Remember when everyone laughed at the Texans for not taking Fairley

The pick comes at page 30, the reactions are pretty dang funny to read, lol.

 

As of the time of the draft, Mario was at DE still. I remember thinking that we are drafting Watt to be a back up to Mario and Antonio...and thats why I was pissed at the selection.

 

I was reading pages 58-60 regarding Yates in the 5th round. This place was all over the place. I found this post especially delightful:

Eh, close enough right. Especially if they were to make it to the SB.

I forgot I posted there too, I wanted Yates' teammate from NC intead of Keo apparently....

 

I'm going to attempt to super-compile

Rd 1 (Watt)

Hindsight:
FO decided another rookie (Prince) wasn't the answer at CB and they'd never here the end of it if two back to back first rounder DBs flopped.
Did Quinn's brain tumor scare us off? Did Wade doubt him standing up? Dunno, but despite a fair season (23 tackles, 5 sacks) he hasn't been a shadow of the player we got in Watt, and Barwin/Reed have outperformed him at OLB.
Clearly Wade liked the idea of Watt at End with Cody/Mitchell better than Fairley inside with Mario at End, because he altered course here. Good call - Fairley has only managed 1 sack and 15 tackles playing with Suh.

I think 95% of the initial furor of the Watt pick came from not knowing two major things: Wade was reversing course about Mario and there were plans to go all in on a FA DB.

Rd 2-a (Reed)

Hindsight: we liked it then, we like it now.


Rd 2-b (NE trade, Harris)

Hindsight:
We loved the trade up to snag a guy folks were mentioning before the Reed pick. Sadly, he looks very far off from challenging anyone for rotation minutes. 2 solo tackles on the year in a handful of appearances.

Rd 4 (Was trade, Carmichael)

Hindsight:
We were relishing the thought of finally clearing out some of the non-contributing DBs on the roster. Unfortunately, he had a spotty camp and preseason and landed on IR. Better luck next summer.


Rd 5-a (Was trade, Keo)

Hindsight:
Not enthusiastic about a S that is 90% hit, 10% cover. Poor showings in limited outings, but Wade likes him and he got action Saturday with Nolan hurting.

Rd 5-b (Was trade, Yates)

Hindsight:
Who knew, but this became the most critical selection after Watt and Reed. His terrible game against the Panthers soured a slew of folks on him.....but he is the winningest QB in Texans postseason history, and sported a 98 rating against Dalton's 51.

Rd 7-a (Newton OT)
Rd 7-b (Ozougwu DE)
Whatever, it's round freaking 7.


Only other thing I remember is wanting Quinton Carter and being slightly bummed that our trade took us out of the running to try for him in the 4th (taken 3 slots after the pick we traded away). He had no PDs or INTs in the regular season, but did a nice job contributing for the Broncos (#6 on the team in tackles). Would have liked him far more than Keo. Of course, that probably would cost us Yates, and we still ended up with Manning and Nolan at S. Things worked out well.