[Texans] Do We REALLY Need to Establish the Run?

Based on the Texans draft and trades-

Matt Schaub > David Carr > Vince Young < Jay Cutler > Matt Leinart > Vince Young< Sage Rosenfeld < Matt Schaub > David Carr


If I understand the Texans moves at QB it's clear to me that David Carr is the anti-christ.

 

you didn't do it initially, so far as i remember...

of course; he openly discussed it with the media - he rode carr hard from day 1. if schaub continues to turn the ball over at his current pace, we'll see kubiak riding him befre long as well.

the bigger point is this, max - i know one of your worst memories of carr was the pick he threw into quadruple coverage last year against tennessee... well, did you see schaub's second pick sunday? not only did he overthrow the intended receiver by 5-some odd yards, but there were no less than three chargers in the area.

in fact, when i saw the replay, the tennessee throw IMMEDIATELY jumped to mind. did it upset you similiarly? or are you giving schaub a longer leash than you did carr?

i evaluated carr the same way i'm evaluating schaub right now: first year starter. i know that conveniently sweeps a lot of shiite under the bridge with carr; but that's how incompetent/bad i thought the previous regime/team was. as far as i was concerned, he was starting completely over with a clean slate.

plus, even if i HADN'T done that, i never let 2005+ repaint my opinion of, say, how good he had been in 2004; or how many games he critically missed in 2003. etc.

so i'm not ready to bail on schaub at all, but: i dislike the idea of "let's not rag schaub; instead we'll continue to rag carr" attitude because it doesn't address the team and its glaring weaknesses.

did that make sense?

dunta also effusively praised carr after the colt game and stated how happy he was for him. he seems like a bit of whichever way the scoreboard is blowing kind of guy.

and i don't DENY any backstage frustration. but we NEVER saw any of it manifest itself while he was here, other than veiled shots from robinson. in fact, it started here in cc.net with speculation over moulds and that he likely regretted signing to play with carr... it then gained momentum: suddenly, there was speculation players would want to come here because of carr...

THAT'S why i wanted to nip it in the bud; idle, unfounded speculatation like that can feed the monster, and, as stated, there was plenty of HARD evidence to stack against carr.

AJ went to two pro bowls with carr. and, like you said, never said a cross word about him; not after he left and certainly not while he was here. which made the "speculation" irresponsible; not because there wasn't lurking validity, so much, but because "speculation" can become fact in this age.

the guy's off the deep end, no doubt. he also has a broken back. and... well, some hard-earned "i told ya so"s at the texans' expense given that the texans without him sure as hell look a lot like the texans with him.

but carr's never issued an "i told ya so" and likely never will; he never said a bad thing about the organization, the team, its fans or the city. i hoped he 'd find success in carolina because i felt sorry for the guy and what he endured here, and because he was always a good sport (for lack of a much better term). and i can understand disliking him while he was a texan and failing to win games, but... like i said, by all accounts, nice, professional guy.

so why the continued ire? his failure can't mask our failure.

 

ric --

i don't think speculation from a few fans on a rockets message board is important enough to become "irresponsible." fans speculate all the time. but that wasn't speculation pulled out of my butt...it was based on what i was seeing on the field and what i've seen for years from pro athletes.

i didn't get to see all of the game this last week...but yeah, i was really concerned with the fact that schaub threw 2 INT's. no doubt. i just saw carr do that stuff for 5 years...i'd seen enough. "longer leash" is ridiculous to me, ric. carr had about 80 or so starts to show us something different...schaub's had a grand total of about 9 in his entire career. yes, if at start 60 schaub appears to the same QB he was at start 9, i'll want him gone too.

and i've made it no secret that there was something in the way carr carried himself that made me not like him. RM95 pointed it out to me the year before and it surprised me...but the more i watched carr, the more i came to feel that way. at this point, i just find carr to be goofy. it's not ire at him at all...he's harmless. i'll NEVER understand the organizations decision to extend him....but that's done.

 

I'll agree with you on this but thats about it.

It is kind of ironic that he managed to withstand all the beatings here well for the most part. But now in carolina he suffers a big injury.

 

again, i think your perception of what, exactly, carr showed us is skewed... (read on)

i'm well aware of this. i'm also fully aware that, let's be perfectly honest about it, you hold him responsible for not being vince young, too. thus the: i'll NEVER understand the organizations decision to extend him....

not a knock against you for feeling that way; just that we both know it's a factor. fair? which leads to...

do you realize carr threw more TDs in each of his last three years than the current pace schaub is setting? yep. 16, 14, 11. schaub's pace is 10. in fact, carr threw 9 each of his first two seasons but missed 5 games in '03. regardless, schaub is on pace to produce the lowest TD total by a texan QB since 2003, when they were a 2nd-year expansion team.

also, carr NEVER threw more INTs than TDs in a season over that same period (despite playing on, record-wise, the worst team in football in 2005)? schaub's current pace is 10/15. btw, the 15 interceptions would be the most thrown by a texan QB since 2002, tying carr for that distinction. (to be fair, carr was on a 19-INT pace in '03; but finsihed with 11 due to the injury.)

finally, the schaub-led texans are on pace to win the exact same # of games as the carr-led texans from a year ago.

but your perception is that you "saw carr do that stuff for 5 years"?... did you maybe mean, "i hadn't seen carr do that stuff in five years"....? because schaub is on carr's '02 pace.

granted, i'm not excusing his INTs (or his play for that matter; nor am i slamming schuab); i'm trying to offer some perspective and see if maybe, just maybe, a carr interception, because of all the baggage you attached to it, didn't carry a little more weight than a schaub interception does these days...

i think the answer is pretty obvious. and when i defended carr, it was that perception/bias - whatever, that i felt like i was up against.

right now, i think schaub and carr are fairly interchangeable. carr is tougher, faster and has a much better arm; schaub is smarter and works the underneath game much better and has upside - how much, we'll see. that's what i've SEEN.

and that means, at least to me, that the team - yep, all those "excuses" - remain the REAL culprit. not the QBs. it's a pattern the team has to break.

 

Ric, if you had one pick, who would it be.

Carr or Schaub?

 

well, carr but only because i get the 2 2s back.

but i'm not meaning to compare the two; just showing some perspective. everyone drank the schaub kool-aid primarily, if not exclusively, because he WASN'T david carr. and now, lo and behold, he's generating similiar results, which tells me we have MUCH bigger issues (still) and that all the carr "excuses" have earned some legitimacy.

frankly, i'm luke-warm toward schaub. i think he cost too much; i don't care for his arm, he's "consistently" made bad decisions near the goal line (since preseason game 1 - i realize small smaple size; i'm just giving a mid-season evalu - not saying he can't or won't improve) and he doesn't appear tough nor atheltic.

having said all that, i think he can be a compenent piece of the puzzle. i thought the same of carr five years ago. here's hoping they do a better job building around schaub.

 

So ric, you have no problem grading schaub after a handful of games, but its unfair to evaluate Carr after 5+ seasons. Amazing

 

You know what: nobody said what you said here. That's what's so infuriating. You repeatedly misrepresent that one post of mine; then when I bring it up you puke all over the board with comments about how I'm "rubbing my nuts all over it" or something.

Yeah, those two things are exactly the same. Yeah, I was "making (expletive) up."

You misinterpreted my comment. I was wondering if. I was speculating. Never did I ever state that that was either factually the case or that I believed that was the case. I wondered about the possibility. It was clear to everyone but you.

My speculation didn't have as much merit as some of your speculation. You know what, I agree, Ric. I freaking AGREE! If I ever "speculate" again, I hereby vow to use even more obvious language so as to make sure all the feeble innocent minds can tell that I'm not speaking dogmatically.

Now BACK THE HELL OFF.

 

Yet at least twice since then you've speculated about something. Once someone asked something like "is that irresponsible speculation or wild-assed speculation" and you joked back, "just wild speculation."

Look, I'm all for poking fun at all of this stuff. We can joke around about speculating, we can joke around about players not wanting to play with Carr (when there is no evidence of that).

But if speculation is irresponsible, then it is. *All* of it. So, let's either realize the triviality of this whole sports talk thing, or you hold yourself to the same high-and-mighty standard you presume to hold the rest of us to.

 

Point of clarification: "we can joke around about saying that players don't want to play... (when there is no evidence)."

I'm all for poking fun at things, my own drivel not excluded.

 

1. VY isn't the only QB we didn't give consideration too. there were two others in that draft as well. there were free agents. i absolutely would have preferred VY...but that ship has sailed.

2. Carr was a #1 pick. We gave him a huge extension. I don't care what Schaub is doing right now in that comparison. Schaub is 9 starts into his career. If I don't see improvement from him, I'll want him gone too. It's really that simple. Watching Schaub throw INT's in start 9 is ENTIRELY ENTIRELY ENTIRELY different than watching Carr throw 4 in start 90.

3. Saying "right now Schaub and Carr are interchangeable" is worthless to me. Carr's been in the league as a starter since 02. Schaub is in his first season as a starter. I do not have the same expectations. Schaub has not had the time to improve.

4. I know you think highly of Kubiak. I think you think he knows what he's doing. I'm pretty certain he was involved in the decision to outright release David Carr and to sign Schaub to a big contract.