If Bob McNair truly wants a winning team as badly as he says he does, the thing he has to do to fix it is to dump the coaching staff. Not necessarily Rick Smith, but at least the coaching staff. You watch other games, as I am watching the Monday Night Football game tonight, and I've noticed in most other games I've watched throughout the season, and you begin to notice that our coaching staff is below par. As much as I like Kubiak and have been a supporter of his since his hire now (hell, I wanted him to be the original Texans coach), I have finally conceded myself to admitting this. Other teams are running blitz packages, they're running five man fronts, they haven't put themselves in a spot to where they want to hand develop a young squad, only to sign experienced veterans when they're absolutely in a bind. Look, I'm fine with our offense, in general, but I still think as talented as this offense is, we should be much more dynamic than we are, and we should be that way game in and game out. We should be a top five rated offense, as we have, in my opinion, top five talent on our offense. We're vastly underperforming, but I think it's mostly because of our defense, and having to play from behind. Our defense is absolutely atrocious, and I don't have to say that I'm sick of it. We have so much talent on defense that I can't stand to watch these players piss it away and watch, helpless as they lose games. I feel like every time the opposing offense has the ball, we should automatically give them seven points, save every third drive when we should give them three instead. This would make our team watchable. Our problems boil down to schemes, coaching, and lack of winning experience on defense. Like I said in another thread, you can fake that you have that swagger(I hate that word) of a winner, but it can only get you by for so long (re: the first two weeks of our season). Until Kubiak and Smith decide that they will actually decide to bring in some talent with winning experience (particularly in the secondary), we won't begin to sniff a playoff win, in my opinion. As far as the coaching goes, If you can't teach technique, don't rely on a young defense. It's plain and simple that these coaches can't teach technique. Our secondary can't play bump and run and they're too soft in a zone. When they get burnt, they trip, and have no catch up speed, and that happens often. When they play a zone, they either play it soft (which has more to do with our safeties in my opinion), or our corners drape the receivers with their trailing arm, and either draw an interference call, or almost do, every time. That is plain and simply bad coaching, and it happens multiple times every game. Our linebacking crew is a mess, which is almost to be expected given the tumultuous season that group is having. They are still vastly underperforming. Cushing, for one, is suffering from bad coaching in the fact that he is being shuffled around constantly. As far as the schemes go, I'll say this: I haven't seen every play this season, but after watching most games this season, I think I've seen a total of five different stunts/blitz packages that were remotely creative. Bush looks like a moron, and Peyton Manning exposed him like never before a few Monday nights ago. You will not beat half the teams in the NFL with a bad defense, let alone when you're running one that is one of the most vanilla in the NFL. If Kubiak hasn't manned up and fired Bush by now, I think he has basically lost himself his own job. In my opinion, if Bob McNair does not get rid of the coaching staff in some way, shape, or form this off-season, then I think he is solely in it for the money, and/or has no idea what he is doing. Lose the nice guy schtick, cuz it's not working. Your fans deserve a winning team. The talent is there. Give us a coaching staff that will force the talent to play up to its potential night in and out. Sorry for the rant. I went all day trying to keep myself from posting something like this, but lost, nevertheless...
Well put. I would add though that Rick Smith will go down with the ship. I don't think Kubiak "makes all the calls" like so many say, otherwise Dunta would have been back and Carr would have never been re-signed; nevertheless, I think Smith has just as much of a part in this as anyone. Our secondary has never really improved in 5 years, and we have never had a good DT. And all of a sudden our drafts aren't looking so good with two blown first round picks (still early on KJ).
Honestly, I think Amobi can turn into a pretty good pro player. It's just hard for these young players with such immense potential to play up to their "future pro bowler" billings when they have absolutely nobody to coach them up.
I think this goes one of two ways this offseason...either Kubes/Smith get fired and a new regime takes over or Kubiak survives and throws Smith and Bush under the bus. I wouldn't mind McNair telling Kubes he can stay but get a good GM to take over the personal decisions and a DC with balls instead of someone Kubes is "comfortable" with.
I don't mind Houston fans bashing the team, but when national media starts doing it, I get pissed. Not sure why.
Top to bottom, the whole regime needs to change. Rick Smith came from the Broncos as well, it's time to just start over.
This team is a good coaching staff and 1 or 2 drafts away from being a legitimate Superbowl contender. A few free agent additons/trades wouldn't hurt either. We definitely have the talent needed for the most part.
Not really, but if they don't fire Kubes then Smith needs to go. Saying that, he isn't the solution either, I'd like to see a new GM who will make his own moves without having to approve it through Kubes first.
At this point I am not sure the TALENT is not there. . . I am wondering if the COACHING of the talent is not there Rocket River
Offensively talent is there but defensively I am not so sure. Mario was a good draft choice but besides that who else has been drafted and been better than solid. FAgency has been a joke on both sides of the ball and even Pollard has been exposed badly this year. They drafted well offensively and picked up Foster as a FAgent but besides that??? Antonio Smith was a nice pickup but at the same time he has made some BIG mistakes. I would like to see what a guy with a different point of view on defense can do, which maybe as simple as getting a strong minded DC but just think the performance of the defense isn't just coaching but talent as well. Edit - Demeco is another good draft pick but he isn't elite IMO and Cushing needs to show that it wasn't the PEDs.
