I have no doubts that practice is important...it builds chemistry between teammates, prepares players for their opponents, etc... However, it doesnt allow Andre Johnson, one of the best NFL wide receivers, to catch a ball that hits his hands. I throw a football around maybe once every 2-3 months...when a ball hits my hands, I catch it. Plain and simple. I dont need reps to catch a football. And Im the furthest thing from being a hall of fame WR. Look at Boldin...the guy has his mouth wired shut for about a month...then comes right into a game, catches 9 balls and 2 TDs. These guys are professionals, people. Catching a ball that hits their hands is about as natural to them as me clicking "channel up" and "channel down" on my remote.
Yeah but the people throwing you the ball dont have rocket arms. And WRs have to practices routes during practice. No practice = no reps in running the route = harder it becomes for the QB to throw to the WR.
let's not be so literal. i said it had AN impact; not on him catching A singular pass but on his performance as a whole. when an otherwise good player has a bad game on the backend of the a hurricane disrupting their season/life, to dismiss outright any connection between the two is silly. the texans played that afternoon like a team distracted and lacking concentration. maybe it was randomly, and coincidentally, one of those games. or maybe having their season/lives disrupted took a bit of a toll on them, as it did the 4 million other people living in the city. i know plenty of people who lived w/o power for 14+ days - you don't sleep as well, you don't eat as well - your non-work routine is thrown off; you're spending all your free time either in your yard or dealing with insurance issues - it's not like everything snaps back to normal overnight.
part of rehabilitation process is getting back into your practice and routine schedules; they don't stash them in the trainer's room until they're ready to play.
None of which is really relevant, given the fact that the QB threw the ball to a nice spot for the WR to catch it. The route was fine, the throw was fine. Practice or no practice, the players executed that portion of the play without a problem.
I can promise you the majority of the Texans were living in better conditions that the people (my parents included) that lived without power for 2 weeks. I dont think this is nearly as difficult as a player returning to football a couple days after a family members death. Just look at what Cassell pulled off...his dad dies, the dude is away from the team, comes right back and has the best game of his career. At the end of the day, these guys are still doing what they have been raised doing...yes, practice gets them to the top of the mountain. However, Cassell doesnt need to practice to throw the ball 40 yards and Andre doesnt need to practice to catch a ball that hits his hands. When Andre ran that route and dropped that pass...Id be willing to bet my life that he wasnt thinking about that piece of his roof that had been knocked off because of strong winds. I'll just agree to disagree. I think Ike hurt the team because we lost our bye week and had to play many games in a row without a break. We had to play the Colts without a bye week beforehand, which I think could have really made a difference, considering we were well within range to win that game. We also played the Ravens when they were a much more cohesive team. That is how Ike hurt us and that could have very well meant the difference between playoffs or not.
Lots of players miss practice during the entire week and go into gameday questionable, without having practiced all week, or at best, maybe having had a single day. And if they aren't hobbled on gameday, they never seem to have problems in the game. I assume the Texans were practicing the days before the game this year, no? Or did they take the whole week off?
Yes, PLAYERS sometimes miss practice and play ok. Many also play inspired after the death of a loved one. Players. This was the whole team. How is that hard to understand? It was not one single player. It was the whole team. It was early in the season before they really got going. Also does it matter where they live? I didn't know Ike was picky about the neaighborhoods it hit. Listen, its not an excuse. The chargers had to deal with wildfire last year and proceeded to destroy us. They were a far better team than we were, but thats not the point. The Saints had a lot of troubles after Katrina. I guess it could go either way.
Catching isn't that natural, and minus the 2 TDs AJ's dropped, hes only dropped like 2 other passes. Lets be extremely glad we don't have Braylon who's dropped over 15 passes, many Im sure were potential touchdowns. So you can say, despite Ike, AJ's performance this year has surpassed anyones expectations. I can't vouch for the overall accuracy of this stats site, but they track a lot of stats for a lot of sports. http://sports.iwon.com/nfl/stats/league/passesdropped.html And seriously who wants to complain about stupid challenges for another year? If we let Kubiak stay, we give someone else challenge responsibility, all offensive playcalling goes to Shanahan, and Kubes can share D playcalls with whoever should replace Smith.
The whole team, no less, whilst still attempting to adjust to and learn a new blocking scheme *and* with a rookie LT. Still wondering what was the defense's excuse.
Just a mere earthquake tremor here with no damage and I almost crapped my pants, and had the willies for a week. There were brush fires 150 miles from me and family I havent spoken to in ages were wondering if I'm okay. Qualcomm Stadium was a shelter for thousands of people who's homes burned down. NFL insisted there was still gonna be a Texans vs Chargers game there. And there was a game, but all that activity was distraction enough keeping me and friends from going. I've been watching games longer than most the players having been playing it, and all the events still got me off my fan game (Chargers did whoop the Texans, Chargers not showing much sign of being distracted but still.....) Money cant shield your eyes from thousands of evacuees tents in the parking lot.
I'm out here in SD too. My first earthquake a couple of months ago had me cautious to say the least. On a seperate note, are there any Texan's bars around here? I wouldn't think so, but it doesn't hurt to ask.
No, my point was the entire team was hindered because of Ike, you said it wasn't that big of a deal. To me, any team wide distraction (including the coaches) is a big deal, as the margins of winning and losing at the NFL level is razor thin. DD
yeah, I know that's what you and i were talking about...the conversation has morphed a little since then. i understand your position...i don't think it's nearly as big a deal. this wasn't katrina.
The hurricane essentially put the Astros out of sorts for at least 5 games. Even ignoring the Milwaukee/Cubs debacle, they were still out of kilter against the Marlins. Being that it is probable that the hurricane and the ongoing associated problems affected the Astros, isn't it the least bit probable it could have affected some of the Texans?
How much of that was them pouting like freaking school children? I'm serious--they went to the effort of designing, ordering, paying for, and wearing shirts that said, "Bud killed us." Yes, Bud could have done better. But whoever said, "This isn't Katrina" was right on. Man up and play the game.
I don't think it turned a W into an L I don't think Andre Johnson dropped a couple of passes because a storm hit 9 days before...or because he didn't have enough practice time before the game. Those are the only 2 statements I'm making here...I think.
