I think you're understating the offseason moves a tad. I agree, we're not losing anyone that will make or break the season next year. But the amount of depth and talent we are losing stands out. We just went through a season plagued with injuries but our depth kept us in the hunt. Now it's gone. We MAY get it back in the draft, but we may not. Plus we put our eggs in the Foster basket (I think the contract was a favorable one), who was hurt for the first half of the season. The question that stands out in my mind is how R Smith & Company didn't see this coming. Or if they did, why not a proactive approach? Remember, before last season R Smith was a turd in this town. Suddenly the contract window peaks, the talent gets coached up on D and he's the shiz. Is this offseason the result of R Smith's narrow vision and bargaining skills? It seems some of this should've been averted. Of course the jury is out until after the results are in this season.
This is the proactive approach. There was a lockout last summer, remember? That is why last year was uncapped. It would have made no sense to make these cuts this past season (with zero offseason to make adjustments, no salary cap in place, etc... and ruin our playoff run), or even the season before that (since the lockout was looming and we had no idea what the CBA would look like). The only other option would've been to not give Antonio, Andre, Demeco, Winston, Daniels, etc. their new contracts to begin with. And if we did that, then guess what... we're probably not nearly as competitive as we were the last 3 years. Which would've been pretty sad, considering what our record was with them.
'This' being Foster's signing and the inability to negotiate some contract restructuring? Obviously their hands were tied last offseason. So maybe I'm a tad harsh with Smith's criticism. I hope it's unwarranted. I thought he was turd that needed flushing prior to last season and now I'm afraid he's starting to float once again
Mario is more than "somewhat". The Texans would have been better with him. Ryans was traded for salary reasons. He is a great player as well. He should be better next season...may never be 100% again, but he has the brains to play with a little less speed. Brisiel and Winston were starters on a dominant offensive line. I don't think they are great, but are above average in my opinion.
They restructured Andre's deal (very shortly after he signed it). Demeco and Winston's deals had no room to push the money anywhere, they were going to have to take a pay cut, which we all know wasn't going to happen. They got what they could for Demeco, and while it would've been nice to get something for Winston, I'm not going to lose sleep over cutting him vs. trading him. I've been harsh on Rick, but this criticism is unwarranted. He has done a great job of maneuvering some very rough and uncharted waters lately. He's been on quite a roll since the failboat that was the Kareem pick.
The Texans had NO SHOT WHATSOEVER at resigning him. He wanted to get PAID and was probably already talking to the Bills before free agency even started. He wasn't an every-down LB in Wade's scheme. You can't justify paying someone that much who doesn't play every down. Sharpton pretty much beat him out last year before he got hurt. Winston is a little overrated by Texan fans IMO. He got beat more often than any other O-lineman last year. I think Butler can step in and do fine for a lot less money. Brisiel will be missed but wasn't irreplaceable like Myers.
I sincerely hope Rick succeeds. I guess that's a given although it doesn't sound like it. I'm not exactly ready to concede he's done a great job and the Kareem pick still sticks in my craw. Plus I think Wade had much to do with the talent the Texans picked up on D last year. I'll give him props for getting out of the way though. Should be an interesting draft. Definitely the most important one in franchise history despite having the first pick twice. The window of opportunity would appear to be now.
I think it's a stretch to call Dreessen above average, considering he's never even started. Brisiel, eh. He's a solid guard but little success outside of this system, and split reps 50/50 with Antoine Caldwell for the majority of his time in Houston. There's a reason for that. I'd like to keep them, but at the end of the day, they're replaceable. As far as Demeco (Joe Joe), he's far from being a great player. He played under 60% of the snaps due to Wade's scheme, and never regained the burst he had prior to tearing his Achilles. Sadly, most players NEVER return to form after an Achilles tear - it's hands down the worst of the common injuries an NFL player can suffer, imo. He's still a good leader and solid against the run, but you don't pay $9 million for that when you have someone like Sharpton already on the roster.
I'm sure he did see it coming, especially after signing Joseph and Manning. Butler is a starting-quality tackle, and most expected him to bolt last summer. This is why the Texans worked so hard to re-sign him, even though they didn't have a spot for him at that time. This is why they drafted Garrett Graham two years ago, even with the simpletons screaming "OH NOES! ANOTHER TE!". Same with drafting Sharpton, even though you had Cushing, pre-Achilles-tear Ryans, and a few other linebackers. This is life in the NFL. The Texans have a remarkably talented and young core. Have for three years now. To keep those guys (like Foster) that are becoming free agents, you have to have young, cheaper replacements in waiting for your solid but unessential veterans. This is how successful franchises operate. We just haven't seen it in Houston because until now, we haven't had so many young stars to worry about signing long-term. I don't see a single position in which the Texans lost someone that hasn't been attended to in recent years. At TE, it's Graham. At offensive tackle, it's Butler. At ILB, it's Sharpton. At OLB, it's Reed. At CB, it's Harris. Rick didn't spend resources on these guys not to play. It's their time. And starting with this draft, we'll begin grooming depth behind them.
Hold on.... Butler has yet to prove himself. Sharpton takes the sting off a tad and Harris is an unkown. I don't know why you're downplaying it as if it's easy come easy go. It's taken years to build to this point. I'll give in that the Texan's hands are tied and veterans can be plugged in and come and go. But you seem to marginalize it like there has been and will be no loss. At the very least you have to say there will most likely be a drop off. We lost Mario Williams. Team w/ Mario > Team w/o Mario. - That's not an incorrect comparison. No, it's not the end of the world. Not today anyway.
Butler has looked the part of a very good tackle in his opportunities. The Texans saw very little dropoff when he filled in during Duane's four-game suspension in 2010. The staff is quite high on him. As far as Mario, the Texans had the No. 2 defense in the NFL with him playing roughly 25% of the time. They were even better in the postseason with Mario playing 0% of the time. He's a good player, yes. But also replaceable. There might be a dropoff. There might not. The reason I'm downplaying is that this is run of the mill for good NFL franchises. Now if you lose elite talent like Foster or Myers, that's of note. But consistently good NFL teams have to let unessential "name" vets go, especially when they've quietly been compiling and developing depth behind them that they like. It's the only way you can keep the true core of a good team together. If the Texans are wrong on guys like Butler, Graham and Caldwell, we'll see in September and I'll worry about it then. But this staff has developed overall talent from unconventional sources quite nicely - especially at offensive line and tight end - and I'm willing to believe they'll do it with this crop, as well. I don't see the need for freaking out.
Butler played well when Brown was suspended. Well enough for several teams to come calling last summer. Agree about Harris but Allen wasn't exactly a huge loss for this team. His claim to fame was that he was (arguably) slightly better than Kareem Jackson. We lost him for 14 games last season and did pretty well without him. If there was no such thing as the salary cap, I would have preferred we resign him. I'm not trying to say the team is better after losing all these players, but out of all of them, only Mario was an impact player. Arian Foster is an impact player and he has a new contract. Chris Myers is an impact player and he has a new contract.
The word average is user-defined, so no sense in really debating over it. We don't get to watch the game tape to really evaluate these guys, but the bottom line is we've let go of several proven players that contributed to a playoff team and will be relying on some unproven players to fill in for them. I'm not mad we lost any of them, just not going to deny that collectively it's a significant loss and we've got our work cut out to overcome that.
^ LOL... how did this turn into a "OMG! The salary cap! " discussion? :grin: I'm off to do some PhotoShop...
These aren't exactly photoshops, but I got these when I was watching a tv special on the NFL network a few weeks back. I think these are current pictures of him too. Someone might be able to use them lol.
He has no neck. It's all fat supporting his head. Which makes total sense since he also has no spine.
