Vince's TD to INT ratio is 8 and 8. Carr's is 10 to 8. Carr is in his 5th yr in the NFL and has Andre Johnson and Eric Moulds.
Wait...are you being serious?? There are some players/people who have more poise than others. Who respond to pressure differently. Some people freak out...others are cool as Christmas. Some people have all the talent in the world, but a sucky work ethic. Other guys are just a notch below that, but work their ass off and provide more value. Still others are incredible....and STILL have a kickass work ethic that doesn't accept settling. Some people are really competitive. It doesn't take much to get their juices flowing. Others have a calmer temperment. No one is saying that you can win without talent. But these are personality difference, Ric. We all have different personalities. If you think this doesn't play into performance, whether in an office or on a playing field...well....I think you're wrong. And I'm not sure there's even a whole lot of room for debate on that.
According to Ric there is. Apparently all these players are all robots who will perform equally if givin equal and ideal conditions. I love how he condems Vince Young and his numbers despite be a rookie and having no recievers worth mentioning and in the same breath, grant Carr a pass because he only had Andre Johnson and a bag of peanuts as a viable targets prior to this season.
i agree with EVERY SINGLE WORD of this paragraph. i’ve bemoaned the lack of accountability with the texans for several years now. i thought palmer should’ve been fired after the offense tanked the final 7-8 games of 2004… instead, they brought him back for another offseason. among many others, i thought they should’ve jettisoned kris brown exactly five seconds after last year ended not just for his back-to-back awful seasons, but because he blew 2-3 games last year and the organization needed to send a message that failure would not be tolerated… and guess who the kicker is again this year… carr deserved/earned his benching against tennessee; he probably should have gotten another one handed to him sunday. all things being equal, if i were kubiak, i would have sent jameel cook packing after his backbreaking fumble against the bills; two in three weeks is two too many – lay down some lumber. carr and the team have actually started nearly every game really strong. but, semantics... this isn’t a “battle” – it’s a football game – this notion of ascribing it mythical qualities is, frankly, the domain of lazy sportswriters. you either do it well consistently, or you don’t. i don’t think guys fumble, or drop passes, or commit penalties because one guy’s ass may or may not be puckering and vice versa. did pacman jones remind you of deion sanders? how bout their kicker – kind of vinateri-esque? it was A game and a lot of really serendipitous things had to come together for the comeback to even happen, proof that one guy alone cannot will his team to win, or any of the other bleeting nonsense hoisted upon otherwise mortal men. it’s overblown. troy aikman wasn’t the emotional leader of those great cowboy teams. in fact, he was fairly aloof and had the personality of a lower intestine. conversely, dan marino was every bit the fiery, competitive sparkplug vince young supposedly is… and yet, after a SB appearance his rookie year, his career was marked by the team underachieving – why was he not able to rally his teammates and get their best game week in and week out? stop right there. It WAS because the giants f’d up in spades. they redo one of three, maybe four poor decisions, and the game ends with them victorious. but this notion vince sparked it....? i mean, it’s like all the post-WS fawning over hard-as-nails davey eckstein, who stands 8 inches tall and plays with nothing more than grit and determination and heart and dirt for blood and blah, blah, blah… it’s meaningless. teams win because they’re more talented and/or extremely fortunate, and the titans’ win sunday was a component of A LOT of fortunate occurrences and then a lot of talented people taking advantage. have people forgetten; david carr was the qb when the texans beat dallas in the team’s first ever game. he was poised and confident that night; threw 2 touchdowns (should have been 3 – jermaine lewis dropped one) and looked every bit like the fiery, competitive leader you’re describing while overseeing one of the biggest upsets of this decade, if not one of the biggest upsets ever, when you think about it… so what happened to him? did he lose that innate sense to lead and be all fiery and competitive? or was it, maybe, a combination of A LOT of things coming together at once that paved the path to victory? individual players in a team sport like football don’t singularly impact outcomes. name a game in which you think they do, and i’ll name several other teammates (or opponents) who were equally instrumental, including sunday in tennessee when pacman jones – NOT vince young – ignited the comeback with an interception. don't try and sell me that he did that BECAUSE of vince young. three weeks ago, vince was 15/36 with 3 picks in losing to the jags, 37-7 – the same team carr has beaten soundly twice this year, btw. where was the fiery, competive rah, rah that day? hell, for that matter, where was the fiery, competitive rah, rah for the first three quarters sunday? i agree - some players shrink, others shrug off pressure. but the notion of a player playing beyond their own natural abilities when it matters most is a loooooooong-tired, overblown cliché because it is not, for extended periods, possible. and making others around you do the same is even more impossible. i’m not condemning vince young; i’m also not going to put my burnt orange blinders on and pretend sunday’s comeback was a product of his mystical qualities and only his mystical qualities. a lot of different people put vince young in position to do something extraordinary sunday (including vince young) and he came through. end of story. let's not sully ourselves over it.
I'm guessing that if David Carr had done the same thing...come thorugh on something extraordinary...there would be a lot of "sullying" among us Texans fans.
frankly, MM, if the texans ever overcame a 21-point 4Q deficit, i think we'd all be in too much shock to do much of anything. 2 interceptions, a punt return and 24 points in a 15-minute stretch....? have they ever done those over the course of a season........? but, i can tell you this - me, personally, i'd certainly praise carr's performance, but it would NOT come at the expense of acknowledging others' contributions, nor would i ascribe it some mythical quality about some made-up intangible. i'd tip my hat to several contributing players and be amazed at the opponent being dumb enough to continually let us stick around a game we had no business winning. i mean, hell, MM, did you turn off (or leave) the buffalo game gawking at jp losman's intagible greatness (who, btw, repeated the feat a week later)? personally, i thought... why in the hell were we throwing on 3rd and 2.......
Hardly! It would be more like a breath of relief that we maybe we will get a one week's respite from all the b****ing and moaning. But, then again, I'm sure it would only be lessened a degree.
the thing that these last few carr defenders obviously can't comprehend, or just have their heads in the sand about is that this performance by vince didn't happen in a vacum. vince comes in, one of the worst teams in the league is now .500 with him as a starter. before they were 0-3. His team won a national title in college and hadn't won one in 35 years, he had one of the best careers in houston high school football. he's always part of something great, carr well he threw for a bunch of yards at fresno state. its not just about sunday, so forgive us for not praising j.p. losman. the analogy is flat out ridiculous.
But you can't really say the Titans success is all because of Vince, not when some of those weeks he had stats like 8 for 22 for 100 yards or 7 for 15 for 87 yards while Travis Henry was running for 150 yards. To think VY is carrying the Titans by himself right now is buying into hype. Like the Reggie Bush fans claiming early that the Saints turnaround was due to his presence on the field. It's not about bashing VY, it's about looking at Carr fairly and objectively. If we bench Carr based on the fact that he can't carry the team to a crazy comeback victories, then that would be a mistake.
max, possessing the ability to make others play beyond their own physical and mental capabilities is, indeed, mythical. in the team's 4 victories with young as a starter, the defense has scored twice and forced 12 turnovers. the texans, by contrast, have forced 11 tunrovers... all year. moving on, their special teams have scored twice, too, and recorded a safety on a blocked punt. and in two of the wins, travis henry, not vince young, carried the offense with 178 and 143 yards rushing. those two totals alone, btw, would place henry second among texan rushers this year, just 94 yards shy of wali lundy's team-leading 415. now, i'm sure all these scrubs would have NEVER done this without the presence of vince young on their sideline....
The only time anyone looked at Carr objectively - he was benched. we don't expect him to pull off crazy elway comebacks, just try and keep the team in it so there is a chance we can win and have hope. Instead the players just go out there like the robots ric thinks they are, and pretty much expect to lose.
I agree with Ric and Mr.Clutch on Carr. But I suppose Ric would say John Elway was just 1 of 11 offensive guys when they beat Cleveland on "the drive" and VY was just one of 22 guys (+other special teamers) when Texas beat USC. There is nothing mythical about VY. He just has very special athletic talents and by all accounts has matching composure. But football is probably the ultimate team game, so of course no matter how one individual does they need help. To his credit VY always talks well for his teammates contributions, always, maybe partly why it always seem like his teammates go all out to cover his back as well (call it an intangable leadership quality). The story from the Giants-Titans game (on tonight on NFL replay) was Eli's collapse, some brilliant plays by Pacman, and tremedous and consistent play by a rookie QB who accounted for 90% of his teams yards. Doesn't mean the other 44+ guys on the field didn't contribute to the outcome, but 3 individuals meant more than most. If you are going to acknowledge ANY individuals good or bad play affecting Ws or Ls for their teams, this game had 3 clearer cases than most NFL games do and the rookie VY provided one of them.
Reeves and Kubiak were both brought in separately on different occasions to look at Carr objectively and they both voted to keep him. And if your standard is keeping the team in it, then Carr has done well most games. Could have won the NYG and Buffalo games.
geez, he didn't have to do much, did he. i think the defense kept you in those games a lot more so than david carr. but if that's your standard, he's a champ. but you could probably spend a lot less to find a guy who does exactly the same.
agree with every word. i'm not denigrating vince young; not at all. i'm merely popping the bubble. clutch and i [i think it was clutch] went 'round and 'round the day after leinart nearly beat the bears; same hyperbole; same excusing or ignoring of pertinent, contributing factors, such as, you know, chicago turning the ball over six times... no, no - none of that was, apparently, relevant - it was all, "why can't carr do what a rookie's doing..." and that's always been our point, re: carr - because the guys around him have never, EVER been good enough to put him in such a position. [SIX tunrovers. in one game. more than HALF of the texans' total this year... but sure, let's wonder why carr can't do what leinart did...] those numbers i posted - henry's rushing totals and the number of turnovers - do those not jump out at you? henry and the titans' defense have done more in 4 games than the texans backs and D have done in 11.......... and you wonder why we're slow to anoit vince king and slower to bury carr.... understand: we don't mind, condemn or necessarily disagree with carr-dissenters. we do, however, bristle at how unfairly he's singled out above a lot of other just as relevant factors - lack of talent, injuries, coaching... i'm asking for patience before closing the book on carr - that's it. let kubiak have some space to do what i think we all believe he can do, which is accurately evaluate david carr without him having to live in the shadow of 02-05. because i can promise you, nothing carr's done prior to kubiak's arrival will be relevant in the conclusion kubiak draws. absolutely agree. it's not condemning vince by pulling him and his supporters a little closer to earth and asking that they cast a little wider net in terms of doling out praise. seaking of... they also have a long-respected, super bowl head coach who's name has yet to come up... i mean, it's not like vince went and grabbed 21 guys from the stands... this titan team, yes, led by vince, looks scary to me... i'm guessing they'll rip the texans to shreds in a few weeks...
you just have to outscore your opponent, MM; not rewrite record books. carr had the texans in position to do that in both games. would that be the same defense that gave up 166 yards worth of TDs in a quarter and allowed jp losman to score the winning touchdown with 9 seconds remaning? that defense kept them in games? carr AND the defense played well enough to beat NY; kris brown missed a FG, jameel cook fumbled in giant territory. in order to save time, i'll now reply for you: [ignoring pertinent facts not connected to david carr that prevented the texans from beating new york] "yep, you're right - carr's a champ. i've been wrong all along. thank god we extended him. i look forward to 4 more years of terrific game management." (close?)
