People who really follow this team know it's the right side O-line that is the problem. It's affecting the running game and affecting Schaub when he throws. Special teams has always been a problem and rears it's ugly head in inopportune times. Secondary gets caught with their pants down at times when their is no pass rush and they are stuck trying to hold WRs man to man for long periods of time. Other than that, we are an elite team.
Except those wildcard teams came flaming hot into the playoffs while were crawling in despite the record.
me too...sitting here alone but i cant drink dark beer...im only 5 down and my head is pounding and feel drunk when i normally can drink a 12 pack of bud light and not feel much. Must be that its stronger beer mixed with the depression of the loss and lonliness..
^^^^^ Sad that i couldnt even drink today...sitting on my computer frustrated and still mad....not to the sad stage of grief yet...
This team is done. They're mentally beaten down and nobody, least of all Kubiak, has a damned clue what to do about it. If the team was complacent in week 11, that's on Kubes. If it hasn't gotten fixed since then, after Jacksonville, after Detroit, after New England, after Minnesota, then it's not going to get fixed after Indy and that's on Kubes as well. The team walked into quicksand and there's nobody around to toss them a vine and they're slowly but surely sinking, sinking, sinking until nothing will remain but an empty pith helmet floating on top.
That's a great and heart-breaking read. Thinking about it, I don't know how I can look forward to next season unless drastic changes are made.
Agree. That's what's so heartbreaking about today. This was more than a game and even bigger than the 2012 postseason. In many ways, this was a referendum on the entire Kubiak-Schaub era, and we felt flat on our face. It's very hard, if not impossible, to envision a scenario where those two can bring Houston a Super Bowl. Neither is terrible, but they each have clear deficiencies. Maybe Schaub with a strong coach or Kubiak with a transcendent QB could get it done, but the margin of error is just microscopic with the structure of the team right now.
It's weird, because what can you change? What can you expect them to change? With Cushing healthy, we like pretty much everybody on defense. JJ, Kareem, Manning, Quin. Maybe you want some more depth there. Maybe you let Barwin go and try to bring is someone to give you more production from WOLB but I'm betting management just adds depth and goes with Mercilus and Reed as the starters. Maybe we get a better ILB to play opposite of Cushing. James is a FA. I don't think we make any changes on the line. On offense, no matter how much people want it, Schaub is the QB. Arian is our RB. Casey's a free agent so maybe we have to resign him but I don't see management having FB as a high priority. Our TE's will stay the same. I don't see them making any changes at WR. They like Andre/Walter and they just drafted Martin/Posey and Jean is still young. I'd like to see them bring in better linemen on the right side but management might just decide to continue developing the right side. I really don't see them doing a whole bunch. I'd say the most likely changes are at linebacker. The root of the problem on offense is offensive line but I'm not sure how much they're going to address it. Harris, Butler, Gardner and Caldwell are all expiring. We'll undoubtedly bring in a few linemen but I'm thinking they'll be more of the "provides competition" variety rather than the "definite starter" kind.
Best you can hope for is upgrade the O-line to improve the running game and open up things for average Schaub. We make up for not having an elite QB by keeping them off the field. Which of course was our recipe last year. But of course we dismantled our o-line and now see the result.
I'm skeptical about them addressing it via free agency. Best shot is via the draft. Brown was a late first rounder so hopefully we can find another good tackle in the same area.
It just occured to me...the Cowboys sent Wade Phillips here as a trojan horse to sabotage the franchise.
