You see, you're wrong. No other circumstances can be brought into play. If the Saints can go from 3-13 to 13-3 and to a SB three years later, if the Dolphins can go from 1-15 to the playoffs in one year (nevermind they suck again) then there are no excuses. The NFL is a "win now" league; no teams are trying to build anything. Alls you have to do is draft Reggie Bush, pick up a FA hall-of-fame QB, and hire the right coach who is fiery and you should be in the playoffs your first year and the SB within five. That, or you're "content with mediocrity."
Maybe - but the Patriots sort of laid down for the Texans, at least in terms of playing their backup scrub QB for part of the game and running a fairly simple playbook. And the Jets proved they could beat Cinci on the road, so there's no reason they wouldn't have done it at home. So realistically, if no one is laying down, the Jets lose to Indy to go 8-8 and the Texans might lose to New England to go 8-8, possibly putting 9-7 Pittsburgh into the playoffs.
very true. If that were the case, then I wouldn't have an argument at all and I wouldnt have posted as much as i have in this thread. :grin:
Yeah and they did such a WONDERFUL job before that little hiccup, right? Then please explain to me: If they were doing such a topnotch job, then why has Kubiak and Smith been forced to completely clean house to rid this team of the players that THEY acquired? After all, isn't the No. 1 defense of Kubiak around here is that he's had to start from below ground zero because of the sterling job done by those two? Oh, I forgot: It was all David Carr's fault - guess he didn't learn to throw the football over the ladder high enough.
You're not really making any sense. Who said anything about a top notch job? The team improved, that really isn't arguable. Improvement doesn't mean the team is super badass (and no one suggested that), but I don't really see what "clear evidence of their incompetence" you're talking about... especially since McNair didn't "stick with them" as you wrongly suggested.
Baldinger is saying exactly what I've been saying since 2008 http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showpost.php?p=3909538&postcount=19 http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showpost.php?p=4916937&postcount=35 http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showpost.php?p=4788780&postcount=369
sorry...after i clicked on your first post and the first sentence says you've fallen off the schaub bandwagon...i stopped reading. Ok, i skimmed the rest of that post to only see that you wanted to bench schaub. :grin:
Yeah. I'm back on the Schaub bandwagon. He earned it this season with some outstanding play. For a while there, it looked like he was made of glass and couldn't handle the roughness of the NFL. Kubiak however... I sill feel like he's just a mediocre coach. Yeah, he's improved us from where we were, but he's not showing me that he can take us to a championship. I agree that McNair is too loyal to his coaches. He was too loyal to the first coach and look where that landed us. He's making the same mistake with Kubiak (although Kubiak won't lead the team into the dumpster like Capers did - he'll just lead us into mediocrity).
I'm not completely sold on Kubes either but hell, i'm just so happy that this team is progressing i willing to ride that horse until he starts to slow down. When the team slipped to a couple games over .500 this year i was pretty low on him. You are right though, Mcnair is a loyal guy, but at the end of the day i think Kubes coming back isn't necessarily a bad thing given the current circumstances. If he totally screws the pooch, he certainly won't be around for the remaining years of his contract.
Yes....way. The Texans have improved a lot since Kubiak took over;however, this is not reflected in their record. They've only made a 3 game improvement from 6 to 9 wins in his 4 years. Cowher or Dungy would not have kept trotting out Chris Brown the way Kubiak did this year. He would've been benched or cut after the first ****up, not the third.
Kubiak might not be Cowher or Dungy, but he is getting better. I don't really see a problem with giving him another year, and the Texans needed to get a couple of coaches other than just Kubiak, and it would have been difficult to get any good coaches if they thought Kubiak would only be around for a year. This way, Kubiak, who has been improving the team year over year (slow, I know, but still improving), will get another year (just like in his original contract) to advance the team further and they are also able to fill the coaching holes with (potentially) better coaches than they would have otherwise been able to. If Kubiak doesn't pull through, McNair can still get rid of him, no big deal. From a business standpoint, and even from a team standpoint, what he did makes a lot of sense, especially considering there might be a work stoppage for the 2011 season.
I know too well. What you should do is take a look at some of those other bad rosters. Or look at Icehouse's post above; lots of teams 'rebuild', and have to go through serious roster changes to do it. I agree. But that's really relevant in 2005. Not so much in 2009. Not worth mentioning in 2010. While they certainly stank, that odor was not unique. Many teams have laid that turd before. Texans don't get a pass. That's exactly what clinging to 2005 is. And so do I. Doesn't change the fact that whatever they are accomplishing (good or bad) should not be given the 'oh but 2005' crutch.
Rokkit, I think it's the first two years, not 2009 and 2010, that people are writing off because of what you call the "2005 crutch". It has been argued many times here that the team was such a wreck in 2005 that Kubiak and Smith essentially had a year-1 expansion team on their hands. Not saying you have to agree (and I argued against this line of reasoning myself), but that reflects a lot of folks' viewpoint on the matter. Try a 7 win improvement from 2 to 9. We're moaning about three years of 8 or more wins. I want the Texans to win 12 and 13 games every year, too, but there are franchises that haven't won even 7 games in three years. I'm not arguing in favor of the three-year extension, just saying it's not as bad as people act like it is. McNair could easily can the guy after next season if he lays a turd.
I still don't get your hanging on to 2005 and claiming as an excuse. 2005, texans were the laughing stock. 2009 they missed the playoffs by one game (which you can directly relate to 1 yard and/or a fumble in the end zone). 4 years from outhouse to playoff contender. Now it may not be as good as others (a very small amount of teams i might add, each with very different circumstances) and not as fast as you'd like, but it's still progress.
I don't think the 2-win season is a fair comparison to look at what Kubiak inherited. The consensus is that the coaching was terrible, the GM was terrible, and there was no talent on the team. If that was the case, how did they win 7 games in 2004? Either the coach, the GM, or the talent was better than people are giving credit for. Given that they progressed and won 4, 5, and 7 games in the years before the 2-win year, it seems the 2-win year was more the fluke than the other years. One thing I do think the franchise has going for it is that 2005 was the only year they won fewer games than the previous year. That's pretty rare to go backwards only once in eight years. That said, the other way to look at it is that between 2004 and 2009 (5 years), they improved by a grand total of 2 games.
