Let's be clear: Bypassing Bush smacks of stupidity By RICHARD JUSTICE Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle Reggie Bush would have given the Texans a couple of things they don't have. Like excitement and credibility. He would have made them dramatically better. He would have made them interesting. Remember those empty seats at Reliant Stadium last fall? He would have filled them. Even the people who wanted Vince Young saw Bush as something special. He changes games in an instant. He averaged 8.9 yards per carry last season at USC. He would have been the face of the Texans the moment they called his name this morning. They'd no longer be Charley Casserly's team. Or Vic Fangio's. They'd have been Reggie's. When the New York Jets — the luckiest team on the planet thanks to the Texans — take him, watch those highlights again. He lights up a football field the way few players have. He makes defenders miss. He scores touchdowns. Dozens of NFL scouts say he's among the best prospects they've seen. They say he's easily the best player in this draft. Until about a week ago, the Texans seemed set on taking Bush. David Carr had outfitted his kids in Reggie Bush jerseys. No matter what story they spin this morning, the Texans were having substantive negotiations with just one player — Bush. And then they abruptly switched to Mario Williams. They announced Friday they had signed him. After four months of focusing on one guy, they suddenly switched. Why? First, there's the issue of money. They turned to Williams only when negotiations with Bush stalled. In other words, this decision seemingly was about the money no matter what they say. Even worse, Texans owner Bob McNair has this ridiculous notion that the No. 1 pick must be signed before the draft. You're wrong, Bob. Holdouts part of the game The No. 1 pick is seldom signed before the draft. Yes, holdouts are part of the process with the top players. Yes, Bush wanted an obscene amount of money. Tough luck. Taking a hard line with Bush makes absolutely no sense. You overpaid for Gary Walker, Todd Wade, Morlon Greenwood and others. Now you're going to play hardball with Bush? That makes you look incompetent and petty. Franchises aren't destroyed by holdouts. Emmitt Smith twice held out. Would the Texans have passed on him? Were the Texans scared off by Bush's family living in a house furnished by a sports agent? If that was an issue, why did they continue to negotiate with him until Thursday? Or did the Texans change their mind about Bush? Did they decide he wasn't the best player available in this draft? Maybe all those other teams, maybe all those other talent evaluators, aren't as smart as the Texans. The Texans decided their need for a pass rusher was more pressing than taking the best player on the board. There's a word for this kind of logic in professional sports. It's called stupidity. Most draft-day mistakes are made when teams attempt to draft for need instead of simply taking the best player. That's especially true of Bush, who has been compared to Gale Sayers. Still plan to draft RB Williams will be the 38th player the Texans have drafted. Among the previous 37, only two players are considered stars: Andre Johnson and Dunta Robinson. Several others — Charles Hill, Seth Wand, Benny Joppru and others — have been busts. At least, McNair and Casserly have the odds working in their favor. They've got to be right sometime. As for Casserly, let's be clear. This isn't his decision. He doesn't have the guts to make this call. Never has, never will. His assignment today will be to put the Texans in position to draft Memphis running back DeAngelo Williams or Minnesota's Laurence Maroney. If he does that, the Texans will have added two impact players. Neither is as good as Bush, but either would make the team better. Let's be fair about personnel evaluations. No one can say for sure what a college kid is going to do five years from now. If Mario Williams is as good as Dwight Freeney, if DeAngelo Williams is the next Edgerrin James, then the Texans can look back and tell us we were all wrong. All we know for sure this morning is that they look dumb. And worse than dumb, they look cheap. Decision hurts Carr Perhaps more than anyone, Carr is the biggest loser in this deal. An offseason that was supposed to be about giving him a chance to succeed spun off the road on Friday. Once the Texans are finished explaining their decision today, they can release one other bit of information: the phone number that fans can call to cancel season tickets. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/justice/3828722.html
A couple more from CBS Sportsline: http://www.sportsline.com/nfl/story/9404250 Passing on Bush is costly error for penny-pinching Texans By Pete Prisco CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer The Houston Texans have their own Sam Bowie. Yes, they passed on Michael Jordan. The Texans announced Friday night that they agreed to contract terms with North Carolina State defensive end Mario Williams, a move that makes him the first pick in Saturday's draft. By agreeing to a contract with Williams, the Texans are passing on USC running back Reggie Bush, a playmaker in the Barry Sanders mold. Normally, I'm a big proponent of taking quarterbacks, defensive ends, left tackles and corners with the premium picks in the first round. But Bush is different. He will be special. He's the type of player who comes around once in a lifetime. Like Jordan. Passing on him is a move the Texans will regret. That isn't to say that Williams won't be a great player. He has the chance to be a dominant pass-rushing end in the Julius Peppers mold. But the Texans need some juice. A pass-rushing end isn't going to give you that. Fans crave offense. Fans crave offensive stars. Bush can provide both of those things. Fans don't go to games to watch defensive ends. Bush will be the next Gale Sayers, the next Sanders, the next big-play runner. You don't pass that up, even if you couldn't come to an agreement on a deal with him. Find a way. Pick him and then do the deal. Negotiations are important, but this is the kind of move that can backfire on a team. Picking based on money -- and don't let anybody fool you, this is about money -- is how franchises stay crippled. Check back with me in 10 years when Bush is being mentioned with Sanders. You think the Texans won't be regretting this day when that happens? Sam Bowie never came close to giving the Portland Trail Blazers the juice Jordan gave to the Bulls -- or the titles. And Mario Williams will never give to the Texans what Bush could have given them, which is a once-in-a-lifetime player. Boy, did the Texans blow it. http://www.sportsline.com/nfl/story/9404449 Protection-needy Texans bizarrely turn backs on Carr April 28, 2006 By Clark Judge CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer If the Houston Texans weren't going to draft the best player on the board, then they should have drafted for need. And defensive end Mario Williams is not what they need most. Tackle D'Brickashaw Ferguson is. Ask quarterback David Carr. He's the poor sap who was sacked an NFL-high 68 times last year. And 49 times the year before that. And 76 times in his rookie season. The guy's not a quarterback; he's a piñata. But he's Houston's piñata, with the Texans making a commitment to him when they could've chosen University of Texas quarterback Vince Young or USC's Matt Leinart. If the Texans honestly believe he can be a franchise passer -- and they sure act like it -- then why not give the guy a chance to fulfill their expectations? Why not give him someone who can block? It sounds so simple, yet I could understand where the Texans were going. They would draft Bush because he's the best player in the draft and because he could breathe life into a sluggish offense. And if they didn't, they would trade down -- accumulating picks so they could find the parts necessary to keep Carr in one piece and make the club healthy at the same time. Fat chance. Instead of bailing out Carr with the best running back to come along in years -- maybe decades ... instead of turning to Bush to take some of the heat off Carr and a beleaguered passing attack ... instead of turning to the best offensive lineman in this year's draft ... instead of trading down to pick up draft picks ... they did the unthinkable and chose Mario Williams. Nothing against Mario Williams; I just don't see how he's going to handle Dwight Freeney. "We have to look at it on the basis of what our needs are and how that player can add value to our team," owner Bob McNair said on Thursday, foreshadowing what was to happen. "Yes, temporarily, some of the fans might be unhappy with the pick. But, long term, what counts is whether you win. "If we pick a popular player, temporarily, everybody is happy. But then if you don't win then they say, 'Well, that was the dumbest pick I've ever seen. Why did you listen to me? You're supposed to be the professional.' The bottom line is we have to win, so we'll pick the best player who gives us the best chance to win." Fair enough. But McNair started that discussion by saying the Texans had to look at "what our needs are." Question: Is there anything Houston needs more than an offensive lineman who knows how to pass block? The Texans have holes the size of the Astrodome in their front five, yet, for some reason, they chose to attack the other side of the ball. Question: What was wrong with D'Brickashaw Ferguson? The Texans had 37 sacks last year, which tied them for 14th in a 32-team league. That's not great, but it's not bad, either. In fact, it tied them with Dallas, Atlanta and Arizona. But they allowed 68 sacks, 14 more than the Minnesota Vikings, and you don't have to be an Einstein to figure out what that means. It means David Carr must duck. And with Friday's move, Carr must duck again. And again. And again. There's no word yet from Carr, but I bet he's delighted Houston chose a defensive end to cover his back. "It's not often we have an opportunity to select a player of this caliber," McNair said of the first choice. "So you want to make a pick of a player who's going to be with you and make a contribution for you for a long period of time because it is a valuable pick." If that player wasn't going to be Reggie Bush, it should have at least been someone who addressed the Texans' most urgent need. It should have been D'Brickashaw Ferguson.
I love Richard Justice because he tells it the way he sees it. Finding a non-yes man sportswriter is not easy.
I know a lot of people at Clutchfans don't like him because he isn't a Drayton groupie ( or as those posters say.. it's because Justice flips flops - which is the modus operandi for every sportswriter in America). I was sold when he went on national TV and stated he believed Texas would definitely beat USC (not a reach for a local sportwriter but still greatness). Most of all, I like him because he says exactly what he and the fans are thinking. Imagine, a sportwriter actually viewing it from a fan's perspective.
I think the "haters" had all the ammunition they needed when the Texans passed up Reggie Bush and Vince Young. I love when Casserly, an absolutely horrid GM says there was no interest in the 1st pick. There is always interest in the 1st pick. It was obviously McNair's obessession to sign the 1st pick before training camp that limited our options. From many reports Mario Williams is at best Julius Peppers. And Peppers was the 2nd pick in a very weak draft while Williams is the #1 in a very strong draft. AT worst, Texans shouldve traded down for multiple players.
So then, wouldn't a "non-yes man" be for the Williams pick? It would be the unpopular choice to write about. I would rather have a guy that's on board and a team player, than a "star" that wants to dictate how things should go. Do we really want a back that will ditch the team to get back to California as fast as he can when new contracts come around? Kubiak said he stands by Carr, so is Kubiak an Idiot for wanting Williams and Carr over a Vince or Bush pick? No one seems to be riding him and he has been involved in all the decisions.
Guess what. When you have the #1 pick, you should get a star, not just a team player. If you don't get a "star", then you'd better have depth, which we don't have. If you didn't want Reggie Bush or Vince Young, trade down and get another 1st rounder + another pick - which is what New Orleans will probably do.
New Orleans really wanted Reggie Bush so they didn't trade. Can you blame them? Reggie Bush has greater potential to be a game changer. And he doesn't have the rep of not playing 100%. Julius Peppers in a weak draft makes sense. Mario Williams in a strong draft does not. You either take the game breaker or you get depth. The Saints chose the gamebreaker. The Texans chose neither.
All Reggie or Vince will need to do is run to the opposite side of the field or quick pass. The World's laughing at the Texans today.
I have never stooped so low to use such a disgusting term, but I finally found an instance where nothing else quite fits... BRAIN FART
So with one player, you've halved the size of the field for your defense if this happens. That's a bigger impact than you'll get from any running back, ever. After all the talk all season long about how terrible our line is on both sides of the ball, is it really that horrible a choice to finally start addressing that (with the best DE prospect in years, apparently) instead of trying to add flash on offense? I think moving down to do it would have been better since we still have more holes to fill, but I think we win more games this way than with Bush.
Key: 'if this happens'. And you'll get a lot of arguments that a top DE will have a bigger impact from any running back ever. I consider that argument silly. And you don't 'halve' the field, you may come close to halving the line, maybe a 3rd. But you know where that guy starts you double him w/ a fullback on him. Does he overpursue? You counter. I've seen a lot more top backs (running or quarter) who appeared to have free reign of the entire field and totally changed the team and many many games that what any DE ever did. There's just no comparison. And when you speak of championship winners, most people think of those special QBs with 'it'...not DEs.
It's a good thing Jesus Christ wasn't in this draft, hec he could have ran a 4.3 in sandals and the Texans probably would have still thrown 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread to Mario.
