I wonder what undrafted FAs the Texans will look at, McClain said we'll look at some lineman, linebackers, safeties, and a RB.
Charles Spencer was a project & upside pick a couple years ago and did well enough to earn a starting spot. If Brown can do what Spencer did pre-injury it'll be dandy. Weaver should be playing tackle not end. I remember a metric rating him the best tackle against the run before he signed with the Texans. Let him replace Travis Johnson. Definitely would be nice to have another solid DE.
he's too small to play tackle. he's good at run support for a DE but not at DT. Plus a Nose Guard needs to take on 2 blocks (mainly LG and C) if possible and let Okoye (3-technique DT) to penetrate the 1-gap against the RG and get into the backfield to disrupt the QB or RB.
http://fflivewire.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=128822 that site says we have signed these guys. the 1st 2 are confirmed. Texans LB Ben Moffitt (USF) Texans WR Ryan Grice-Mullins (Hawaii) Texans LB Marcus Richardson (Troy) Texans WR Darnell Jenkins (Miami, FL)
I like the Moffitt signing. I remember watching a couple of games and he seemed like an animal out there. I think he is a tad older than most rookies as well, which isn't a bad thing in my mind.
Misjudged and mishandled? He wanted a year to see if he could turn the guy around. He was the first overall pick of this franchise, and he didn't want to assume that the guy was a bust. If anything, I'm glad that he had the balls to cut him after just one year. He didn't feel the emotional tie to him that other coaches might have, and he was smart enough to dump him before he became invested.
Not ONE person said Duane Brown was a reach for a late first-round pick. When we picked him, EVERY one of the analysts said "this is about right.....this is where I had him going..." And if there's ONE thing we've learned about the Denver running system, it's that it has NOTHING to do with the RBs themselves, and EVERYTHING to do with the blockers. The Texans felt it would be more in their benefit to address the O-line, so that whoever is running behind them can actually get positive yards. What good is having a Ferrari in Manhattan? Besides, with the extra pick we got, we drafted a DAMN good running back in Steve Slaton.
I don't know if anyone's posted this or not: Slaton 3 years 3,923 yards rushing 789 yards receiving 50 TDs Reggie Bush 3 years 3087 yards rushing 1206 yards receiving 41 TDs
about 1 year ago everyone was comparing slaton to bush. same size. same quickness. we just got reggie bush in the third round instead of the first overall pick.
If we can use Slaton the way the Reggie Bush SHOULD be used right now, that would be great. Green/Brown/Taylor (whichever is healthy for any particular game) will probably get the majority of the carries, but Slaton can be that change of pace guy with the potential to break off big carries, or potentially turn a short screen pass into a long TD. I'm curious to see this guy play.
Brown would have been picked by San Diego at 27 if Houston didn't pick him up. As people already stated, individual team draft boards are a lot different from the "experts".
The biggest factor was the context. Bush had a very mediocre rookie season (especially when you take out his December, which was unknown at the time of Michaels' outburst), much like he did last year. Certainly nowhere close to the kind of production you'd expect from a high draft pick at a position where immediate success is likely, much less a player compared to Michael Jordan and a player who caused a franchise to be thrown under the bus for months. Bush had a slow start to the game, but scored a touchdown on a 55 yard screen pass where he seriously made one move and had a ridiculous wall in front of him. One move, one play, within the greater context of his season. But for minutes, Michaels literally screams to where you'd think he was in the middle of an orgasm, capped by this gem going to commercial break: If you're a Texans fan, you have to be wondering: What in the hell did we do?!? Of course, the Texans hadn't been mentioned in the entire broadcast. Weren't playing in the game. Focus should've been on a game between two playoff teams. Instead, like a crazed fan, Michaels seized the opportunity to rub it in the Texans' faces and degrade the entire organization on national television in a situation where they shouldn't even have been mentioned. (Funny, aren't broadcasters supposed to be objective?) That would've been bad enough if it were true -- but the argument that one decent play from Bush amidst a then awful season somehow justified a No. 1 overall pick and humiliation for anyone who dared think differently is just mind-boggling. Instead of doing their jobs and looking at the overall situation objectively, Michaels and most of the media were looking for the slightest shred of evidence to support their selfish, pre-established bias. For one of the league's lead announcers to make those comments screaming at the top of his lungs... disgraceful, really. I'll stop my rant here.
I am not backpeddling in the least. But what you and the others keep conveniently forgetting to mention is that I was talking about his being chosen as the top pick in the entire 2006 draft. I felt then and still do now, that he did not (a) show enough in 2006 to justify his being taken no.1 and (b) he was outplayed on his own team by a guy (Ryans) taken in the 2nd round and (c) that my personal philosophy goes against using the top pick for a project player which is what I considered Mario to be - if you get that pick you use it to get immediate help and not on a guy who might help you years down the road. Now your POV happens to be quite different than mine on this subject and that's perfectly OK with me.
Earlier in this very thread, you said the following: I was not in favor of even keeping Carr when Kubiak showed up and it is that decision by him while basically not even considering taking one of the QBs in the 2006 draft that i take issue with. I'm not sure how you can both argue the above and contend the Texans should have considered rookie quarterbacks, because taking a rookie quarterback essentially ensures that you won't get help until many years down the road! On the whole, quarterbacks have the highest bust risk and also take the longest to provide an immediate impact -- going completely against the criteria you set above.
I disagree. I wouldn't have considered him "dominant" coming out of NC State because he was too inconsistent. I think that they (Teaxns) became enamoured of him during the NFL combine. While I did like him as a player, I just thought he was picked too high because his skill level didn't warrant him being the top pick. Had he been picked say 10th, then there would have been none of the comparisons with VY. But by reaching for Williams with the No. 1 pick, the Texans put him in a no-win situation which became particularly acute when VY out performed him (and David Carr) that year. Hence, the animosity that exists here to this day on the subject of VY & MW.
Huh?? Come on, Hillboy. Now we've been through this... If the Texans would have taken Bush at #1, Mario would have gone #2 to New Orleans. Where are you getting this idea that he would have dropped to #10??? Did we "reach" by taking Mario one spot ahead of where he was projected??? And Mario CLEARLY out performed Bush and Young last year. Not even close. So who the hell still cares about their rookie years??? Just an FYI, the current year is 2008, not 2006.
I have a hard time accepting that argument because the criticism leveled against Mario (he did most of his work in X games) can be applied to any defensive lineman in the history of the game simply because there aren't enough accurate statistics to judge the impact on a defensive lineman on a game-to-game basis. Even the best defensive lineman in the world can be stopped, if you look only at sacks and tackles, if a good team commits multiple blockers to him. Of course, in those games, the lineman in question would still have a tremendous impact, because his presence would free up others along the line to make plays. But the casual fan who didn't watch them (I'm guessing most of us weren't watching NC State football) wouldn't know because there's no statistic for it. And in many cases, even fans and writers who actually do follow a team only go by what the stat sheet tells them and don't understand the subtleties of the game. Now, over the course of a full season or two, great defensive ends will make their plays and get their sacks, and the numbers will even themselves out. But in individual games, the sample is far too small (if you're only looking at the box score) to determine the true impact a player had on the game. That's why I can't really accept the "inconsistent" argument, as it's been presented. You could make any lineman in the history of football look poorly using the criteria set forth by some of MW's bashers. The analysis needs to be more substantive.
