Vince Young is a hundred times the Houston fan than you. You are disrespecting him. He is ashamed and saddened.
Come on, Ric. You know it's the trendy thing to do to just say the Texans suck without watching the games or paying attention to the record. You're not very hip.
come on, ima. quite significantly? look at the teams around us in the draft. look at Tenn, NOLA, NYJ. those teams showed SIGNIFICANT improvement. we saw improvement here during the season, no doubt. and i think will likely continue to improve. but they didn't improve "quite significantly" when you put it in the context of other NFL teams who sucked as hard as we did last season. i don't know if this opinion makes me trendy or hip. but it's certainly my opinion.
Yes, they tripled the win total. However, I still didn't get the feeling from some of the victories that this was a team that could compete. The wins over the Raiders, Dolphins and Browns were lackluster at best. They simply played less bad than either of them. Yes, they played very well in the wins over the Colts and the Jags. It's the losses that concern me. They didn't just lose, they looked like a high school team. The losses to Washington and Buffalo at home were embarassing. Win those extremely winnable games and we have an 8-8 team. There were 5 games in which they weren't even competitive. I do think they're on the right path. The 2 wins to finish the season, regardless of how well they actually played, will do wonders. I'm just not trying to harbor any notions that there was significant improvement. There is a lot that needs to be changed.
Well, 3 times as many wins as the previous year seems pretty significant to me. Especially since we did it with a sucky QB, RB by committee, and injuries ALL OVER the O and D line. None of those teams were 2-14 the year before That's all I'm saying. Which team sucked as hard as we did last season? I don't know either. I'd probably have to know what kind of shoes you wear.
they were also a good GM away from being the New Orleans Saints they could have signed Drew Brees, but Drew Brees is a Texas product (high school) so that eliminates him from ever playing on the Texans.
max, tennessee and houston both improved by 4 wins this year - how is one team's identical progress worthy of an all cap SIGNIFICANT, but the other isn't? because they had less road to travel to respectable? the saints' turnaround has been vastly overrated; they were a 3-win team solely because of hurricane katrina. period. in the five years prior, they had a cumulative winning record. the jets are the one team of that group who really, truly had a leaps-and-bounds turnaround. but having said that, they played exactly 3 playoff teams (NE twice) and 7 who finished among the 10 worst teams in football, via record (MIA twice). houston, meanwhile, played 7 playoff teams (IND twice), and just 4 of the 10 worst teams in football. and to take it a little further - the jets played tennessee in week 1 - there's no way they beat tennessee today. and they traveled to buffalo in week 3 (winning by 8), well before the bills has righted their ship. when they met again in week 14 - in NY, no less with the jets playoff hope far from secure - buffalo won 31-13. so the jets did indeed turn it around SIGNIFICANTLY; but let's not get carried away - they had not only a significantly easier schedule, but a fairly fortuitous one as well. so i think you're being extremely unfair to the texans. their progress was significant.
I would like to see them improve- make the playoffs would be improvement. I certainly believe in Kubiak. That was an improvement. I obviously love Ryans- he was a big improvement. This offseason they need to draft very well. That will bring the fastest improvement, because there overall talent has not improved that much for the last 5 seasons- thus the 6-10 record. Last season the following areas did not improve- QB play secondary OL DL WR special teams the only improvement I saw was at middle linebacker- everything else was same as or less than edit- forgot, they improved at TE
Maybe I'm reading your post wrong, but did you expect them to make the playoffs 1 year after being 2-14? If you watched all 16 games (yes, I'm weird like that) you would have to say that the whole defense improved significantly as the year went on. And, thanks to injuries, they did it with a couple of DT's that they basically got off the street. Remember the Washington loss? Compare that with the Colts win.
sorry, addendum... the jets were 1-2 against playoff teams; 6-1 against the bad teams cited; the texans were 1-6 against playoff teams and 3-1 against the bad teams. so... trade their schedules, and no, houston doesn't win 10 games, but i bet it's more than 6; likely 8.
Perhaps because of this... The Titans started 0-5 and ended 8-3. You don't think that's significant progress? And 3 of those losses were with a different QB and 2 were with a QB making his first starts. The Texans improved over the course of the season on defense - significantly. But they also got significantly worse as the season went along on offense.
But you were saying the Texans and Titans improvements were similar. I would totally disagree. The Titans were 4-12 last year w/ Steve McNair and went to 8-8 without (closing 8-3). The Texans were 2-14 and went to 6-10 but kind of meandered through the season - that's the biggest concern to me.
in many, many ways - you're absolutely right. but it's comparing apples to oranges, and that's my issue. the texans were far and away the worst team in football last year (i nfact, tennessee beat the twice). so to hold them to a standard you're using for obviously better teams isn't being very fair-minded in regards to where the texans were or where they are a year later. you have to take each team in its own context. and in that regard, houston jumping from 2 to 6 wins in a year is just as significant as tennessee going from 4 to 8.
