Quick question, I'm rather slow so please point out the various threads about Tramon Williams. I'm not talking about threads in which he's been mentioned lately but rather threads started about him. If there are other threads started about him/Texans as opposed to just mentions in other threads then yah, please feel free to get Clutch to close this thread.
Strawman - no one is arguing that position. Sure - that's true NOW. At the time, he was no more likely to succeed than any of the other scrubs on the team, all of whom were more highly regarded league-wide than Tramon Williams. That's why 32 different teams passed over him 7 different times in the draft. NO coaching staff thought much of him - even Green Bay just took him as a random backup, and he did very little for their team over the next several years. It's no different than the Texans are Arian Foster. Sometimes, you just get lucky.
The counter on this is that Lance Z apparently wrote at the time that he thought it was a crazy, unwarranted cut. We weren't at the camps, but he was. I don't have a link, but it was brought up several times in the other threads. I also am not in the camp that this was a franchise-changing goof.....but like many others take this as one more sign that Kubiak has to be hit with a 4x4 to recognize talent. He needed a calender year to realize what he had in Foster, despite Slaton and Brown literally losing game after game for us. Even then, he severely underused what turned out to be the most dominant rusher in the league. He buried Nolan behind Wilson for no defensible reason other than "sticking with my guys" He's an anti-merit system guy that does not appear eager to take a hard look at what he has available and what''s out there....sort of like McNair above him. And it is holding the Texans WAY back.
LOL. Was the sarcasm really not strong enough that I needed the roll eyes? In all of the various discussions about this, Ric's argument has centered around taking as much credit away from Tramon William's personal talent/effort as possible as giving as much of it to everyone else as he can in a vain attempt to sell the idea that Tramon Williams would not be better than what we have in our secondary now had he stayed a Texan. While I agree he wouldn't have been a pro bowler, I feel comfortable assuming he is naturally more talented than the garbage we have and Smithiak made a mistake sending him packing those years ago. As I told ima, sure would be nice to have a coaching staff that could either 1) make players better themselves or 2) be able to identify guys who will get better later on. Relying on blind luck sums up the Texans and developing defensive players pretty much perfectly. Go Five N' Seveners!
Tramon Williams SPECIFICALLY isn't an indictment on this franchise for various reasons, all of which have been brought up in this thread, but if you throw him in with the fact that the Texans continue to trot out hot garbage on defense, and have no idea which players work for their system, then it paints a much broader, more depressing picture. I think it's just a matter of whether or not you want to look at the Tramon Williams situation alone as a reason why the Texans fail, or if you want to take his story as one of many. Either way, at the end of the day, I don't really think it can be debated whether or not he would have helped because we simply don't KNOW what kind of player he would have turned into if he had been a Texan all these years. I don't doubt AT ALL that this team would have cut him unnecessarily (according to Lance) because they have done nothing for me to keep faith in them, but it's still not a black and white issue like you're making it seem. I don't think a team has ever tested my fanhood the way the Texans are. I think they are towing an incredibly fine line with fans these days, and Bottom-line Bob better be on alert.
Wouldn't it be funny if Okoye got cut this year and became a force for a better defensive coach? It's coaching now and it will be coaching until Lubes and Rick leave.
The scary thing about that comment is one realizes that's how Wade Phillips operates. That's his belief, that's how he goes about business. He stuck with "his guys" in Dallas. Marion/Felix over Tashard for example.
Dude, nobody is saying they wouldn't like to have him NOW, but 5 years ago, it was entirely possible that he wasn't good enough to make the team even with all the scrubs we had. Nobody expected him to be this good down the road. He got passed over 255 times. 255! 23 CB's were taken in that draft. And in all likelihood, he wasn't the most pursued undrafted free agent either. Who here gave a **** that he was cut when it happened? Who even knew he was with the Texans until 2 weeks ago? Who had even heard his name before this season? I sure as hell hadn't. In retrospect, sure, we should've kept him. But that's not a good way to judge the decision. The fact is that nobody thought he was even worth a draft pick. Nobody thought he was worth a roster spot going into that season. And you know what? There might have been good reason for that and there probably was if all 32 teams felt that way. If it wasn't a bad decision at the time, then you can't fault them now. If you're going to do that, then you might as well fault every team in the league for every late round pick or undrafted player that ever went on to do something later.
I think you’re being WAY over the top here. He waded through the Williams/Bush/Baby Vince hype to select the best of that trio. He has now drafted 2 of the last 5 Defensive Rookies of the Year. He plucked Matt Schaub off the Falcon bench and made him a Pro Bowler; turned a 4th round pick (Owen Daniels) into a Pro Bowler and just sent two undrafted rookies to the Pro Bowl (Foster and Leach); Duane Brown and Eric Winston have been solid bookend tackles. Etc., etc. He has not been perfect – in fact, his draft record is rather shoddy. But I think he’s built a nice nucleus here, and even if you don’t buy into any of the above, releasing an undrafted rookie free agent isn’t a stinging indictment by any stretch.
That’s simply not true, DonnyMost. In fact, I don’t believe I’ve ever commented on Williams’ talent. I’ve simply stood up to any revisionist notion that the Texans released PRO BOWLER TRAMON WILLIAMS, which is patently untrue and disingenuous. Anyone that would argue on a platform of "talent trumps all" at the expense of the dozens of other factors that go into building a successful career in the NFL - as you have clearly done, repeatedly - is someone that simply doesn't know a lot about football. Yes, he is. Today. We’re talking about 4.5 years ago, you know – when he went undrafted, was released and then was out of work for two months before riding the Packers’ bench for nearly two years. I just abhor this type of lazy backseat analysis. It’s so Richard Justice of you. See my post above to emjohn – this idea that Tramon Williams is going to become the poster boy for Kubiak’s ineptness is absolutely, positively ridiculous. He turns Arian Foster into a rushing champion – but because he didn’t see Pro Bowl potential in a guy that took *five years to reach the Pro Bowl* - that’s his defining moment? What’s interesting is that a lot of us - including me, who’s been accused of being a Texan mouthpiece - are actually dismissing this on the very fertile ground that, talent aside, this regime has a terrible track record of developing young defensive talent, especially young defensive backs. So to argue Williams would have realized his potential here is, in many ways, to argue that our recently fired defensive coaches – both Smith’s and Bush’s staffs – are competent... Man, what an excuse-making, Texan apologist you are.
You have IMO been the biggest person in the Texans corner To hear you say that . .. says volumes [it is true btw] I think it comes back to my issue is it the COACH or the PLAYERS Has kubiak COACHED ANYONE UP?? Rocket River
I say this type of stuff repeatedly; I'm just not strung out on hateroin so any grays are lost in a sea of black and white vitriol.
how much credit do you give him for Schaub, Foster, and Daniels? What about the much-improved o-line?
