Are leadership and intangibles important to the Texans (poll)

yep; i also noticed they had a 6-game losing streak against texas - know why? because getting pumped up and excited for games lasts about... oh, 8 seconds once the ball is kicked off. after that, talent takes over, which, hey, about that - has kind of, sort of been my point from the start.

if an inferior a&m team was routinely beating a superior texas team on the strength of emotion alone, i'd bow down and concede your point. but they don't.

 

how many times do you hear it said, "it's a rivalry game..anything can happen."

the a&m game last year was a LOT closer than it should have been just looking at talent up and down those rosters.

 

Your talking about a rivalry here. Anyways, I really dont understand why you guys think that its Carr's responsibility to "inspire" his teammates to play better. Were supposed to be a professional team and is it too much to ask for everyone to be responsible and take care of business? Was Ben the leader on the Steelers championship team? Heck no. It was Bettis. What about the Ravens superbowl team and even the current team? The answer is RAY LEWIS. I hate to bring up what T Owens said but he said that everyone knew that Mcnabb wasnt the leader in the locker room. Guess what....they went to 3 straight NFC championship games and a super bowl. The leadership on that team came from the defensive side IMO.

After Dayne's first TD against Tenn, Carr clapped his hands and screamed to the sidelines, saying "Lets Go!! You can easily see that Carr is passionate about the game.

About VY....he is getting better and no one can deny that but I feel the Titans winning has to do more than just his leadership abilities. They have a better O line than us and a head coach that has been a head coach for over a decade.

 

so it was random luck...

but, but, but... max, wasn't vince young was on that longhorn team? because, as many longhorn grads here have definitively proven over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, players simply play "harder" whenever vince young's on the field, right?

so if both teams were jacked up because it was a rivalry game, and vince young is capable of inspiring teammates to play harder... why was the game close? because a&m's emotion was greater than UT's AND vince young's intangibles?

 

you win. there's no such thing as leadership in sports. it doesn't exist. attitude means nothing. leadership means nothing. it's all a farce.

 

or you could have actually addressed the post...

 

ric, i've addressed your posts on this umpteen thousand times. my yawns are yawning.

you're the only person i've ever "known" who has suggested that leadership means nothing in sports. there is no way to address it anymore than we already have. except with sarcasm, of course.

 

I believe Vince Young has plans to answer every question raised in these threads...

We won't have to wonder over the next several season, barring injury the opinions on what the Texans passed on will be answered.

This will all play out just like the hype the Disney Sports Channel gave all the USC and Bush worshipers prior to that USC vs Texas Rose Bowl Championship and end just like the game ended.

VY- who?

 

Not so fast, Mad Max. You're talking about the new Rick. The old Ric sang a different tune:

Ric circa 2003 DOES feel that leadership is an important attribute for former Longhorn quarterbacks in the NFL:

veteran leadership is also important, oh and by the way, running backs CANNOT make their quarterbacks better (unless they're named Travis Henry?):

So, whatever happened to that Ric? Did your mission to edu-ma-cate the unwashed masses in football and save them from the curse of VY-philia by any means necessary, in Richiavellian fashion cause this stunning reversal of philosophy?

 

[wiping tear] to think you spent the last several hours pouring over countless posts of mine just to try and show me up... i'm truly touched.

screw everything else - i can't believe i said THAT about chris simms... geez louise.... anyhoo, it was almost 4 years ago; i was wrong about chris simms; and i was wrong about placing too much importance on meaningless intangibles; case in point, i thought they'd translate into a flourishing pro career for chris simms...

seems to me like i learned a lesson, no?

look, i'm not dismissing leadership; never have. i'm standing up to those who would ascribe it more merit that its truly worth. sure, it helps to have leaders. they can help a young team navigate the ups and downs and day-to-day rigors of an nfl season, for instance.

and sure, being cool and collected is certainly a positive trait that, i'm sure, probably translates well on a football field (beats the opposite, i guess). but would it make athletes around said cool cucumber capable of playing beyond their physical capacities? no. are the vast majority of atheletes incapable of reaching this state of cool and collected without a leader? no.

it's overblown how much it actually translates on the field of play. imo, of course.

so travis henry's been a non-factor for the titans these past 10 weeks? is that the contention you're trying to make? because, otherwise, i don't see how the titans and the texans after their first-ever year are even a remotely relative comparison.

because if you had copied and pasted more of the post, you would seen this: we're $12M under the cap. i'd estimate, roughly, $5M of that is earmarked for our draft picks, however many that might be. leaves us roughly $7M, agreed?

do you really advocate using most of that, if not all of that, on one player? i'd do it if the one player put us over a hump, but there're no humps in our foreseeable future. so why blow your cap now, with nothing on the line and when you still have a roster that needs to be filled?
so, yeah, on the 2002/3 version of the texans, with about... hmmmmmm, 45 holes to fill, i was against a single running back being able to put us over the hump.

dude, i like and admire vince young and hope to god he blows out multiple ACLs because i'm a texan fan and fear that team in tennessee. if you want to spend another few hours reading over scores of my posts, try finding one in which i denigrate young's talents...

 

Some of us have access to the search function, it took about 5 seconds to type in "Ric" and "leader" and return about 20 posts, all in all took about 5 minutes. I highly recommend it if you like to be an internet bombast, like me.

 

ric -

let's clear one thing up:

you keep saying that we are saying that leadership or "it" or whatever can help others play BEYOND THEIR OWN PHYSICAL CAPABILITIES.

i am certainly not suggesting that. i haven't seen anyone else say that. just that it helps to maximize the potential that players have. by being cool in the huddle for instance, it helps create an environment in tough spots where other players can perform who might not perform as well if they let the pressure get to them.

again...no one is saying that anyone is capable of raising someone else to play above their own physical capabilities. i know i'm not saying that.

 

what...? LOL, did that actually happen? that's funny. and that would actually distract me... especially since he's been dead for years... i'd be all, "wha -?"

ok, fine, max - but in huddle #1, "vince young" is playing WR. and in huddle #2, "david carr" is playing WR... how much is leadership going to affect the outcome of the game...?

sure, until the ball's in the play... i could break from that huddle sky high and ready to take on the world... but i still have to make the catch when it matters. and that's exclusively a component of my abilities. and frankly, in the end, i don't give a **** who throws me the pass; i want to catch it because i want to win, or because i want to bask in the glow of success, not because the QB is a leader.... and if it DOES take the QB being a leader to make me try "harder".... well, that's an indictment of me, not some proclamation of the QBs worth.

 

Ric, I think as much as anyone that some of the VY manlove is way over the top and people are over-romanticizing some of this to the point of silliness.

But, I don't think you do well to argue that people, even good solid workers or athletes, won't respond to good leadership. Being a coach is about more than X's and O's and being a QB is about more than accurate passes.

 

ok, ric. truly, i don't know what else to say. other than i don't think you even believe the point of what you're saying anymore.

 

that talent will trump intangibles 99.99999999% of the time? i most certainly do.

 

we're still not even talking about the same thing. you move the target every time.

 

That's cool, so, to clarify, when you were repeatedly talking about the value of leadership in 2003, you were only talking about the 0.00000000001% of the time where it might be a factor?

Again, I fidn this odd because you pronounced it the decisive factor in your evaluation of Chris Simms:

3 years later...ayy, the death of leadership