I drove back to Houston right after the game and it was brutal. Not too much Reggie bashing but a whole lot of "dem players needs to give back those der checks cuz they done embarresed the city and the state today" "Cuz we feeling it on our sleve today, dem players get to go home and eat a steak while we are hurting" Crazy cajuns are funny to listen to when they are pissed off.
it really is night and day; i mean, it's such a quantum leap... he looks like a totally different player. how was he so wide open yesterday???? i think in that respect, i was right: i don't think teams fear - or DID fear him as much as they made it sound; not after seeing how wide open he's been this year. the team these last several years was so limited in what it could do w/o competent QB play or a productive running game, that i think johnson was just caught up in defenses dictating what the texans could and couldn't do. it's really staggering. i knew they were on the right path, i knew they'd be a competitive team this year... but, wow. simply wow. kubiak and smith have done something truly remarkable here. after the 2005 season, when it looked like they needed to just blow the whole thing up, i figured they were 3 solid years away from competiting... i've been beating this drum for awhile, but the baby vince hoo-ha last year really cloaked what the texans accomplished - strong finish and much improvement. they were TWO PLAYS away from an 8-8 season. not that they were 8-8 good, but that they were close to being 8-8 good. and if you really want to get excited, look at their sked. i see five "on paper" easy wins against five inferior teams. that's 7 wins. and who here would be shocked if they split with jax and tennessee? nine wins, people.
he got wide open in the past, carr had already dumped off the ball. it takes time for routes to develop. mark it, andre johnson is the closest thing you will see to jerry rice in the nfl. why, because he can go long like moss, and he will go over the middle like owens, and he will run away from you like steve smith. the most impressive thing about his first td yesterday wasn't that he was open, its that he absolutely left the carolina defenders like they were standing still. the guy has owens size with sprinter speed. alot of people don't remember how much bigger rice was than the avg receiver in his day. its the same thing with johnson, but he isn't a larry fitzgerald type who has to out muscle his guy on lob passes.
he caught 103 passes last year for a paltry, like, 9 yards a catch. so if carr was dumping it off, it was to him far more often than not. in fact, i'm not sure how many - if any - receivers have caught more balls than andre the past three years. i just think teams could dictate what the texans did offensively; i think kubiak was limited in what he could do to combat it because of carr, the running game, etc. i don't think as highly of johnson as you obviously do - let me rephrase: i don't think he's wholly unique. there are a lot of andre johnsons littering the NFL right now. hell, look what steve smith did yesterday. but he's certainly developing - at last- into a certifiable weapon.
But you've been so quick to point out his Pro Bowl nominations in past David Carr arguments. (Just playing devil's advocate, here). I think he's always been a weapon, and I believe that his game advancing to a whole 'nuther level is as much a function of better coaching, better scheme, and a better QB as it is of his own maturation.
i've always thought he was given more than he earned, that he was being judged on potential and not results. whatever the reason, he's been a night-and-day different player this year. and i'm at a loss to quantify why - certainly carr to schaub. i think it starts there. i felt like such a douchebag yesterday, watching carr's perfectly-coiffed hairdo and pristine white gloves sit on the panther sideline... i still think he was done egregiously wrong by the organization, but i should have stuck to my guns when i said in 05 that i no longer cared why, he just needed to go. sometimes you dig in further to try and counterbalance the overwhelming majority.
didn't some of the receivers earlier say that Carr couldn't throw a pass without them having to stop/adjust for it.
Rewatch it, and turn your head when the camara pans to David. That game was a thing of beauty for Texans fans like us. There were lots of warm fuzzies to be had. I was screaming at the television (in a good way) for the first time since the early 90s. Me, too. I mean we've all learned that he sucked, but that by no means undoes the facts of how the Casserly/Capers regime grossly misjudged his talent and all the rest around him, had him throwing at ladders, dismantled a solid defense and re-tooled with losers while ignoring a BAD o-line, frittered away top picks, etc. Watching the game Sunday, it was like a whole new franchise. One with TEETH. 3- and 4- yard runs up the middle. Completions over the middle. Vicious hits from our secondary. Pressure on the QB. Forced fumbles. Punts inside the 5. Oh, hell yes. A thing of beauty.
Haha, I supported Carr until the very last day, but seeing him on the sidelines with those damn white gloves...and seeing how Schaub runs this offense...I was very embarrassed about how much I stood by Carr. I was in some fantasy world. So sad.
seriously...what was that?? i'm really not trying to pile on at this point. but holy crap that was just comical. he makes it really easy to fit him into the stereotype, doesn't he?
I'm starting to wonder just how "bad" the o-line really was. 3 of the 5 current starters (Mckinney, Pitts, Weary) were starting on the line 2 years ago when we went 2-14 and when Carr was getting sacked on every other play. At least I think they were. Did all 3 of those guys all the sudden turn into better players this offseason? Or was it something else....
i think it's indictative of how success requires teamwork; it's not any one individual (coughbabyvincecough), but a lot of guys all on the same page and working together. remember, mckinney was a 4-year starter in indianapolis before coming here and not much of whatever success he had there seemed to follow him, primarily because manning, faulk/james, harrison, glenn, et al, didn't follow him, either. it was just a total, complete organizational misfire. casserly was inept, the coaches were inept...
I agree I was never in the Bush Camp Vince was the guy I wanted Mario is getting better . . . . but at the time he was virtual unknown [well not as know at the time] Also . .I think one has to add to the fact my hatred of Carr Rocket River
Well... sort of in a way they did. As a unit, I mean. The change in the coaching staff implemented a zone blocking system made them better. Also it's their 2nd year under the new system pretty much all the kinks have been worked out. But your right to think the change in QB's made them better as a unit. Schaub can read the defense better than Carr and obviously has a quicker release.
I'm not being hard on the guy at all. But if you want to specifically jump on Bush for not having scored any TDs so far or on VY for not throwing for x no. of TDs and x no. of yards, then you can't then turn around and say "well, Mario only got 1 tackle but he did eat up a goodly number of double-teams" and then contend that he's the better player of the 3 and all that entails. If you going to hold the others to high standards, then you have to do the same for Mario. That just goes with being the no. 1 pick in the draft. He wasn't taken at that spot to be merely effective - he was taken to be an impact player for the Texans. What the other DEs elsewhere do or don't do is irrelevant - it's what Mario does or doesn't do here that's what's important because only he can put this issue to rest. We aren't having this discussion about DeMeco at all and do you know why? Because DeMeco brings it every game and has clearly showed from the start that he is a big-time player. No one has to rationalize his performance or point to the suckiness of other linebackers elsewhere to describe him as a player because his play stands for itself. And that should be true for Mario as well.
