Keep drinking the kook-aid fellas but most other good teams are able to get by with the same cap figure without losing so many players in a given offseason. Now other teams to have to cut/let players walk via free agency but I can't seem to recall any other team losing this many good players in one offseason. This is clearly a case of mishandling the salary cap! I mean Williams, Winston, Ryans, Brisel, Vickers, Allen, and now Dressen all with no additions. Now the addition part may yet change but it doesn't seem like most well run teams have have it his bad very often.
Clearly?? CLEARLY?? You're basing that on what exactly?? Did you even read Donny's post? It was SPOT ON. You realize we have are going to make Duane Brown the highest paid LT in the NFL (for good reason) next year?? That money doesn't just appear out of thin air. We've had a LOT of holes to fill over the years, and unfortunately, all of that came to a head this off-season. However, we can't mortgage our future so we can retain guys like Joel Dreessen. If Kubiak found him in the scrap heap, he can find another one (and by all accounts, likely HAS in Garrett Graham). Donny pointed out actual examples of why this isn't cap mismanagement....all you're doing is speculating.
That's because you don't follow other teams as closely as the Texans. There were two significant additions: Chris Myers and Arian Foster’s new contracts. The Cat explained this much better in some other thread but here's the truth: They haven't mismanaged the cap; they squandered this particular window. Last season should have marked their third consecutive trip to the playoffs; at the very least, their second in three years. But when they blew it in 2009 and then collapsed in 2010, it more or less made 2011 a de facto "win at all costs" year. So they resigned Ryans, Daniels, et al; signed Joseph, Manning, et al - and went for broke, knowing that they probably had one last chance with this nucleus. That effort was rewarded but now they have to cash the check they wrote. This wouldn't be near so difficult, and likely not as extensive, if they hadn't blown their chances in 2009 and 2010. The true bungle, as it turns out, was the hiring of Frank Bush. That set the franchise back 2-3 years. But they are very obviously course-correcting and getting themselves out of having to do this again.
The best part is that even though this is true, we're still almost a sure-lock to make the playoffs in 2012 simply because of how weak the AFC, especially the South, has become over the last couple years. Ironic that our least talented, least experienced team since the 2008 squad may actually post the best record of any Texans team ever. It's a good time to be a Houston Texans fan.
Not sure what brought on this rant. Dreessen's leaving to go catch passes from Peyton is entirely logical. He'd have been a backup TE if he stayed here. I just don't see a lot of "Chicken Little" level screaming over this move. Now, if they had failed to sign Foster THEN I would have expected the very heavens to open up around here. The Texans simply goofed on the salary cap this year. Meh, it happens. Just be grateful that Jerry Jones is not the GM...
A few other teams that have no cap space and are losing more than adding this offseason. Arizona Baltimore New Orleans NY Giants Oakland Green Bay Pittsburgh Not exactly the teams you think of when you think of "bad management". 5 of those teams are annual Superbowl contenders, with 2 also-rans. I wonder if their fan bases are freaking the hell out. Prob not.
Given the endless string of injuries, I would argue last year's actual on-the-field team could be the weakest. I think that's another component of this people seem to be fogetting: if Schaub and Johnson return to health, this team is going to win 10+ games. Sure, they're an unfortunate injury away from a train-wreck season - but so is... every other NFL team. Their starting line-up is very, very good. And this FO/staff has drafted very well and found bargains up and down the street. Remember - all this consternation over street FAs Kubiak pulled out of a scrap heap (Dressen, Brisel, Allen, Vickers). Why do you doubt he can do it again? This whole team (minus Smith(2), Joseph and Manning) is built on draft picks and street free agents/back-ups. I can understand some angst... but they'll be perfectly OK.
Very true, especially considering they were transitioning to a new defense at the same time. Either way, I can't wait for another 10+ win season and division title. When's kickoff, damn it?!
Can there be a happy medium between sounding like this : and sounding like this? I recognize fully that they can address these needs. But I'm still not thrilled we have to. I was hoping we'd be spending the offseason addressing other things than finding depth that we just lost because the cap situation clearly wasn't handled very well. Individually, none of these pieces is a huge loss....but collectively, it's a fair amount to have to address for depth when you're hoping to make a Super Bowl run. If anyone should know the importance of that, it's the Texans after last year's "next man up." I'm a bit concerned that the "next man" is already up before the season starts. I hope that doesn't mean I'm panic-stricken because I feel that way.
Hey! I happen to agree with Donny, Hey Now & yourself here. It's a goof up alright but certainly not a fatal one that dooms them to salary cap hell for years to come. I believe that a lot of the angst around here is leftover from Mario Williams' leaving which I also find to be strange since he was an ill fit for Wade's defense to begin with and he certainly wasn't missed much last season. However, I am curious about Hey Now's assertion that last year was supposed to be their (Texans) 3rd year in the playoffs. Really?
The Texans have kept their most important pieces in place, but they better not expect to replace everybody they've lost so far in the draft.
He's right. 2009 was the worst blown opportunity at making the playoffs I have ever seen. 2010 was just... indescribably bad. The soft offenses we played in 2009 (NFC West anyone?) gave us a false sense of progress on defense, and it all came unraveled in the most embarrassing fashion. I'm not confident that if 2009 had turned out different, that 2010 wouldn't have been just as bad. But he's certainly right that the 2009 team should have been our playoff debut. And beyond that, the 2008 team should have been our first winning team (which would've finished with a better record than the 8-8 AFC West champion Chargers), too. But we laid an egg at Oakland to end the year, inexplicably.
Why is it a goof up? I'd say they expected this to happen. That's why they worked so hard to re-sign Butler last summer. That's why they drafted Garrett Graham two years ago, even with all the moaning over too many tight ends. No one "goofed" anything. The Texans simply have a lot of young talent that they need to lock up this year and next, and to do that, you have to let your solid but unessential veterans go. Especially if you have a replacement that you think is capable. As far as the third year, what I meant was that the Texans' "window" should have started in 2009. Most of the stars of this era - Schaub, Johnson, Foster, Daniels, D. Brown, Barwin, Mario, Cushing, Ryans, etc. - were in place then. It was a good team that needed one more win. But Kris Brown melted down and lost two games on missed kicks. Chris Brown had the absurd halfback pass in Jacksonville to lose a game and fumbled on the one-inch line against the Jags in Houston. Schaub had the ridiculous pick-six in Arizona and then misfired on the uncontested 1-yard playaction to Dreessen. Topping it all off, they still won their last four to finish 9-7 and on the doorstep.. but the Colts screwed them by pulling Peyton Manning against the Jets and giving Rex Ryan a freebie. If ANY of those improbable variables are different... the Texans are in the postseason. In 2010, the Texans had the makings of an offensive juggernaut... but the ineptitude of Frank Bush and a lack of veterans in the secondary made it all for naught. All they needed was a league average defense (or even slightly below) to compete, and they couldn't even do that. Finally, things came together in 2011 - but two years behind schedule. Had we had that type of season in 2009, like we should have, you wouldn't have seen all these "name" losses following it. Because young guys like Foster wouldn't need a new deal yet. Brown, Cushing and Barwin wouldn't be on the verge. Etc., etc. The bottom line is that while it took until 2011 for the Texans to be a playoff team, they've had playoff talent for three years now. And you just can't keep an entire good team together for that long in the NFL. After that length of time, you have to let some unessential vets go and trust that you can draft and develop cheaper alternatives from within.
I do think the Texans will make some free-agent signings once the market calms down. But the replacements aren't all going to come in this draft. Garrett Graham, Rashad Butler, Antoine Caldwell, Brandon Harris, T.J. Yates, Brooks Reed... they've been working on depth behind the depth for years now. Now, it's their time to step forward. I'd say this year's draft is more likely to tend to probable needs one or two years from now, as opposed to next season. With the exception of the first and maybe second rounds, of course.
Hmm, my take on the Texans was vastly different. I just never saw those teams as legit playoff teams. I always felt that the Texans wouldn't advance to the playoffs until they somehow managed to become competitive withing their division. What happened last year was that the division became a train wreck (of sorts) starting with Peyton's injury, Indy's crash & burn, Jacksonville's regression and Tennesse's falling off. To me, the Texans biggest problem has always been their inability to compete in and win their division because that was what I felt they had to do to qualify for the playoffs. Their historical head-to-head records bear this out: Indianapolis: 3-17 Jacksonville: 11-9 Tennessee: 6-14 Last year they were 4-2 in the division and they won the division. By doing so, they finally look to be a legit playoff team. Not saying they are a Superbowl contender just yet because we have to see how Schaub comes back but they are now definitely in the mix which is a far cry from 2010.
Absolutely. They finished 9-7 in '09 and missed the playoffs when the Jets' final two opponents (the Colts and Bengals) laid down, rested their starters, and gifted them the two wins they needed to jump Houston. That was the same year they blew four games when a guy named Brown failed to make routine game-ending plays that would have literally sent four (!) losses into overtime. Convert just one of those into a win - just 1-3 instead of 0-4... So, yeah - '09 was the blowniest of blown opportunities. I can't reason 2010; it was terrible. But they did start 4-2 and did lose some absolutely ridiculous games (Jets, Ravens, Tebow). Point is: playoffs or not, the clock on this group started in 2009, not 2011 (and really probably 2008, but Schaub missed too many games). You can't keep it together appreciably longer than 3-5 years. When they blew their chances in '09 and '10, they loaded up for '11 since the entire regime was (we assume) on the hottest of hot seats. And now they're having to cash those checks. I can't fault them for the cap; the mistake was in blowing golden opportunities pre-2011, and not maximizing this nucelus greater.
