Mike Brisiel is expected to miss the rest of the season

can't catch a break.

 

Bad news. Briesiel may not be a world beater and is average at best...but when your starting Guards are both out for the season, that's going to hurt you.

Looks like it is up to Studdard and Caldwell to step up to the plate.

 

man i hope we're not becoming like jacksonville. they're were destroyed on o-line last year...

 

And the running game will continue to be bad. Hey, maybe Kubiak will now attempt a pitch or sweep outside instead of running up the middle where they have no success. Amazing though, we go from having a great running game last year and every O-linemen healthy, to not much of a running game and 2 O-linemen who are out and one who constantly gets blown off the ball.

 

Caldwell very well could take over this role permanantly. I am expecting big things from him

 

Hoping he would take over the center roll though. Too bad about Brisiel.

 

i hear ya...but it's not like we're going from great OL play to poor OL play. maybe his backup can help block the run better.

 

Food for thought, the New York Jets sport one of the better OL's in the league, all five of their starters (Faneca, Ferguson, Mangold, Woody, Moore) were acquired in the last five years or so. I don't know how the Texans manage to be so bad for so long on the OL but it's kind of amazing.

 

it's impressive.

 

Well considering they were run terribly in personnel until Kubiak got here, they got a late start. They were further hurt by the fact that Kubes/Smith needed to replaced basically an entire roster as opposed to just the O-Line. They hurt further by the fact that even though they may draft well, the Texans haven't hit on a FA signing in their entire history.

It sucks.

 

it's impressive

 

caught a bad break with charles spencer. had he established himself as the starting LT (and he was certainly on his way), you don't use a 1 on duane brown. or maybe you d, and move spencer inside and slide pitts to C - whatever. point being, they'd have one more quality body to throw at the line. that was a big blow.

and it's not like the OL suddenly forgot to block -they were very effective last year and their pass protection has been pretty decent this year. schaub threw 50 times yesterday and i don't believe he was sacked. some of this has to fall on slaton. i'd like to see more moats.

 

you and me both. He hits the hole fast and hard.

 

i'm having a difficult time figuring out how much rests on slaton. just as we said the OL hasn't suddenly forgot to block, slaton hasn't suddenly forgotten how to run.

and when the get him the ball in the open field, you still see his ability to run well and evade tacklers.

 

must. resist. saying...thhaa...

Spoiler

that'swhatshesaid

 

I wonder how much of it is that the league has figured out how to defend the zone blocking scheme. Someone mentioned how other teams were defending it differently this year in the titans thread a few weeks ago.

 

that's an even bigger concern, frankly. that's not merely a personnel issue.