My random thoughts on the state of the franchise

I know people probably hate these kinds of things, but after some cooling off, these are my thoughts...

First and foremost. I thought we had that game in the bag after the first quarter. Despite the inability to score touchdowns we were outplaying Denver like crazy. Even up until the Blue fumble, we had that game.

As long as the team was winning with Brock, I figured I'd defend him. He has the tools, just needed a while to put it together. Then, he turned into the inflatable flailing man quarterback that can't hold onto the ball.

Brock Osweiler has the tools. He's got the athleticism. He's got the arm. He's got the interview down. What he hasn't shown yet is the mental capacity and the accuracy to be a starting NFL quarterback. There is no excuse for him simply not getting it done. He can say he's going to watch video and no one will be prepared as well as him all he wants. That doesn't change the fact that he throws an accurate ball about 50% of the time, and he locks onto his first read about 80% of the time.

I said it in another thread, but if I'm Bill O'Brien, I sit Brock down today or some time this week, and I tell him he's not playing well enough. Give him some criteria that you want him to accomplish. You want him to complete 65% of his passes with no turnovers. You want him to make less than five bad reads. These are reasonable things to expect of your quarterback.

Then, you tell him that if he cannot complete ALL of these tasks, he will no longer be the starting quarterback of the Houston Texans. This kid needs a fire to be lit under him. It's not okay what he's doing. If he cannot complete these tasks, you tell him he will go into the bye week as the backup.

If I'm O'Brien, the reason I can do this is because my job is on the line. If Osweiler continues on this path, it will cost this staff their jobs. I think. More on that later. If O'Brien decides to make a bold move and start Savage, and he's halfway competent, it could lead to a nice turnaround, thus making him revered in Houston.

I am flat out done saying anything nice about Osweilers until he gives me reason to do so.


Now, onto the way this team has been managed. Rick Smith is not a bad GM, by any means, despite many that think he is. His drafting has been pretty good, though he may not deserve the credit for it. His cap management has been pretty good. The trades in the draft have been hit or miss, more miss, but I believe, as just hinted at, these are more coaching decisions.

I understand why this team signed Osweiler in the fashion they did. I applaud them for making a bold decision. That's one thing I like about the O'Brien regime, is that they're not afraid to make a bold decision, though, the decision may not have been his.

This gets me to my biggest gripe I've ever had as a Texans fan:

This organization deserves to lose horribly, and they deserve to have the worst quarterback in the league making 17 million dollars a season because of the piss poor management of all that was the Tom Savage injury last year.

I said it halfway through the season last year, and it's even worse now. Putting Savage on the IR last year literally set this team back by two or three years. It was, to put it frankly, the dumbest move, by a historically dumb franchise, in their history.

Savage's injury would have taken, if I may guess, 8 weeks max, to heal. When we were going through quarterback after quarterback, he was forced to sit on the sidelines. Had he not been IRed, we quite possibly would have had as much of a look at Savage as the Broncos got on Brock.

If Savage performs fairly well, we don't sign Brock. If we don't sign Brock, that's a boatload of money that we don't have to spend on one free agent. If Savage sucks, at least we've exhausted out options. Then, we try and make a splash for a free agent quarterback.

Now, because of this inexcusable management of players, the Texans are not only left in a worse salary cap position than they possibly needed, but they are stuck forcing a possibly inferior, yet vastly more expensive quarterback to start for them.

The only thing that we as fans can hope for, is that if Brock doesn't turn it around quickly, Savage gets an extended look. I don't really put much stock in his preseason performances, but he's looked good enough that he deserves a shot. The guy will be a free agent after next season, and how Houston Texans-like would it be if he walks, having never started more than four games, and signs elsewhere to become a pro bowl level quarterback? This franchise would deserve that, quite frankly, if they don't give him a chance.

All in all, I'm so steamed about the poor management of this whole situation, that I hope if there is not some sort of change in the next few weeks, that someone gets fired. It would probably be O'Brien, and I hate to type that, much like when I finally came to terms with the fact that Kubiak was going to be fired, because like Kubiak, I love O'Brien. I would prefer, though, that it would be Rick Smith.

There is one thing though that I can say, with this franchise, and its sub par ownership, don't count on any of these things happening. Except maybe the Savage bolting and becoming a good player part.

Oh, the pitfalls of being a blindly loyal fan...


Sorry this was so long.

 

Good points. I think the system is too complicated for Brock personally. I don't think he has the mental fortitude for it. Kubiak runs a much simpler system.

The system needs to be dumbed down.

That being said, as far as the pressure put on Brock with an ultimatum, if he can't hack that, he'll never deliver when it matters most, so I'm fine with it.