OK. Here's my theory. In a fantasy world a good ol' boy billionaire that just secured his first professional franchise decides he is going to build it to be THE BEST. From jump street he wants the team to be: - winners - profitable - full of good character guys - envied by other NFL franchises - first-class - absolutely void of any Oilers ties - clean (drug free) - marketable - unoffensive (mass-appeal is very important) So that is what his vision was and what his people told him. Obviously this is my theory so I will stop qualifying that. In reality his triage of that list was: 1. Profitable 2. Marketable 3. Unoffensive 4. Winners 5. full of good character guys 6. first class 7. envied 8. no Oiler ties 9. clean His decisions since being awarded the franchise support this. Profitability is obviously number 1 as it is with every professional franchise. After that he focused on Marketability tied hand in hand with being Unoffensive. Everything about this franchise from the beginning is as vanilla, ordinary, safe, politically correct as it could conceivably be. The Name? Texans. Plain. The colors? Red, White, and Blue. Are you kidding? The logo? A red, white and blue bull - hell the bull worked for the Bulls no sense in going out on a limb there. The mascot? Let's go with a bull and call him Toro. That'll play well with the growing Latino population and plus all the blacks and whites know that toro means bull in espanol. The 2002 Draft. Great teams are made by great players. The first few years of the Texans were never going to be great. Expansion teams rarely are. So The Texans knew that they would have a grace period with the fans pretty much no matter what they did. It is my opinion that The Texans rolled the dice on Carr because they wanted the story book franchise. And the story book franchise would be led by a strong handsome marketable quarterback with no character issues and a skill set that contained all of the measurables. He would be surrounded by capable teammates (eventually some great ones) and the whole lot of them would live happily ever after. They would be competing for the playoffs by year 3 and make some good runs after that. Based on Their triage of "THE BEST" David Carr fit the bill perfectly. The problem was their Triage. I'll grant them Profitability needed to be number 1. But number 2 should have been Winning. And it was my opinion that Peppers was the best player on the board and when you are starting with a completely blank canvas you MUST take the best player. But I got over that. I, too was swept up in the emotion of 2002. We had a team! But as that year and all of the subsequent years passed by that triage never changed. That vision of a story book team was never surrendered to reality. They hired and fired accordingly. They drafted accordingly. All of the major decisions fit this model. Kubiak. Vince or Reggie. Schaub. Mario. The reason why I am starting to support the team now is because of some of the more minor decisions that have broken the fantasy mold. Jared Zabransky. The silent knowledge that Mario was the wrong pick and the emergence...and acceptance...that this is DeMeco's defense. The patience with Jerome Mathis. The draft of Amobi Okoye. They have started to do things that I like. So now I will start to have allegiance. I am sure if I reread this there will be parts that I got wrong but for just spitting my thoughts out...there you have it.
all good. i don't disagree. was just wondering if you knew something from being around the team so often...something you specifically heard. i was baffled by the decision, too. but, as you said, it's over.
Disagree somewhat Chance. I do agree Peppers should have been taken first and maybe he would have been......had Dom Capers run a traditional 4-3 defense. Since he was a 3-4 guru and Peppers was your traditional 4-3 end, he didn't fit us, so he wasn't going to be considered for the #1 pick that year. Same thing w/ Vince Young. I went to A&M and saw a bunch of him and had to hear it as well , but I think Kubiak wasn't going to consider Young at QB b/c he wanted a more traditional drop-back passer, which is y they gave Carr another chance and ended up going after Schaub. When it should be all about talent, it isn't. Many football coaches are creatures of habit and go with what makes them comfortable and therefore successful, after all, they wouldn't be in the NFL without being proficient in something right. So these guys run their systems and try and find the talent who would fit best in those systems. In both scenarios, guys who were automatic takes weren't b/c they didn't fit our respective coaches systems. With that said, I do think Mario will be a successful pro, but that still may not be enough for those who are Bush and Young fanatics and will always dog that pick. Here's hoping Mario serves a nice dish of crow.
I don't. Van Pelt is 10X the man Zabransky is. Maybe if Zabransky removed that idiot Z tattoo. Nah even then he has no place in the league.
WTF are the Cardinals doing? Reverse WR pass? Going for it on 4th down in the red zone? Do they know this is preseason, right?
That's exactly right... wouldn't you rather have your team try out all the gadget plays, and test your 4th down offense in games that don't really count? I'm more critical of Kubiak's playcalling thus far.
Nice little drive. Schaub is good at hitting guys across the middle. But it's the 2nd week in a row he's missed a receiver who had his man beat in the end zone down the sideline.
partly, for sure. but it looked like andre had to slow down to come back to the ball. thrown over his shoulder it's 6. at least it looked that way to me. i'm not DVR'ing the game, so I can't rewind it.
Eh... it was more of a great play by the DB than a terrible throw. It could have been better... hopefully they'll work on the timing for that play (because AJ is virtually unguardable in jump-ball situations).
i need to see it again, frankly. but what i thought i saw was andre having to come back to the ball (or at least slow down) when he had his guy beat. that throw was not over Andre's shoulder.
Indeed... if they can keep pass protection like that, and allow Schaub to actually go thru multiple reads, good things can happen.
