Claim: The Texans Have an Elite Offense

Break it down:

Offense- need another starting receiver and depth on the OL must have a good swing T- and they must keep Schaub healthy again- play calling and preparation- poor

Defense- DL - sucks, Secondary- sucks, LB's- hope they stay healthy, scheme terrible, coaching bad.

Special teams- poor

Take aways- poor

Coaching- horrible- did not prepare well all year, made bonehead decisions and game plans


If the offense is elite the rest of it stinks

 

Please note what’s explicitly missing from my initial response: “…therefore, they should keep Kubiak.” LOL. Rereading my post, yeah – it sure sounds like I’m implying that, so please allow me to clarify: I think firing Kubiak *could* be problematic from an offensive standpoint because we might find out that too much of our personnel is a product of his scheme. And that could add to what is already going to be a major rebuilding process for the defense (regardless of scheme).

That makes me nervous. Nervous enough to keep Kubiak? No. But I’d probably lean toward keeping most of the offensive staff in place. Not because it is elite – though I think it’s good enough to win, IMO - but because I want to minimize time spent rebuilding this darn thing.

 

Schaub had 12 INTs in 574 attempts.

Foster had a 1% chance of fumbling, while Schaub had a 2% chance of throwing an INT. Neither was remotely likely.

I think the truth is that we all are very unhappy with the Texans 2010 bottom line. Concentrating on a handful of bad plays in isolation though aint real rational.

 

I know it’s easier to focus on the final play – but do you not recall how they managed to climb back into the game and force OT? It wasn’t on the back of Arian Foster.

Schaub went 24/38 for 185 yards and 2TDs in the second half plus a 2-point conversion. Including that conversion, and discounting a spike to stop the clock, he entered overtime 11 for his last 12 for 94 yards, 2 TDs and a 2-point conversion.

And for the record, Foster’s final 6 carries of the game netted 24 yards and a fumble, including two negative yardage runs. I get risk and all, but you’re going to blame the coach for riding what was obviously a smoldering hot hand?

 

I’ve been thinking more about this (a lot more: Long post alert). Did you know that, according to Football Outsiders, under Kubiak, the Texans’ offense has gotten better each year: 21st in 2006; 15th, 14th, 11th and then… wait for it: 2nd this year. That’s right: 2nd. Behind only New England. This is consistent with my own anecdotal opinion of the offense:. They’ve seemingly entered the offseason with known goals, and each subsequent year, they seem to overwhelmingly accomplish those goals. This year, they wanted to improve the run game and red zone efficiency. They finished 1st in both categories this year (IIRC; certainly top 5).

I don’t know if it’s elite (though, truly – how many offenses outside of Foxboro are?) and I don’t know if it would fall apart without Kubiak – but it is undoubtedly a very good, upper echelon offense and having Kubiak and his staff here running it is not necessarily a detriment. So the more I think about it, the more I’m inclined to agree with what McNair said.

I believe three factors hampered the offense this year:

1) To their detriment, I think the offensive coaches were intimidated by their own defense and coached scared as a result. Think about it: How would you handle a 2-minute offense at the end of the first half knowing – absolutely *knowing* - that a turnover or quick 3-and-out would lead to opponent points – especially when you’re already down 17-0? I believe that kind of thinking permeated EVERYTHING they did this year.

It’s not meant to be an excuse. You can absolutely rip them for falling victim to it. But I do think it’s part of the reason they too often abandoned Foster in games: They (rightly) anticipated shoot-out and (wrongly) took a shoot-out mentality.

That’s why I’ve been OK with them bringing in a defensive coordinator and keeping Kubiak (assuming they weren’t going to vanquish the entire regime, which would have been my preference) because it undoubtedly corrects one of Smith/Kubiak’s biggest blunders: This regime, from the front office down to the coaching staff, has never had anyone in place to build a defense. Offensively, they very obviously do; but never defensively. Smith, Smith and Bush collectively have/had zero experience building a defense.

I don’t know if Wade Phillips is the right guy but I think he’s a vast improvement over Smith and Bush. Phillips has a philosophy and he knows what kind of players he needs to run his defense. If you can say the same thing about Smith and/or Bush… well, you’re lying. Phillips might even make Smith a better GM: Rather than throwing junk against the wall and hoping it sticks, Phillips and his staff are going to be able to provide a roadmap. “I need *this* kind of player; go get him.” They’re fixing at least a portion of their crumbling infrastructure.

And having that defensive infrastructure in place, and assuming its even somewhat successful, I think is going to lift a tremendous burden off Kubiak (who doesn’t know anything about defense) and will naturally iron out some of the offensive wrinkles we saw this year.

2) I don’t think anyone, certainly outside of the organization (including me), understood how valuable Owen Daniels was. I would be willing to bet that one of Kubiak’s selling points in his postseason meeting with McNair was that Sunday’s performance against Jacksonville, which featured a balanced attack of dominant Foster and ultra-efficient Schaub, was the offense Kubiak always envisioned. And a finally-healthy and productive Daniels was a big key to it. Short of a new deal, I’m going to guess they plan to franchise Daniels, underscoring his worth. And the continual drafting of TEs is them trying to find a needed heir apparent to a vital role.

Not only do I expect Schaub to bounce back to ’09 levels with Daniels back healthy next year, I think the other guy most adversely impacted by Daniels’ absence, which no one ever mentions, is Kevin Walter, who had a nice but down year. Now it’s possible, as he nears 30, that Walter has simply lost a step. But I think a better explanation might simply be that he’s simply not good enough to be your 2nd option. With Daniels out, teams could easily neutralize Walter and focus on Johnson.

If Jacoby Jones’ performance down the stretch carries over to next year, I’d be willing to bet he’s the starter with Walter in the slot, a much better match-up for him and the team (a nickel corner or LB on Walter greatly favors the Texans). That would give the Texans, assuming health, 4 receiving weapons plus Foster. Add Leach, the emergence of Dressen, and this is a REALLY dangerous offensive team on paper.

3) This one may sound silly: But I think they were caught off-guard by Foster’s emergence. In my experience, NFL coaches are less prone to overreact. Just because it happens one week, they rarely assume it’ll happen the following week. The way they handled Foster this year, almost with kid gloves, makes me think they feared the rug was going to be pulled out from under them. So he rested for long, strangely-timed stretches (at some point, I started to think Foster was simply out of shape), they moved away from him too often – I think they probably thought he was too good to be true. Again, it’s anecdotal evidence. But I think we’ll see them really invest in him this next year.

And again: Not an excuse. They should have, with what we thought was a make-or-break year, ridden him into the ground as they did in week 1. That they didn’t is absolutely fair ground to rip them (or proof they knew they were never in jeopardy). But I think, assuming there aren’t some issues behind the scenes (another conclusion I often drew this year), they’ll have more confidence in Foster and more willing to, if he’s on, turn him loose.

So while I dislike the way they went about it, and while I remain skeptical he was the best choice, the hiring of Phillips has nonetheless given me hope that they’ll finally get it right in 2011; that as much as coaching and personnel have been a mess, structure was just as big a stumbling block – and bringing in a defensive-minded coach who knows what he wants is going to help out tremendously…………. Assuming Phillips isn’t a titanic bust.

 

I'm telling it now, with the defense turning it up, equating to more time posession, and better field position (hopefully)... Foster will average 29 carries a game for 2320 yards and 23 TD....

Don't be surprised.

 

Ric, you're looking at this all too deeply. It doesn't matter what the numbers say, the bottom line is that Kubiak and/or the defense consistently finds a new way to lose (either bad luck, a big play, bad play call, game mismanagement, etc). 4 straight years now they've found different ways to end up with the same result - no playoffs. There is no one thing that we can do to alleviate this other than ultimately firing the coach.

I think Kubiak has the potential to be an average head coach, but average doesn't win you Super Bowls (best case scenario we end up like Norv Turner's Chargers). It might get us to the playoffs, but I have no reason to believe we can win a SB with him and frankly that is all that should matter after 5 years with him. But Bob is just starving for a playoff birth at this point instead of reaching for higher goals, so he's going to stick with Gary since we are so 'close'.

They won't make him work that much. After what happened to Larry Johnson in KC, teams aren't going to ride a star RB that much no matter how good they are. Besides that, Kubiak is too pass happy for that to happen.

 

The featureback style of gameplay is becoming a thing of the past. As already mentioned look at LJ, Cadillac and most recently Forte. I don't know where the line is or how it was established but around 360 carries a season seems to be the threshold for "overuse."

 

An Elite Offense is Elite in the 1st quarter, 2nd quarter, 3rd quarter, and 4th quarter.
An Elite Offense is Elite when up by 14 or down by 14
An Elite Offense is Elite it moves the ball from its own 10 or the other 10

I think the Texans are a GOOD Offense

Rocket River

 

Football is 4 quarters. If a good offense scores more points in a game even with a bad quarter or half than an elite offense. ...I'll take the good offense. The Texans have horrible field position and few turnovers by the defense. Wouldn't it be nice if the Texans had the benefit of being able to wear out opposing defenses..alas this hasn't happened this season because the opposing defenses are making trips to Starbucks as soon as Turk punts or the Texans score.

 

This is an elite offense. Anyone remember when the texans had to go like 90 yards on every drive on the ravens?

Scoring is dependent on your special teams and defense as well. If you always get the ball at the 30 or 40 yard lines or if your D get the ball on the other side of th field it makes it a lot easier to score.

If the texans weren't so cheap with an uncapped year and paid some player the texans would be in the playoffs.

 

i think the whole op's post is baloney.

the defense is the WHOLE reason for the texans woes on offense. the defense has put them in bad position after bad position all year long.

When your playing from behind as the texans were often doing this year, your not going to do good on offense in todays nfl.

Also I want to point out that the Texans horrible pass defense kept that offense off the field for majority of every first half of the games played this year. Why keep the ball in the 4th quarter eating clock when you can just air it out in the first half and lock up the game?

 

That's just not true, at least for the first half of the season where I tried keeping track of scoring drives to non. They were regularly getting 5+ possessions in the first 30, and only scoring about 20% of the time. Blame the guy who scripts the offense to play super conservative in the first half of a game.

We've also seen what their game plan seems to be even starting the 2nd half with a big lead, i.e. Denver meltdown. 4 runs to 10 passes in the 3rd quarter despite a 17 point lead. Final possession, need to get in FG range (which wasnt very far for Rackers that day) from the 17 with 1 timeout and 3:00 remaining. 7 passes in a row.

 

ima, Foster finished first in rushing yards; Schaub was 4th in passing yards. You don’t finish top 5 in two individual offensive categories on the strength of nothing more than late-game hurry-ups. If so, every NBA garbage-time All –Star would be a scoring champion.

There’s certainly inconsistency from the Texans when it comes to putting together 4Qs of football; and yes, some of their accomplishments may very well be on the back of a hurry-up offense against a prevent defense.

But given the overall performance of the offense over at least a sizeable two-year span (the two years in which Schaub was healthy and finished all 16 games), I think getting *too* caught up in when and how the offense works is missing the larger picture.

When your opponent is ultra-efficient (last in opponent QB rating), when defense is not creating turnovers (last in the league), when your special teams is not producing (last in field position) – that impacts the offense tremendously.

I’m of the belief Kubiak should have been fired for philosophical reasons: You should not reward 8- to 9-wins, and especially 6-10. Set a higher standard for your franchise.

BUT… the offensive #s (much better than even I thought) *are* striking enough, and the defense bad enough, that it’s not an untenable position for McNair to assume that even with a *slight* defensive improvement, this team could finally live up to its potential. It’s not like he’s firing Kubiak and keeping Bush. I mean…

I absolutely agree. They outsmarted themselves, no question.

Ehhh… if your glass isn’t shattered, I think its closer to saying it’s the difference – potentially – between 8-8 and 10-6.

I understand a lot of people have lost all faith in *any*thing this regime does, and that’s totally justified. They didn’t help matters by conducting a 2-second search to replace Bush and, worse, bringing in a guy who had seemingly derailed a Super Bowl-bound team in Dallas.

BUT… if Phillips is still a competent defensive coordinator, the move undoubtedly makes this a better team.

From Kubiak’s news conference announcing Bush’s firing: (on if the new defensive coordinator will have input into defensive personnel) “No doubt. We need to do everything we can to support that guy. … (W)e’ve got to let him know we’re going to totally support him and what he doesn’t think he has, we need to go get it for him and whatever we can do to get better. This football team needs to see us be totally committed to getting better on that side of the ball and that means supporting whoever we bring in.”

Darn it – did the offseason already come and go and I missed it?

Even if they don’t a lift a finger, they’ll be better coached. Better coaching wins the Jet and Bronco games. Period. But I think they all understand they have to lift a few fingers this spring; I’ll be very surprised if they’re not more aggressive in free agency. Think about it: They hired two consecutive inexperienced DCs before spending a lot of money of Phillips. That’s an encouraging sign that they’re prepared to throw money at the problem.

Not if the first-string TE changes the entire dynamic of the offense.

I think the Texans took a safe route, no doubt. I only maintain it’s a defensible route.

I can’t explain his treatment of Foster; it made no sense. As I said, it was so mind-boggling, I figured there must have been behind-the-scenes issues.

Look, Kubiak is very obviously a competent offensive guy. He has rebuilt this unit top to bottom with guys he found and coached. There was *some* reason he didn’t ride Foster and I just have a hard time believing it was because he was dumb and unaware of how good Foster was, especially given he scouted him, signed him, carried him on the practice squad all year, and was writing personal notes to the guy during the offseason in which he came into camp as the starter.

While I agree, I think the issues actually go back to how this regime was built initially: They never created a defensive infrastructure. Think about their offensive game plan: They brought in Sherman, they brought in Gibbs – these are BIG-time offensive minds, guys with YEARS of success. Contrast that with… Richard Smith. Or Frank Bush.

Then take a look at too many of Kubiak’s offensive-minded head coaching peers: Payton, McCarthy, Haley… They all brought in BIG-time defensive guys to handle that side of the ball. It’s 3 years too late but I would argue Phillips is a BIG step in the right direction, and a sign they might be getting it. That’s at least encouraging. I may have sliced a finger off if he had been allowed to hire a THIRD inexperienced defensive coordinator.

It’s also potentially indicative of McNair dropping some heavier restrictions/pressure on Kubiak, which is also a positive. I get Phillips has a “been there, done that” feel, and there’s nothing Cowher-like about his hiring. But it is a significant upgrade and at least initially looks like they’re going to approach the 2011 season with a bit more urgency and willingness to proactively get better.

If you want to be upset with Kubiak’s return, I think you have a wealth of ammunition. But at least some of it has to be tempered by Phillips’ hiring. It’s a big step in the right direction. On paper.