Don't ever scream for Sage Rosenfels to start again.

You guys are making all kinds of hypothetical arguments, that are based in a whole lot of supposed theory. Such as a player can never ever rise above back ups status. its the same logic that left mr. carr starter of this team for 5 years. i guess the giants are stupid for picking him up as a back up. i mean he was groomed to be a starter


that's not an argument. an argument is our back up has outplayed our starter given chances. and if he didn't try to get a first down on a stupidly called play in the first play we'd really have a contreversy on our hands. schaub is regressing. sage is steady and has a good record. what he was picked to do, and what he did in miami (his small sample is actually pretty good) has nothing to do with it.

 

Sage's best is not close to Schaub's best. Sage is unlikely to be more than a game manager even if given the starting position and experience.

The question rests with Schaub - can he hone his game, stay on the field, and avoid the sloppy play and mistakes that undo the good. If yes, forget about Sage. If you think no, it's not just time to bring in Sage, it's time to go back on the market looking for a franchise QB.

Sage is insurance, he's not a long-term solution for the position. You've got to be 100% sure about Schaub before giving up on him. It's rare for a QB to get benched and later come back and succeed for the same team. NYG rode things out with Eli for that very reason. Most teams hold on too long to a young QB for that reason. When they're yanked....experiment's over.

Evan

 

It seems like it's coming down to the fact that many of us are willing to say that Schaub's < 1 full season of work is worth continuing to see if he can become a well above-average QB. And yes, we realize that he may have some stinkers in there as he learns. But he will also have some great games, as we have already seen.

Whereas you would prefer to settle for someone who is consistent, but average.


I don't see the Texans having a good enough D or running game to be able to succeed with a guy who is consistently average at QB.. and on top of that, I would always shoot for greatness for the franchise. You want to win games, and if you can develop a great player (if a guy has a shot at it), I say you go for it. Don't just sit on him when you don't know for sure yet.. and plug in an average guy who isn't gonna get much better than average.

 

I am with Ric on this one. I think Schaub's ceiling is higher, even though he isn't necessarily better than Sage right now.

If we had a great defensive unit, solid offensive line w/ lots of playmakers, I think Sage could take us places.

But since we don't have those things, I am all for seeing if Schaub has what it takes to be a great QB.

 

There's nothing hypothetical about Sage's performance througout college and his previous stints with other teams. He's good at times, bad at times, and most of the time he plays on a team with somebody just as good, younger/more upside, and likely better. The "theory" would be more that Sage actually can improve more than what he's already showed thus far.

Most backups are failed starters... there shouldn't be much to be confused about.

Given the small sample sizes for both, I'd say this entire statement is a tad hypothetical.

Also, I have no problem with having a QB controversy. It should inspire both players to play better. Also, it gives the perception that this team, for the first time in its existance, may have a surplus at one position. But again... given the fact that any QB on this team is one Duane Brown/Salaam/Todd Wade/Chester Pitts slow-to-react mistake from being carried out of Reliant on a stretcher... I'd rather have more than one capable guy on this roster.

 

pgabriel, sorry but you don't build teams around floors... unless .500 on a yearly basis is the goal. the key is to maximize potential, not minimize failure - schaub's is off the charts compared to rosenfels. if we use your approach, green should be starting ahead of slaton, salaam ahead of brown.....

this reminds me of the cowboys several years ago. they had an average, somewhat dependable drew bledose and a raw rookie with a lot of talent named tony romo. with bledsoe, they could have racked up 7-to-9 wins for the rest of eternity (figuratively speaking). but they understood the idea of potential and eventually handed things over to romo. the broncos, also, faced a similar dilemma two years ago and, again, potential wisely won out when they moved cutler ahead of plummer.

they've both experienced ups and downs; schaub will, too. but the texans are gambling he'll be consistenly better with a much higher ceiling.

its really not much of a debate, IMO.

 

I agree with this argument, but to be fair to pgabriel, there's no basis for the argument except that we think it to be true. Objectively, there's no reason why Sage's upside is any more limited than Schaub's. People made the same arguments about Carr - that he was better than Sage, demonstrated by the fact that Sage was a backup. The reality is that none of us know.

Our intuition says that Schaub has more potential. Pgabriel sees it the other way - that Sage has more potential. At this point, though, neither one has shown that they are better than the other.

 

Look, honestly at this point I don't care...but there is no QB controversy inside the Texans. Schaub is the guy and we can all argue for or against that as we wish on talk radio and message boards...but I don't see it changing unless Schaub absolutely throws up a turd burger. You don't pay a guy that much money to have him come in and play behind a guy who could ARGUABLY be marginally better. It makes for semi-interesting discussion I suppose...but it's probably without any real consequence.

 

there is nothing and i mean nothing that schaub does better to say he has a better upside. he has worse pocket presence, he doesn't have a stronger arm, and he doesn't take care of the ball. but at least we can agree on the reason he's the starter, paygrade

 

so Ric's stats about games with QB rating > 100 mean nothing here?

 

check the #s i posted, re: their five best games as a texan starter. with both, we're dealing with extremely limited sample sizes but schaub has shown a much, much, much greater potential.

where i think you have a point (as does pgabriel) - and it's an argument i've purposefully avoided - is in the assumption that schuab will reach his potential.

 

Which is largely based on his age, development/track record up till that point he was paid, and a larger upside.

 

he's had more starts, so no, the highest game is 116 vs 119, i guess the fact that sage has been more steady and has had a better winning pct means nothing

edit: and besides that, two of those 100+ games were his first two games, so we can analyze stats up and down and make them say what we want

 

Nobody here should be assuming that... just like nobody should fault the Texans for giving him a chance to see if it happens.

 

But he's had less starts... if he plays more, against more top defenses, and teams actually bother to scout his tendencies, perhaps he isn't "more steady".

This back and forth game can be played forever

 

and against one of the top defenses, the titans, he's looked immensely better even in the same game

 

Even Jeff Fisher said they lost intensity that same game, and let up. Its pretty hard to get that fire back once you take your foot off the pedal.

Regardless, I'm not saying Sage is incapable of beating good defenses... I'm saying if he was outright named the starter, and teams started game-planning with just him in mind, and he's forced to carry a team the entire season... you may see different results (and likely an injury).

Just like you can't look at a few bad Schaub starts here and there and say "he's regressing", I'm not going to look at a few Sage starts and say "he's the man." I've seen enough from both to suggest they'll be good at times, and they'll be bad at times.. the only difference is that Schaub has the chance to look better LONGER, and its not like he's all that much worse RIGHT NOW.

 

i'm not giving up on schaub, I don't see why sage has never been given a chance and there's no legitimate argument for him not to other than we have invested in matt now after never giving sage a chance

 

what? first all, assigning a winning % to a QB is silly. schaub did absolutely nothing to lose the game two weeks ago in jacksonville, for instance; you're going to hang an L on him because the team lost a coin flip?

teams win games; not QBs.

at their best, schaub is significantly better than rosnefels.

huh? so we're now discounting games for some weirdly irrelevant reason?

 

I agree that he's had some better games, but I also wonder how much of that is circumstance specific. 3 of Schaub's 5 best starts came in his first 4 games with the Texans. I'd also guess (and this is purely a guess) that Sage isn't given the same opportunities as Schaub because he is the backup. When he comes in, I suspect he's asked to manage the game moreso than go out and win it. For example, the Indy start was a last minute thing - the gameplan that week was not designed for him or his particular strengths (whatever they are). He (and really, any backup) is being asked to play a system that was designed around Schaub's strengths.

Like you, I think Schaub should keep the job while we figure out if he has what it takes. I think Sage is probably more suited to a backup role and is very good at that. But looking at the results, I can see why people would think Sage deserves more playing time to see if he could be a better option.