The Texans drafted the best offensive lineman available. If Spencer can't make it back, they have plenty of options on the left side, including the Miami kid and pushing Pitts back out to tackle. Pitts can still play tackle, he's been about as good as we've had out there. And now we've got plenty of guards to replace Pitts with if we have to move him back out there for a few games while Spencer gets ready.
True but I can see why CNNSI was so hard on this draft. After all they took yet another DL propect which makes this the 4th no. 1 pick spent on DL with precious little to show for it. I can understand why the nationally, the Texans organzation has little to no credibility. To be fair though, Mel Kiper's grade was just about right.
Just because someone is a defensive lineman doesn't mean they all play the same position. Travis Johnson is a bust, it seems. They played last season with guys that were picked up off the street. DT was definitely a position of need yesterday. Who they picked in 2005 shouldn't weigh into whether or not their first pick this year was a good one or not. The fact is, two of the other first round picks on the DL have not panned out. They are trying to correct that mistake, but instead of applauding them for doing so, it's just another opportunity for haters to bring up past draft mistakes. Newsflash, we all know this. They have made mistakes. I'm happy that they've finally taken the steps to correct these mistakes. Yeah, a four win improvement last year is simply terrible. No progress shown whatsoever.
Come on. You know they were tanking the year before. They could have easily had 4-5 wins but they wanted to tank to get the number 1 pick.
Who in the hell else SHOULD they have picked at 10? Leon Hall maybe, but that was a reach. Getting Okoye that low was an absolute STEAL! Most mocks had him going in the first 7-8 picks. I cant believe how everyone is dogging this pick.... They got the best available player available in the first round at the 10 spot. Passing on Okoye would have brought way more criticism than praise. How exciting is it to think of this solid young core of a defense for years to come? Robinson Ryans Williams Okoye Sounds pretty damn solid to me.
oh, and John Lopez's article today was among the worst I've ever read. what a joke. seriously, from start to finish..it's awful.
If DT wasn't one of our needs, and everybody agreed that it was, then I couldn't blame them for ripping us for taking Okoye over Hall. But ESPN's own analysis of our needs said we needed a CB, WR, DT, S, and OLB. They were ALL needs. Who cares which one we addressed first? Okoye was the best player on the board and he filled a need, why wouldn't you draft him. According to ESPN, OL wasn't even one of our top 5 needs but apparently Kiper et al want us to ignore that and reach for one anyway. It's like what they tell us after the draft has no basis in what they told us before the draft. You need to draft a CB, DT, WR, and S. What, You drafted a CB, DT, WR, and S before you drafted OL? Why?
They can't give everyone a high draft grade. They have to determine "winners" and "losers" immediately. Why? I don't know. The Texans draft decisions of the past, regardless of what they actually did this year, automatically make them an easy target.
because it's easier to do that than actually analyze how good the actual picks are(like they would know). Notice the writer didn't say the picks were going to be busts, or that they were reaches, in fact he says relatively nice things about the first day picks, but then he gets on his soapbox about the oline, which really has nothing to do with the actual draft picks. If he paid attention, he'd realize how little talent there is on the roster from top to bottom, not just on the oline. w/o wasting my time reading all of the article, I can pretty much surmise that all of his grades are done in a similar manner: Team a and b picked so and so on the first day. They are interesting. Now I will either talk about how it is a good organization or take a predictable jab at a bad one. case in point for cincy - Nice peaceful people, that's what we want here. Nothing on the police blotters, no true fleshmen. Top draft Leon Hall was rated as the best corner on the board until the Revis meteor took off. Kenny Irons is a fast, productive back. The draftees, we hear, will get together for community sings; they'll form a barbershop quartette. Seat belts will be worn at all times. that's a formula monkeys could pull off.
...except that monkeys would most likely spell quartet correctly. Additionally, there's some sick part of me that's relieved that monkeys-in-the-boardroom extends beyond the sports section of our very own Houston Chronicle sport section.
That has nothing to do with Houston though. He didn't talk about any off the field issues just that he didn't agree with the pick. Just because someone doesn't like a pick doesn't mean they were looking for a reason not to like it. The Texans really aren't that important to anyone outside of Houston to the point where sportswriters are going to go out of their way to make them look bad. So I guess nobody here said anything negative about the Lions taking so many WRs in the first round. After all, we can't judge based on past drafts, right?
On 1st and 10, Pat McEnroe said we had the worst draft. Again, it's because we didn't take an OLineman in the first 2 rounds. I guess we should have taken Staley at 10.
What are you talking about? The writer didn't rip on the picks. What little he said about them was positive. He ripped on the organization. If you can't see that it is a mish mash cut and paste article then I don't know what else to tell you.
If pointing out the facts makes one a "hater", then so be it. Like it or not the facts are that their use of first round picks for DL has not exactly panned out for the Texans. Plus, I'm hearing the same stuff about Okoye that I heard last year in defense of Mario Williams and that gives me pause. He will probably be a good player but the question that still remains to be answered is not if but when (funny, that's the same question that remains to be answered about Mario). At this point in time, I simply don't know whether they have taken the correct steps to correct those past mistakes. As things now stand, it certainly appears that they have not taken enough steps to address the most glaring weakness on this team and that's the offensive line. And that's why nationally they are getting such low draft grades. In truth, I think that this draft sort of got away from them. A lot of the players I wanted to see them go after got picked before the Texans' picked. Losing that 2nd pick hurt very badly because, they could have taken the WR there and then used their 3rd on an OL. As such, the OL they did pick up are projects at best which is why I agree with Mel Kiper's assessment giving them a C. Until this team proves that it can keep Matt Schaub upright (and alive), it will continue to face these questions about its personnel decisions. Wow, if a 6 win season floats your boat, then I truly envy you...
If I didn't have so much work to do I would like to compare the draft grades of the "experts" over the last 10 years with the performance of those players and their teams. It seems like the Cardinals *always* had high draft grades and have sucked since the Eisenhower Administration. Maybe I have a selective memory, but it would be interesting to check the track records of these guys.
