MM, the hurricane has definitely impacted the season. and to dismiss practice, reps and routine as irrelevant... well, that's plain silly. i'm not saying the hurricane was definitively responsible; but andre johnson hasn't dropped a lot of passes this year so a connection can be made without too much of a stretch.
players drop passes..players catch passes. this guy has been catching and dropping a few passes probably since he was 8 years old.
Yeah, but he doesn't do it much lately. Maybe one, but two TDs? Thats abnormal. I believe he dropped another pass that would have gained a good chunk of yards. He didn't look good in that game. I won't blame everything on Ike, but if Andre plays more like himself, we would definitely been in the game.
I have been a Texans fan since day one and I believe that the affinity that the players feel for this coach is evident and he will continue to excel as he has since he took over the reigns. Look at the record. Every year we improve and not by small margains as we did under the last regime. So why would you even think his job is in jeopardy when we are looking at our first winning season and a top five offense. And as far as his relationship with Rick Smith and the personnel decisions. Could you please research the past three years redrafts on SI.com? We pull gems out of the draft every year and add quality depth. Slaton, Brown, DA, Adibi, AO, Mario, Demeco, OD, Winston, etc. ..We have essentially rebuilt this team through the last three drafts and because of us being frugal in the free agent market we now have money to spend this year. And what big name free agent besides maybe Michael Turner this passed year would have catapulted us to the playoffs? So to summarize Gary Kubiak: check Rick Smith: check Richard Smith: no thanks
players who don't fumble often sometimes fumble. players who don't throw INT's sometimes throw INT's. i have a hard time believing that a guy who has played football all his life dropped 2 passes because he didn't get to practice much the week before.
I say maybe, but you can't rule it out. Its not one play we're talking. It was the whole game. I'm not making an excuse, but I won't rule it out that it factored in.
Schaub gets one more season after what he's done this year when healthy? Are you kidding? I understood the contrarians earlier in the season when I supported Schaub..but you still think he's on the hot seat? Who the hell is DC? Carr is already gone, my friend..
I do think Ike had some impact on the season...but I definitely wouldnt say that Andre dropped passes because he didnt catch an extra 17 balls in practice the week before. The guy has been an elite WR his whole life...he doesnt need the extra 30 minutes to get his hands ready to catch a ball.
he is on the hot seat because of injuries and his contract. He has a huge contract bonus after next year so unless he shows he can play most of the season I doubt they will keep him.
you're right; practice and routine are meaningless. i bet all he needed was a fiery leader on the sidelines, right? then he would have caught those balls.... practice and routine are THE cornerstone of any and every professional athlete beyond natural talent. disrupt that and it can most certainly have an impact - you know, the whole you play like you practice... i mean, otherwise, why practice year round? why hold OTAs in may and training camp in july? hell, why practice during the week? sit in classrooms; they've been doing it since they were 8 - what could they possibly glean from weekly practices? a gameplan they can learn off the field.....
i'm all about practice. but pro wide receivers don't forget how to catch a football, ric. not because they missed a week of practice. that's beyond absurd.
I think the point is that it is more difficult to do your job if something is weighing on your mind or if you get out of your routine. I imagine it is more difficult for you to do your job if something is out of kilter (e.g. you wife or child is ill). Same thing for professional athletes. They are just as human as anyone else. If they get out of their routine they perform differently. Look how miserably the Astros performed when they had to play the games in Milwaukee. The players had a lot on their minds and it was hard for them to be 100% commited to their jobs. If excuses can be made for them, then excuse can be made for Texans' players.
oh ok, i thought that might be the case, but he wrote "I think Schaub gets 1 more season, DC gets the boot." Using a name (Schaub) and then "DC" (and not even saying THE before DC) in the same setence wasn't smart. And maybe I'm not smart either
first of all, practice AND ROUTINE. you keep leaving that out and it's a vital part of their week-to-week preparation - these guys thrive on it. that's why, when the NFL first instituted the byes, teams routinely struggled coming out of them - they didn't know what to do with a week off in the middle of their season. and you're being naive to dismiss the correlation: practice and routine disrupted | ordinarily sure-handed WR uncharacteristically drops two TDs, one a sure-fire, no doubter.... no one is saying it's the one and only reason; but to say it's not a reason at all is just plain silly, as is ANY notion that would suggest practice and rotuine are irrelevant because someone learned how to catch a football at the age of 8.
Is there any trend of WR's who miss a few weeks due to injury having trouble catching when they come back after missing routine and practice time? It doesn't seem so, and certainly not with Andre Johnson. Despite missing two months last year, he had one of his best games of the season his first game back.
