Blake Bortles

Bortles looked great last night. Only preseason, but he made a lot of difficult throws.

 

There's a reason he moved up.

There's a reason Bridge moved down.

 

Back in the day David Carr looked great in preseason also. Just saying

 

"Bortles looked in command on the Jaguars offense, looked decisive in where to go with the football and had a near perfect showing. He finished the night completely 7-of-11 passes for 117 yards, but legitimately had at least three bad drops by the receivers, leaving roughly 50 yards or so on the field."
From SB Nation.

Teddy Bridgewater and Carr Jr struggled in their debuts.
Next up _ Mr JFF, Savage, Logan Thomas, and Zach Mettenburger (if he plays).

 

So you're taking a victory lap after one pre-season game?

Ooookay.

 

So did Yates and Case last year. Weren't people on this board saying we could get a 3rd rounder for one of them? However the Texans should have got a QB.

 

Mr JFF looks like he can play in the NFL. The Browns said he will start next week because the 2nd string offensive line is terrible.

Both Logan Thomas and Zach Mettenburger look promising.

Savage ----> may have been drafted too early.

 

And yes... It's just one preseason game. We'll see what they all do next week and going forward.

 

To our defensive woes last night, Jonathan Joseph/Brian Cushing weren't playing and I feel like that is a big deal.

Offensively, it was pretty bad.

This looks like a 5-11 team, but I will still hold judgment until the beginning of the regular season.

Clowney flashed a lot. We are going to have a special front seven, barring injury.

 

We have 2 great players out of that 7 and one more that might be great that just switched positions. I don't know what is so special about the other 4 of the group. At least merciless showed some flashes last year.

 

In the front 7 we have 3 absolute beasts in Watt, Cushing, and Clowney along with a solid 2 gap DE in Crick. Sure the other 3 spots are questionable, but we have potential at the NT spot especially once Nix gets back fully healthy and Jeff Tarpinian has looked pretty good so far even though he's still a question mark. The only spot on the front 7 that is really bad is the other OLB spot with Reed and Mercilus. I'd say they absolutely have a chance to be a special group this year.

 

Clowney's size does not make him a football player. I think he could be really great but he isn't anything till we see it in the field. His hit yesterday was wicked. HOPEFULLY, that means 3 great players on defense. Well, 2.5 considering Cushing has played 12 games in two years.


Nix is a 340 lb guy who hasn't played a down in a NFL regular season game and already has knee troubles/surgery. All that weight he is carrying not help the situation at all.

Crick? Maybe he's good but he is not one of those guys that shined in the backup role in a way where you feel he needs a shot. We don't know yet but he certainly comes into this as a below average DE. Sure Watt and Clowney are great. Solution? Run it the other way. Separate them on either side? Expose weaknesses on the inside.


Look man, I'm hoping for the best but you need to be real here. The defense on paper is bad and we have to hope they prove they are way better than what they have done in the past.

 

I was only talking about the front 7, and even on paper, they are pretty good. As to "expose weakness on the inside", get Cushing back and there is no weakness on the inside, even without Nix being back. The Texans D is really stout against the run, where they fail is against the pass, which will be more interesting with Joseph back and seeing more downs of JJ Watt and Clowney rushing the passer.

 

Yea... The front 7 are all I talked about. Cushing/Nix/Clowney/Mercy/Crick/Watt are all in the front 7.

If your saving grace is Cushing then you should acknowledge the HUGE red flag since he has only played in 12 out of 34 games in the last two years. Not to mention the NT in front of him has started 1 game. Even if Cushing was superman he would still be murdered without a good NT in front of him.

The run defense was not even in the top half of the NFL rankings last year. What did we do? Draft a DE and move him to LB. Move an outside LB to inside LB. Hope another DE turned LB gets better this year now that he has had some time to get used to the change.

Reed and Mercilus can be the saving grace this year but who knows. I hope they do well.

 

Maybe you haven't watched much of Cushing's career then....He's captain of the defense for a reason. Sure he's had 2 fluke injuries, but he's hardly "injury prone" and he really does make THAT much difference.

The run defense last year is irrelevant to this year because it's a totally new scheme with new talent. Last year we had probably the worst NT in the entire NFL, we currently have 2 on the roster better than the best NT on the team last year. Also Crick was being played wrong, he's always been a 2 gap DE, now he finally gets to play as one.

 

Excuse me? I've been on this board talking Texans and Cushing way longer than you have.

What does the quality of Cushing's play have to do with anything. I already said he was a star. That doesn't mean he can't get hurt and it doesn't mean he can carry a defense physically if he doesn't have any help on the inside. Plus, most injuries are "fluke" injuries. Guys get hit in the knees and some give more than others. You can't just dismiss two season ending injuries and a guy who can't even play in half of your games.

What makes you think Jerrell Powe is even decent? And nix? What about his surgically corrected knee and his 330 lbs?

 

My point was that Cushing IS that good, and you should know it. The difference of him in the game and out of the game is night and day for the Texans.

As to Powe and Nix, they don't even have to be decent to be just a hell of a lot better than Earl Mitchell and Shaun Cody. That said, I liked what I saw from Powe in his first action for the most part and Nix was the most talented NT in this year's draft. Sure there are concerns about his knees, but he should have that squared away for the most part.

As to fat man with injury concerns, I guess you wouldn't want Vince Wilfork either right?

I was a lot more concerned about the knee before I knew he bit the bullet and had surgery on it. That said, even Powe is remarkably better than we've had at NT in years.

 

Vince Wilfork? You mean the guy who had season ending foot surgery last year? No. I would not put my money in him right now. Achilles is a rough injury but it's not as much of a concern long term as the knees. How do you get less worried if a player decides to get surgery?

You are delusional if you think Cushing can makeup for bad players. He is great at pumping up the D but you need a good team or he will get ripped to shreds or he will take too many hits for a guy who can't stay healthy. I still don't understand how you don't understand the giant asterisk with Cushing and that two season ending injuries can't be thrown away because you think they are more flukes than any other injury.

and YES, your NT needs to be decent. He has to be very very decent. He plugs up a lot of space and needs to be able to take a lot or your LBs are going to be way too relied upon to hit the middle and you'll lose coverage close to the line.

 

Speaking of coverage... How many of those guys in the front 7 can actually cover...??? I think the Texans will be good against the run but so what _ it's a passing league and Cushing is the only guy in that front 7 who's worth anything in pass coverage (if he's back to his old self).

And when going against good quarterbacks with multiple receiving options a team better be only rushing 3-4 players and everybody else better be able to cover. Arizona just gave us a taste of that... But, just preseason though. But the days of a pass rush automatically making the secondary better is slowly becoming a myth. Just look at the Rams. They get a lot of sacks but suck in pass coverage. Same with Green Bay last year as well.

Stopping the run is nice but in the 1st half of the season we face several teams with good quarterbacks who have multiple receiving options. Even with the addition of Clowney _ I don't see this becoming a dominant defense over night that can carry a team. I think they need another off-season before that can happen.... If then.

 

I get less worried because I thought all along that he needed knee surgery, ignoring that kind of thing and pushing on is a great way to go down mid-season. I'm glad he got it out of the way.

It's not that he makes up for bad players, it's that what he brings to the team can't be duplicated by others, he's the captain for a reason. Just look at how the defense performed with him and then without him, it's night and day different.

Because his injuries haven't been about "taking too many hits" like you would see with someone who was fragile or injury prone, he had 2 fluke plays where someone took his knee out. That's like saying someone is a bad driver who gets T-boned while driving through a green light twice. There isn't any player in the NFL that wouldn't have been injured had they been hit in the knee like that. How can you not see the difference between 2 fluke plays and someone like Darryl Sharpton?

The Texans haven't had a decent NT since Dom Capers was around and yet they've had very good defenses with absolute crap NT's. That said, I agree that they play a very important role, and either Nix or Powe would be the best NT on the Texans in the last 7 seasons or so, that's my point. Cushing was an absolute beast with guys who have no business playing NT for anyone, it'll be even better now that we have legit NT's.