, Draft, FA, etc. We're not even talking about needing excellent or even good at this point. Mediocre would have been a huge improvement last year. Saying we're only bad at the QB position so we're not mediocre is absurd. The QB position is the source of the mediocrity.
No, that's not the argument, the argument is that the Texans are not "mediocre" due to the definition of that word. Since they are a very good team, they are not mediocre even if they have a bunch of spoiled, whiny fans that think "mediocre" means "any team that does not win it all".
You might as well be saying "The Texans franchise is the very definition of octogenarian" or "The Texans franchise is the very definition of photosynthesis" Learn what words mean.
