So did we really have great drafts under Kubiak or not?

Defense could NOT be any worse. Honestly.

 

Antonio Smith might have been better.

Smith might turn out to be the best veteran Texan FA signing.

 

Okaye is the poster child for how the Texans can not develop defensive players.

 

I agree with this fully. Pretty pathetic how it only took 1.5 good seasons to achieve that accomplishment.

 

As someone alluded to . . .
Bad Drafting
or
Bad Player Development?

Rocket River

 

Not calling you out...but in these discussions, you have a tendency to frame questions like it's one or the other...like problems are mutually exclusive.

This team is FULL of problems. Bad drafting or bad player development? The answer is, "yes."

 

I think they are more mutually exclusive than not, when it applies to a specific player.

If you draft a "bad" prospect at a spot not indicative of his talent, then IMHO, no amount of coaching is going to be able to justify that draft spot, although good coaching may be able to get the best you can out of him. On the other side, if the prospect's talent justified the draft spot, then it is on the coaching.

IOW, no matter how good the coaching is, it is hard to overcome whiffing on talent evaluation.

That is why judging talent is the most difficult thing a GM or coach does IMO. Furthermore, at the end of the day, it is extremely difficult for us, as fans, to say whether it is the talent or the development that should be blamed.

I think the Texans have both missed on talent evaluation and talent development, but not on the same player.

 

I think it is both . . but . . .
If Kareem was put with Belichek . . would he be as atrocious?
SOme. . . and i repeat SOME PLAYERS can be coached up
some are just atrocious . . .

It is why I cannot say 100% Kareem is Atrocious
because .. . Frank bush and kubiak were Atrocious

A flower sitting in ***** . .. stinks!
We don't know if it is a Weed or Rose. . but it doesn't matter. . it will stink!

Rocket River

 

LOL 

 

The cruel nature of drafts (from an overall organizational perspective) is that teams rarely have the same boards as the fans at home do. These teams have to sift through hundreds upon hundreds of college players, and somehow figure out rankings based on high school and college achievements, Combine statistics, and a number of different on/off the field variables.

Fans obviously want the big name, or the under-the-radar player that they've seen play on their favorite college team every single Saturday. That's just not how it works, though. Teams will take fliers on players that they think are going to pan out. When they don't, fans go ballistic because they have the "I knew it!" advantage. It's easy to be critical of drafts in hindsight, because there's always the factor of pure chance going against the organization's decision. A player either pans out well or doesn't. A lot of it has to do with ability, and how a team judges said ability, but the development given by the team, and the player's overall drive to get better (which can be influenced by coaching) are also extraordinarily determining factors.

Bad drafts are inevitable. Below average drafts are inevitable. Good drafts are not as inevitable, as they're much harder to come by (at least when you isolate the chances for a single team), but still happen, as we saw in '06. Taking these things into account, I can definitively say, from my perspective at least, that large part of the problem lies in how these players are being developed. By the pure volume of defensive players we've drafted, some of these guys really should've panned out. It's not like Okoye and Jackson were "bad" players coming out of college. Okoye was a project, but he had the "potential" to become great, per a number of analysts and team comments. Potential is dependent not only on the player, but also on how a coach brings him along--that's why he's called a COACH; it simply hasn't happened. Jackson was "NFL ready," but flounders constantly. The dude falls, has minimal catch up speed, and whiffs on tackles like no other... yet the fact that these things happen week after week tell me that they're not being addressed during practice. You can't keep baptizing by fire when the baby's already charred. How can we say that these drafts are objectively bad, when there's the chance that these coaches simply aren't getting the best out of these players?

Every fan wants their team to have a mega-draft every single year. Not gonna happen folks. Hilariously, the one good draft this team has had since its inception has been the one in '06, and that one was heavily guided by Casserley during his last year on the team--being his last year because his drafts were horrible till that point! The team needs an overhaul in the defensive coaching sector. Kubiak getting lost wouldn't have hurt either, but we'll just have to wait this all out.

I will say this much, though, and that is that sometimes, this FO just makes bad decisions in drafts. Excessive TEs, Brown in the 1st round, and so on. All I'm saying is that a lot of picks can also make sense during the time they're made, and 3 years from then be looked back on with contempt. The power of hindsight is irrelevant when it's a gamble. For goodness sake, KJ was supposed to be a SAFE pick!

 

pat willis fail.

 

It was understandable passing on Willis.

He was a sure-fire stud, but we didn't need him.

It was also understandable not taking Revis.

Although we needed him more than Willis, we had more pressing needs.

The problem came in that there were zero pro bowl caliber DTs in that draft.

In fact, there were only two competent DLs in that entire draft, Anthony Spencer, and Lamar Woodley, and they both play DE.

Everybody who went DT in that draft got burned, badly.

Justin Harrell, bust. Adam Carriker, bust. Hell, the best DT out of that entire draft may have been Alan friggin' Branch..

 

I don't blame the Texans for picking Amobi Okoye. He was good at Louisville, a workout wonder, and drafted as a 19-year-old, 4-year college graduate. And the best player left on the board would have shared a position with our reigning Defensive Rookie of the Year. If there's ever been a more obvious pick, I haven't seen it. In hindsight, it hasn't worked out well, but on draft day, it made a ton of sense.

That doesn't excuse the rest of the busts, but the Okoye pick is completely excusable.

 

Texans took Kareem Jackson
New England Patriots took Devin McCourty

Forget coaching up and all that,

I really believe you could watch tape and tell which was a better prospect and it has proven out on the field this season.

That sums it up.

Kubiak could have sat in front of You Tube and seen that McCourty was a better CB IMO.

We do not draft well.

Cushing vs. Matthews ?

It is what it is, teams that draft well have better players.