there's not a huge problem with it. i just said it scared me. given the track record of the coronation of carr with little introduction of competition. you said you would feel comfortable with carr this year as the starter because this would be the first year, in your mind, he actually had to earn it. or at least you hoped that would be the way it would be. that fits in with what i'm saying. he shouldn't be tarred and feathered. i just didn't like the stated presumption that "this is our starting QB." "this has been our starting QB" might have made my stomach sit easier.
do you think sage rosenfels is an upgrade? do you think jake plummer is an upgrade? do you consider TBD plan B an upgrade? sage rosnefels was here last year; couldn't beat david carr out, at which point carr joined a list of distinguished players rosenfels hasn't been able to beat out in his career, including jay fiedler and gus frerotte. upgrade? let's next take a look at mr. plummer: five years of crappy results (hmmm....); somehow, amazingly, actually has the good fortune of landing on a better team with, among others, gary kubiak helping with his rehabilitation and just two months after making his first pro bowl appearence, the team promptly rewards him by trading two #1 picks for a QB who they jump ahead of plummer on the depth chart in the middle of a playoff run, because (citing you and your sources), plummer too often tried to do too much and play outside the confines of an established, highly successful system that kubiak, among others, is trying to implement here.... and i'm supposed to view that as an upgrade? frankly, he sounds to me like david carr, only 5 years older. then, of course, we could go with air, ie anyone but david carr. again, i don't consider that to be an upgrade, either.
To be fair Ric, I don't think Sage was given a shot to beat out Carr. I don't think it was a competition at all. It will be this year if Carr is here.
so kubiak had no interest in fielding the best team possible...? what's interesting about that assertion is that the anti-carr segment will separately argue the team threw less as the year progressed because kubiak lost "trust" in carr, implying kubiak was more interested in winning games than running carr through his paces. so which is it? did kubiak want to win; did he want to win with an inferior team; or did he not care anything about winning so long as he handed carr the starting job because he's bob mcnair's lap dog?
I think when you give a guy an extension like they gave Carr, it's for him to compete for the starting job. I think they believed that Carr gave them the best chance to win before training camp ever started. There's a reason why most teams don't have QB competitions in training camp.
i don't doubt that was the prevailing logic before training camp - it's carr's job to lose. makes a ton of sense. but what about after that? did kubiak not evaluate the players fairly once camp started? once they started playing preseason games? as the regular season progressed? rosenfels broke his hand again the giants, iirc, the 9th week of the season. so the contention is that from mid-july to mid-november, kubiak had no interest in winning (or else he would have played rosenfels, who had out-performed carr in the preseason and, of course, in tennessee), but then, suddenly, really, really wanted to win and so he lost "trust" in carr and sat on him for the final 9 weeks. that's a total and complete disconnect. btw, i bring up a good point - not only did the texans lose two starters on the OL in week 9, not only did the running game roar to life right around that same time, but they also lost rosenfels for the season, leaving bradlee van pelt and quinn porter as the back-ups. but the reason the texans threw less down the stretch, obviously, was because kubiak didn't trust carr....... because he suddenly wanted to win after not giving a **** about winning for 4 months.
from cnnsi.com: Rumors persist that the Vikings could trade with the Houston Texans for quarterback David Carr, who might cost just a fourth-round draft pick. -- St. Paul Pioneer Press So the Vikes apparently are one of the teams that inquired about Carr. Given the three possibilities (i.e. cut Carr, trade Carr, do nothing), I'd rather they let Carr compete for the job this coming year and see what they have. It makes no sense to me when people like John McClain say, Why shouldn't that team (with the solid pass protection and a productive running game) be the Texans?!? Is it because the fans are tired of Carr?!? That's beyond stupid. The fans are tired of losing. I think McNair in his "vote of no-confidence" blurb in the paper a few days back said as much when he said that if the team wins and David is the QB, everyone will forget about the last two years. Like Kenny Smith says, "winning is a great deodorant!"
In my opinion, it's that, as the season progressed, Kubiak realized that Carr wasn't the QB he thought he was, and found that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the best way to win for this team was to minimize the role of the quarterback. He openly said that in reference to the Oakland game, and the rest of the season, there's was a notable difference in how Carr was used.
NFL teams have reams of tape, scouts, and all sorts of other data to look at. They aren't going to change how they value a trade based on comments by the organization. Everyone knows that Carr has issues here, no matter what the team says in the media. That's because their brought up as excuses for Carr. They are problems in and of themselves, as is Carr. If you ask if the OL or running game needs to be improved, everyone will say yes. But if you ask whether the QB needs to be improved, some people will just say no, it's the OL and running game's fault.
Open references (from Kubiak) like these?!? "But your football team sends messages to you as a coach, and we were struggling big time. We weren't able to protect or throw the ball. The football team was saying, 'Hey, coach, if we don't mess this up, we're going to find a way to win it.' So we were not going to mess it up. We were going to run the ball and try to get ourselves in field goal position." "We did not protect David well. I know we didn't protect him well. They were doing nothing defensively that we didn't prepare for throwing the ball. But it got to the point where it looked like all it was doing was hurting us, so we were trying to find a way to win." "As I said, we were very poor protecting in the quarterback early in the game. David took a couple of shots that were just unbelievable, then I think he started to get in a hurry and go through his reads and doing some of those things that he and I talked about this morning. The key is that it's got to go away, he's got to go back this week and do things better. It rears its ugly head sort of speak, but you've got to stop it and you've got to fix it and go back and play. Like I said the biggest thing I told David today was, 'You've got to come back and play well for us this week for us to have a chance to win." After Titans loss in overtime: "I thought [Carr] did a pretty good job. We didn't turn the ball over all day I don't think. When you don't turn the ball over in this league, you've got a chance to win and that was evident today. We're struggling getting down the field. We've got to find a way up front to help them protect, help some guys up front, get the field stretched a little more. We are struggling from that standpoint right now, and it's just something we've got to continue to grind on the next few weeks and try to get better at. I thought he managed the ball game well. He got his team in position. That last third down, we should make that play. We should stay on the field right there and have a chance to win."
No one is saying it directly. They say it by saying everyone else sucks, so might as well stick with Carr. For example, people don't want to even try Plummer because his time in Arizona 5 years ago sucked, so he's apparently not an upgrade, nevermind his previous 3 years surpass anything Carr's ever done. Sage apparently didn't beat Carr out last year, so he's not an option. If you only look at the negatives of all the other options and eliminate them from consideration that way, where does that leave you? By default you're saying Carr should be the starter, because you've dismissed everything else.
True, but that still doesn't mean it's smart to say he's not going to be the QB. Not many people are saying no now. But out of all the positions on the offense, IMO, QB is the one that is most dependant on his teammates being good at what they do. For proof of that, see Dilfer, Trent or Grossman, Rex when he was playing horrendous, but they were still productive on the ground. I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility for Carr to still have a successful career even though I think it's best for both parties to go their separate ways at this point. Most people think he has some sort of talent as evidenced by teams inquiring about his availability. Bottom line, if we don't improve our running game and our pass protection to a more consistent level, you're not going to see much success by any QB the Texans might pick up. That's why some are arguing that it's much more important to make changes to those positions more than it is the QB.
That's a lot different than saying he should definitely be the starter. If those are the only two options, I think it's a valid argument, even if you don't agree with it. Plummer's history on less talented teams should be somewhat of a red flag. I don't think many are saying that Sage shouldn't have a shot just because he didn't win the job last year.
Why? Carr has the same history. People are hoping Kubiak can revive Carr. But we KNOW he DID revive Plummer. How on earth is Plummer a bigger risk than Carr? It's a perfect example of looking at the negatives of the alternatives and the wishful thinking of Carr. But if you're limiting your competition to career backups, what is that saying? You don't want to bring in an actual NFL starter, but are willing to say Carr should compete with known scrubs for the job. The logical outcome of that leaves you with two end results as your starting QB: 1. A QB who beat out some scrubs 2. A scrub, meaning that Carr was really THAT terrible If you're serious about improving the QB position, then bring in legitimate talent. The fact that we're even discussing that Sage might be better than Carr tells you how bad the QB situation here is, and then people simultaneously say a Jake Plummer type shouldn't even be considered??
I personally think all 3 options are an upgrade. And it has nothing do do with a rabid hatred of David Carr. I do think he sucks, of course, but really, almost everyone does at this point. But for the organization as a whole, both in the short-term, and long-term, I'd rather replace Carr with Sage, Plummer, or a player to be named later than have him here next year.
A common tactic in arguing against a point: overstretch the argument beyond what anybody says and then harp on the extreme one has created, making everyone else's take sound completely ludicrous and illogical based either upon the nonexistent extremes one's created or upon the ridiculous extremes of a few which one has projected on the many.
Was it Kubiak that revived Plummer all on his own? Do you think the fact that he had one of the best OLs in the league on his team had anything to do with it? I think there's one person you're talking about with this post. The vast majority of Texans' fans, even those that defended Carr for much of the season, think they should part ways with Carr at this time. I'm also not necessarily against bringing Plummer in, but I'm don't really think he's going to be that much of an upgrade if we don't address the more pressing needs on this team like the OL.
Ah...so you're saying I took the all too common and overused OTABWASATHOTEOHC, MEETSCLAIBEUTNEOCOUTREOAFWOHPOTM approach? My bad... I'm not arguing with anybody. I was just presenting an opinion. Chill out microsoft.
i don't think plummer is a "risk." but if you're crediting kubiak with reviving plummer (and ignoring the far more obvious factor: the denver broncos), then why do you not think kubiak can do the same with carr? plummer was in his sixth year when his career was "revived" by kubiak. let's see... carr is in his... 4th? no... 3rd? nope.. oh, that's right, 6th year. so, sure, let's go get the guy who's revival was four years ago instead.... first of all, "we" aren't discussing sage in that manner, unless by "we" you mean the people who want carr somewhere else next year. if sage was in carr's class, he would have beaten him out; he would have also beaten out jay fiedler, or aj feely, or gus frerotte. he's a career back-up. the problem with brining in "legitimate" talent is that legitimate talent costs $$ and you're already paying carr a lot of that. do you really want to invest $13-15M in 2 QBs next year when only 1 can play and the team has gaping holes everywhere else? if jake plummer wanted to come here for sage rosenfels money, bring it on. that goes for any other "legitimate" talent. otherwise, its cost-prohibitive to hold an open casting call at the position.
