Built-in excuse for the Carr haters. He played the game he had to play on Sunday to keep us in the game. For the most part, our defense was getting run over, up and down the field, even though they did make some nice stops. Carr was able to come in a lead productive, time-consuming drives on the majority of their possessions. Just because he didn't throw for 200-300 yards doesn't mean he didn't have a good game. It probably would've helped if we had a running game. Even without it, we still had a chance to drive down the field and win the game. And who knows, had Cook not fumbled after his reception, we may have. But to point to last week's game as evidence that Carr sucks is absurd.
i keep making this point over and over - there seems to be some built threshold of what constitutes a good game based on stats. carr went on the road, in a hostile environment against a very good team, and did exactly what you want your QB to do in that situation: hold onto the football and put your team in position to win. in seven possessions, he drove into giant territory five times. the net result of those five trips were: missed FG, punt, FG, TD, fumble. hit the FG (in no way carr's fault) and then don't fumble, and that would have set up, at worst, a 52-yard FG to win the game. and cook fumbled on second down, iirc. i'm at a loss how anyone could look at those results and have anything negative to say about david carr.
I don't recall anyone doing that. What i saw was someone say that Carr had an "awesome" game. I say we're setting the bar pretty low for him if that's what we define as "awesome." That Ric looks at that game and says, "what else could he do?" implies that game is all I could or should expect from our QB. Again...the bar is too low. Only in Houston does that pass as an "awesome" game...a game where fans couldn't/shouldn't expect something else.
This is exactly the problem though. As MadMax pointed out, that's a terribly low bar. At his best, his play keeps us in a game? That's the very definition of a game-manager. I don't want a game-manager out of an $8MM a year QB. I can get that from any of a bunch of free agents. That's not to say he sucks - it's to say he's average.
Can anyone name a few QB's who have had coaches turn them into entirely different players several years into their careers? I hear this all the time - "he just needs some coaching". But where's the evidence that this really works? Brian Billick is supposed to be a QB genius - could he ever change his QB's into something they weren't? Same with Spurrier, etc. Are there any QB's that just transformed into a whole different playeer as a result of good coaching?
You know what Max, I'm going to take you to task, only because I have always enjoyed reading your opinions in the past. Whether I agree or disagree, you usally make reasoned posts. The post I have quoted you on is just lame. Where Carr is concerned, you continually pick out the most extreme opinion to rationalize your negative rant. Ric is pretty damn persistant in backing up his opinions, too, but in the case of Carr, his arguments are way more convincing. Carr is much improved over the last few years. You would have to be blind not to see that. I think that is 100% due to Kubes' coaching. I think Kubes can continue to get improvement from Carr. Carr has superior physical skills for a qb. Probably top 5 in the league. I'm pretty sure that is what Kubiak saw and thought he could use and improve. Terry Bradshaw comes to mind as a qb who was big, strong, fast, tough and had a rifle for an arm. I like Bradshaw now (hated him in the day), but he was probably one of the least smart qb's that has ever played. I don't know who gets credit for teaching him how to play the position, but somebody does, because he was a knucklehead for several years. My main point, though, is don't be so damn negative about this. It's not like you.
Not trying to be negative. Just telling you my opinion. I've asserted time and time again that it's just my opinion..and that the only one who really cares about it is me. I don't get paid for my opinion. Carr looked at least this good, if not better, in the first half of 2004. Something happened after that. All of a sudden the coaches couldn't coach anymore and all his players conspired to make him look, at best, average.
I know you all hate to hear this, but it's not like he's playing with superior talent out there. If he's able to help keep this team in a ballgame like that, against a far superior team, then I'm willing to cut him slack. If we had first round talent on the OL or in the backfield, maybe I wouldn't. But we don't. I also don't think that's his best. Against a Giants team, one that will probably contend for the Super Bowl, it's a good game.
On the flipside of this, are you putting it all on Carr? People keep harping back to the beginning of 2004. Yeah, we were playing well. Big deal. We still finished 7-9 and then 2-14 the next year. No one really believes that the Texans are a talented team by any means. No one really believes that Capers was the right coach for this job. Everyone loved the Kubiak hiring and the first thing he did as coach was to put his faith in Carr. I'm willing to cut them both a little slack for this season. And so far, in a season where we haven't been favored to win one single game, I don't think he should be the focus of the majority of the scrutiny.
Oh definitely - it was a pretty impressive performance by the Texans given how they've looked this season. But I think it was far more impressive from the defense. While we can say Carr doesn't have much offensive talent around him, we can also say that the only reason we stayed in the game was primarily the defense. Ultimately, we scored 10 points (not all Carr's fault - but its hard to say we stayed in the game due to the offense). Ultimately, this is a situation where Carr looks better because of the defense, but gets the credit for it (as he may unfairly get the blame in other situations). If NY scored 30 and we lost 30-10, the exact same game by Carr wouldn't really be considered good.
no one has said coaching exclusively will render carr better, but instead, coaching combined with better personnel, combined with a better gameplan, combined with a better defense that creates opportunities for its offense could all help him realize his potential. "could" very much being the operative word. but some examples of guys who did seem to benefit from coaching include brett favre, jake plummer, jake delhomme and matt hasselback, all of whom were career back-ups before going with renowned offensive gurus; aikman was never as good without norv turner; martz turned what were otherwise pretty average QBs (warner and bulger) into weapons; others, such as manning and plamer, have benefited from stability (both have only worked with 1 OC in their careers); still others have benefited from a change in systems (vick in ATL; gannon a few years ago in OAK). the #1 ingredient for success is having talented personnel surrounding your QB. beyond elway and perhaps favre, you cannot name many great QBs who didn't also play on great teams. and despite what some want to think, a great QB does not possess the ability to make those around him better. there are probably dozens of tangible things that make a great QB great; the pro-carr camp believes carr's had few, if any and would like to at least see play with some in place. the anti-carr camp has either long ago dismissed this notion, or is simply choosing to ignore it and set-up in its place make believe levels of success that continually seem to change based on his performance.
The issue is that he's the only one that hasn't really been held accountable. Over the years, the Texans have replaced the GM, the coaches, changed the entire O-Line, receivers, running backs, the entire defense, etc. But Carr hasn't been touched. The organization doesn't appear even willing to consider the fact that he might be a part of the problem (note that I didn't say the entire problem) and look at alternatives - that's my issue with it. Everyone else gets held accountable, but he seems to just get opportunity after opportunity while people blame all the pieces around him for anything that goes wrong. And then, to make it worse, we have (very) limited evidence from the Titans game that the offense looked totally different with a different QB. And yet, we're still not willing to explore that as a possibility. If Carr does suck, there is no way to know because the organization is unwilling to find out. There's no risk in finding out right now - the team sucks and is going nowhere this year.
this is a valid point, to a degree - i think kubiak played it conservatively all day because of how ineffective the giants were offensively. had they jumped to a bigger lead (and would have, had they not buried tiki barber), he would have likely coached it differently. but you can't create a universal, all-encompassing level of success for measuring carr. had he been playing the raiders in reliant stadium sunday, his performance doesn't look near as good. but in ny, against maybe the second-best team we've faced all year and certainly one of the best teams in football, he had his team in position to win it when a teammate turned the ball over. i'm not necessarily expecting that everyh week, nor would i be content with it everyh week, but in that context? i'm not sure what else you could realistically expect not just from carr, but any qb in that situation.
That's not a bad point, but I think the reason he's been the one that hasn't been touched is because a QB really is dependent on so many other players. If he has no time to throw the ball, which he's never had (and yes, I admit that he has his fair share of blame for some of his sacks), why should we blame him for that? Of course they're going to change around the line when the collective Texans OL since 2002 may be the worst of all-time. The only reason the RBs have changed is because Domanick Davis is out. I don't see how poor run blocking and slow RBs this season is David Carr's fault. Defense either. I do think that he's on a very short leash at this point. If he has another half like he did in Tennessee, I think he'll be benched and they'll try Sage. As far as you other post on the game, he led the Texans into the Giants end of the field 5 out of 7 drives. With no running game whatsoever to speak of. The defense, while it ended up making the stops, I think played better because there weren't constant three and outs. Let's not forget that there were times on Sunday when it looked like the Giants were just toying with them. IMO, David Carr, in this particular sitation, played a good game on Sunday. I don't think he's near the top of the list for what's wrong with this team.
None of the guys you listed sucked for several years. People like Favre, Warner, Delhomme, Hasselbeck Manning, Palmer, and Bulger never were bad in the NFL - the first time they got opportunities, they did fairly well and improved from there. I'm looking for guys that actually were bad for several years in the NFL and suddenly became good with better coaching (or even a better team). One exception I could see is Plummer, but if you ask Denver fans, you'd get a wide range of answers as to whether he's really improved or just keeps going up and down. Gannon might be the best example, though, of a QB that really figured it out late, and he did have a QB guru as a coach. I just think the impact of coaching is a bit overrated - certainly scheme and all that is huge. But I'm more talking about the discussion that Carr has never been coached properly or what not. I think once you get to the NFL level, unless you're a super-raw talent that has to be molded (Vick, Vince Young), playing time and experience is going to be far more instrumental with a QB than is coaching. I don't think you can just give Carr a pass for a 4-year career because he's never been coached well - that's all. Certainly it's a factor to consider, but people act like he should be expected to have sucked for 4 years because of coaching. It's also a bit revisionist - at the beginning of 2005, people were happy with the franchise and thought it had a realistic shot of competing for the playoffs last year. After a terrible year, suddenly the coaches sucked for all 4 of those years.
That's all I hope for - if he does well, that's fine. But somewhere this season, we need to find out whether Carr's play is a result of the team or a part of the problem. And I have a bad feeling he'll do just well enough (but not really good) that we're never going to find out.
The Texans time of possession was 28:55, while the Giants had the ball for 31:05. I don't know the exact number of possessions each team had, but I think it was very close, as well. The Texans offense controlled the ball almost the same amount of time as the heavily favored, at-home Giants. Oh, they also did it with virtually no running game at all. Let's see... virtually same time of possession, no running game, that means it was the passing game that kept the Texans in the game with a legitimate chance to steal the game at the end. Where am I going wrong here?
and major, "we" would argue that that has been part of the problem - carr was given a free ride for four years - was that his fault? The organization doesn't appear even willing to consider the fact that he might be a part of the problem (note that I didn't say the entire problem) and look at alternatives - that's my issue with it.[/QUOTE] and here's "our" problem - they DID consider it. mcnair hired dan reeves for the express purpose of evaluating carr; he asked many other prominent NFL executives, coaches and scouts what they thought about carr; and he presented gary kubiak the opportunity to end the david carr era and start from scratch. all of the above told him carr would be ok with better coaching and better personnel. and so far, he has. kubiak can't let the previous four years he had nothing to do with prejudice his opinion; he has to fairly evaluate carr's progress under HIS coaching. and within the kubiak regime, carr has most definitely been held accountable. kubiak has been on his jock since day 1, riding him HARD, trying to find out what he really has here. carr was never held accoutable by the old regime; true, but i fail to see how that's carr's fault and why, since you obviously agree with it and the negative impact its had on him, that doesn't get factored into reasons for giving carr a little space this year. essentially, you're agreeing with us that the old regime made mistakes... but you're blaming the mistakes on carr. that makes no sense.
favre was a back-up in ATL - couldn't crack the starting line-up; warner was cut by the expansion browns and was playing in the arena league; delhomme bounced around nfl europe for several years; hasselback wasn't a full-time starter until his 5th year... there's no ONE THING that makes a great QB great, but competent coaching is certainly one of the many requirements.
The whole "this organization has done nothing to hold Carr accountable" crap doesn't hold water with me since the arrival of Gary Kubiak. In addition (though no addition is needed) to Ric's well-done take above, I'll say this: --The Texans went out and got a back-up that had *already* performed effectively (with the Dolphins iirc) as a replacement late in games and as a replacement starter. No more no-names back there--a guy with some starts and some W's (iirc). (Somebody please correct me if I'm remembering Rosenfels's time with Miami incorrectly.) --They got Sage, and then when DC wilted against the Titans and started dropping the ball like a schoolgirl, they benched his ass in favor of Sage. --Kubiak is busting DC's chops in the media, and if he's doing it in the media, you know DC is getting much more than that in private. So, no, DC is *not* "held unaccountable" for any of this. Not any more.
