Is Mercilus still on the team? Great first round draft pick, Rick Smith. If he shows improvement, he can become a Travis Johnson or Amobi Okoye type player for us.
"Once Cushing went down, we had no LB depth to pick up the slack. You can't win many games with no LBs." Bob McNair announcing why Kubiak will return for year 9.
man it sounds like we are tanking now. Manziel/Mariota/Bridgewater 2014 No we just need to let the jags beat us two times this year and it will come into frution. There is one moral victory we can get this year. That is beat Indy in Indy and go 3-13.
Mercilus is actually tied with Watt for most sacks on the team with 4.5 (tied for 15th in the NFL) and he's already surpassed last seasons total in tackles. He's on pace to have a similar season (if not better) to what Connor Barwin had the year he had 11.5 sacks. Not really that bad for his 2nd year, though I see why people would want more of an immediate impact from a 1st rounder, especially with the way Watt exploded in his 2nd year. And even though Mercilus hasn't been bad, he hasn't been front and center and hasn't gotten a lot of attention and tends to be overlooked.
"Lost patience." <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>The coaches ran out of patience with injured ILB Tim Dobbins, who had been out with a hamstring injuries. They have 5 roster spots open.</p>— John McClain (@McClain_on_NFL) <a href="https://twitter.com/McClain_on_NFL/statuses/392765565153984512">October 22, 2013</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
What people forget is that the OLB's are supposed to be the ones getting most of the sacks in this system... not your interior DE (which is what Watt is). The fact that Watt can get as many sacks as he can is more of a testament to how amazing he is... not the system. The fact that our OLB's are putting up "average" or worse OLB production in a system where they're supposed to dominate IS a problem, especially when they've been first and second round picks. Wade's OLB's are called on to rush the QB almost every single play... so they will get sacks/hurries simply based on the volume of rushes they perform. However, you need either really high sack #'s or a ton of hits to have a measurable impact. Best case scenario is that Reed finds new life as an ILB (which this team may need desperately more than ever given the fact that Cushing may never come back to 100%), and Mercilus ends up better than Connor Barwin (which isn't asking for that much considering he was a 1st round pick).
LMAO, fans cheering when our player gets hurt, cutting players for smoking cigars, and now coaching staff cuts players because they are taking too long to recover from injury. That's surely going to endear the Houston Texans to any potential free agents out there.
This is just an excuse to go 4-0-7 so they can give studs like Keo, Harris, and McCain more playtime.
Can we fire Kubiak already? Let Wade Phillips audition for the remainder of the season as interim HC. But in reality the whole regime needs a change. We can't let Kubiak play out the season. The excuses are gonna mount up. You can feel them coming. Kubiak is like a cyst, you gotta pop him when you can or else it'll get bigger.
When it rains it pours.... 4 cuts in 48 hours including a 3rd rounder is going to bring out the dogs when you have lost 5 in a row and have sucked for nearly a season now.
Maybe it gets some players attention, but anyways he was the only player that didn't attend minicamp or ota's , also old, slow, and injured.
I think it is interesting in how this forum views the cuts vs a forum like Texanstalk. I think the cuts make a lot of sense considering it is a bye week. Now is the time to try out players and get them into your system so now is the time to cut deadweight. Which is what Dobbins has been this season. Dobbins wasn't going to affect the season any ways in a good or bad way. May as well poach some practice squads or FA in hopes to find another spark. Now they have the roster space to do so.
