Following this post from last month, the Chronicle’s Richard Justice continues to lead the cheerleading (see also here) for the Houston Texans:

Times have changed. The Texans have this city’s best owner in Bob McNair. They have competent people in charge, especially GM Rick Smith. They’ve got a core of talented under players around which to build, and for the first time, they’ve got veteran leadership. The Texans seem headed for respectability in Gary Kubiak’s second year on the job.

Interestingly, Justice’s effusive praise of the Kubiak-Smith regime sounds remarkably similar to the following September 12, 2004 article ($) extolling the talents of the now disgraced Charlie Casserly and Dom Capers:

The Texans have made good use of their honeymoon. They’ve drafted wisely and spent shrewdly on free agents. They’ve assembled a front office admired around the NFL. Their players seem to be quality people. [. . .]
The danger for them is that their greatest strength could become their greatest weakness. They’ve done so many things right and have built such a model operation that it’s impossible not to put expectations on a fast track. [. . .]
So far, it’s impossible not to be impressed with what the Texans have done. They are run as efficiently as any sports franchise I’ve ever been around.
Just before the start of training camp, Casserly gathered his employees and thanked them for all their hard work. Then he went down the list of different departments and explained some little thing each had done that made the team – and the organization – better.
That’s the kind of thing the people who run sports franchises almost never do, and it left every person who was mentioned proud to be associated with the Texans.[. . .]
Capers believes it’s vital to emphasize doing things right because “if you ever slip, you can never get it back.”
So far, the Texans haven’t slipped in any significant way.

That sunny appraisal of the Casserly-Capers regime was immediately before Year Threee, and Justice held on to that view well into the disastrous 2-14 Year Four when most reasonably well-informed folks had concluded that the direction of the franchise needed to change. Of course, Justice eventually embraced a disparaging view of Casserly and Capers as if he had doubts about the two from the beginning.
Justice may be right about the current direction of the franchise under Kubiak and Smith, but it’s worth noting that the chronic left offensive tackle problem has not been resolved, the pass rush remains unproven, no receiver has emerged to force teams to back off double teaming Andre Johnson, the running back position has no gamebreaker and a porous defensive secondary has not been upgraded. A little more objectivity from Justice about the Texans’ situation may allow his analysis of the team to age a bit better.

As noted in this earlier post, Chronicle sportswriter Richard Justice was a devoted supporter of the Charlie Casserly tenure as Texans general manager far beyond the time that most reasoned observers had concluded that Texans ship was leaking profusely. After the Texans bottomed out at the end of their horrid 2005 season, Justice finally turned on Casserly with the same vehemance that he previously used in supporting him. Since then, Justice has routinely mocked Casserly and former Texans coach, Dom Capers.
Now, on the heels of this weekend’s NFL Draft, Justice is drinking the Kool-Aid again with regard to the tenure of the Gary Kubiak/Rick Smith regime with the Texans:

The Texans are going to be a long time escaping their past. But these are not the Texans of 2004 or 2005. Check the facts. They haven’t done a single dumb thing since Charley Casserly left the organization. Not one. They’ll win your confidence only by winning on the field. That’s why next season will be interesting.

H’mm. Kubiak and Smith haven’t done “a single dumb thing” since taking over? That offense from last season sure could have fooled one into thinking that Kubiak and Smith had done a “dumb thing” or two since coming on the scene.
Frankly, my sense is that the Texans draft this year was rather underwhelming (an opinion shared by one local draft expert). Okoye, the number one draft choice, is a fairly raw 19 year old playing at a position (defensive tackle) in which he will be pitted against wily veterans; it’s by no mean certain that he will be any more successful next season than first round draft choice Mario Williams was last season. The Texans next draft choice — third round WR Jacoby Jones (the Texans didn’t have a second round pick) — does not even appear likely to start next season. In fact, absent injury, none of the Texans’ 2007 draft choices outside of Okoye are sure bets to be in the starting lineup for the Texans next season.
Granted, it might actually be a good thing if most of the Texans’ 2007 draft choices aren’t expected to start next season because that would indicate that the Texans are developing the type of depth that is necessary to contend for the playoffs in the NFL. Likewise, those draft choices cannot be fairly evaluated for several years. But Justice’s chronic cheerleading for the Texans is better left for the team’s website, not for a newspaper that is supposedly dedicated to providing objective analysis of news events.

Today is the beginning of the annual two-day media feeding frenzy known as the National Football League Draft, which I’m beginning to think is becoming more popular than the NFL games themselves. Channeling research about the draft that was addressed in this earlier post, the WSJ’s ($) Allen St. John notes that football fans should not be as concerned with what star players take in the first couple of rounds, but rather should focus on the hidden gems that their team takes in the later rounds:

So, in general, how well does the NFL draft do in finding future stars? A look at the All-Pro teams of the past five years reveals some surprises. Of the 80 position players who made the All-Pro teams since 2002, 35, or 44%, were not drafted in the first round. That means that practically every NFL team passed on them at least once. And 21 All-Pros weren’t picked until the third round — or later.
How many No. 1 draft picks were All-Pros over that period? One: Peyton Manning of the Indianapolis Colts. Five players who went totally undrafted — running back Priest Holmes, tight end Antonio Gates, fullback Mack Strong, center Jeff Saturday and offensive lineman Brian Waters — earned that honor. [. . .]
Even more important than spending first-round picks wisely is being able to tab superstars in the later rounds. To measure that we’ll use APDA, or All-Pro Draft Average, which averages the overall draft slot for a team’s All-Pros. (Undrafted players are ranked as if they were taken after the last player drafted that year.)
Which team found the most diamonds in the rough? The San Diego Chargers — with an 80.3 ranking. They selected four All-Pros after round two, including Mr. Gates, a three-time All-Pro. The Ravens were next at 70.9, thanks largely to drafting linebacker Adalius Thomas in the sixth round and signing undrafted running back Priest Holmes (who would achieve fame with the Kansas City Chiefs). The NFC leader: the Panthers (40.8), followed by the New York Giants (36.5). [. . .]
So if your favorite team doesn’t have a top pick, don’t sweat it. APDA reveals that in today’s NFL, potential superstars are available in the second round — or second day of the draft. The trick, as the league’s most successful teams know, is to find them.

Although the Texans drafts are routinely trashed in the mainstream media, the Texans drafted All-Pros in WR Andre Johnson, KR Jerome Mathis, and LB DeMeco Ryans, a potentially All-Pro caliber CB in Dunta Robinson, and have had a reasonable degree of success in picking decent players in the later rounds. On the other hand, the Texans’ non-draft acquisitions (think Tony Boselli and Philip Buchanan) have been unproductive, which has a lot more to do with the team’s relative lack of success than the team’s draft picks.
Finally, if you still think that the Texans’ first round draft picks have been bad, take a look at this hilarious video of the announcements over the years pertaining to the New York Jets draft picks:

What was that about David Carr taking the high road about his divorce from the Texans? Check out the following remarks from this ESPN.com article:

As the losses and sacks kept piling up, football stopped being fun for David Carr. [. . .]
Now with Carolina Panthers, Carr is smiling again — even though he will be a backup for the first time.
“I’ve been on an expansion team and it’s not fun. … I’ve been on teams that aren’t winning and it wasn’t exciting. Football is a hard enough game when you go out there and you’re battling everything and you go out and lose it makes it hard.”
“You get to a point where you’re in survival mode, which is hard for me,” Carr said Friday, a week after agreeing on a two-year, $6.2 million deal to be the Panthers’ No. 2 QB behind Jake Delhomme.
“Honestly in the last five years we haven’t had much spark. If we were stuck in the forest it would be hard to light a fire with what we had going on.”
Carr expressed some resentment Friday toward the Houston Texans, who released him last month after they acquired Matt Schaub in a trade with Atlanta. Schaub was then quickly anointed the starter.
Carr may have had chances to start elsewhere — he visited Oakland — but chose Carolina because he wanted to play for a team that has a chance to win.
“I’ve been on an expansion team and it’s not fun,” Carr said of being the first pick by the Texans. “I’ve been on teams that aren’t winning and it wasn’t exciting. Football is a hard enough game when you go out there and you’re battling everything and you go out and lose it makes it hard. I wanted to be on a team that was fun and exciting and whether I had a chance to play right away, it didn’t matter to me.”
Carr also made it clear he wanted to play for a team with an established offensive line. Carr completed 60 percent of his passes with the Texans, including a career-high 68 percent last season. But Carr also 65 interceptions over five seasons as he faced nearly constant pressure.
So it wasn’t surprising Carr quickly sought out members of Carolina’s line. Tackle Jordan Gross was one of the first Panthers he met.
“If I learned anything in the last five years, that’s where football games are won and lost,” Carr said. [. . .]
It’s believed the 6-foot-3 Carr, who won’t turn 28 until July, could blossom when he has time to throw. With Delhomme and the Panthers coming off a disappointing 8-8 season, it’s been suggested Carr could quickly challenge for the No. 1 job. [. . .]
Carr also insisted Friday he’s content as a backup — and ready take a break from running away from defensive linemen.
“I need to take a deep breath and be around a good environment and just start enjoying the game again,” Carr said. “In the last week or two, it’s brought back a lot of excitement that I had when I was younger.” [. . .]
Carr said he’s returning to Charlotte Monday with his wife, and will take part in the team’s offseason conditioning program, while pouring over the playbook.
“It’s funny, the day I was signed by Carolina, I was throwing balls the next day. I’ve never done that before,” Carr said. “I was out there throwing a ball for two or three hours and I couldn’t really explain it except I was excited to get a new opportunity and a chance to show what I can do.”

H’mm. I wonder what Carr’s former offensive line teammates would say about his poor pocket presence, defective throwing motion, inability to pick up secondary receivers and dubious leadership qualities? I guess none of that contributed to the Texans’ poor performance over the past five seasons.

It’s been a tough past few days for Texas A&M faithful, what with losing their up-and-coming basketball coach to Kentucky and all. But at least the Ags have hired former Wichita State head coach Mark Turgeon as their new basketball coach and they have their true second favorite sport (behind football) — spring football practice — to fall back on. With the annual Maroon & White intrasquad game coming up this weekend, a friend passed along the following progression of how a typical Aggie football fan sizes up the upcoming football season as the off-season progresses toward the first game in the fall:

In December, immediately after the conclusion of the last game of the prior season: “We are full of more holes than a block of swiss cheese. In all likelihood, we win 5 games next season.”
In March: “Well, we signed a solid class with some kids that can contribute. Add in the guys that redshirted and we’ll surprise some folks next year. Pencil at least 7 in the win column for 2004.”
In May: “Spring practices went well, and after seeing our squad in action at the Maroon & White Game, we’ve come a long way since the end of last year. I think 9 wins is do-able.”
In August: “Everyone really hit the weightroom hard this summer, and the team stayed polished with the voluntary workouts on the practice fields. We are much bigger and faster across the board, and reports from two-a-days are very, very positive. A BCS bowl game is within this team’s grasp.”
After first game: “Wow, Wyoming will probably win 10 games this year. That was a close one.”

Following on this weekend post on the end of the David Carr era for the Houston Texans, John Lopez — who for my money is the Chronicle’s best sportswriter — provides this column that provides the type of insight (i.e., how the relationship between Texans owner Bob McNair and Carr protracted the Texans’ mistake in relying on Carr) that was utterly missing from fellow Chronicle sports columnist Richard Justice’s commentary on Carr’s exit:

McNair loved David Carr until it hurt. That was the biggest problem of all.
For all the other things that hurt this club, all the people and decisions involved, all the bad luck and bad contracts, it was the relationship between owner and quarterback that set so many things spiraling downward.
McNair loved all the things Carr stood for as a man, a husband and father. He loved the way Carr handled himself as the face of the franchise.
Love was blind.
The Texans, specifically coach Gary Kubiak and general manager Rick Smith, are in one fine mess now, their careers clinging to a life preserver named Matt Schaub, for a number of reasons. Many of the problems, they inherited. But it started with McNair investing too much emotionally.

Read the entire column. Lopez is on the money that there are operational problems in the Texans front office in the area of player evaluation and contract negotiation. It’s not clear to me by any stretch that the Kubiak coaching regime has corrected those problems.
By the way, the current thinking around the NFL is that Carr will be reunited with former Texans coach Dom Capers (now the defensive coordinator) in Miami.

The David Carr era of the Houston Texans came to a merciful end yesterday as the Texans released Carr, the team’s first NFL draft pick in its five year history.
I didn’t agree with the Texans decision to take Carr as the first overall pick in the 2002 NFL draft and I expressed skepticism about him in each of my three pre-season previews of the Texans since starting this blog back in early 2004 (see here, here and here). Carr’s performance really deteriorated over this past season, (here, here and here), so he became essentially untradeable. It’s true that the Texans’ porous offensive line subjected Carr to an inhumane amount of physical abuse over the years, but effectiveness in football is much more interdependent on one’s teammates than, say, baseball, and Carr’s lack of development over his five seasons certainly didn’t help the OLine, either.
The Texans decision to release Carr and trade for Falcons backup QB Matt Schaub has been the talk of the town the past couple of days, and the reactions have been all over the map. One of the more curious ones has been that of Chronicle sports columnist Richard Justice, who is self-righteously indignant that Carr didn’t work out in Houston:

What we’ll never know is what would have happened if Carr had gotten with an organization that knew what it was doing. The Texans never protected him or coached him, never put enough talent around him. Shame on you, Charley Casserly. Shame on you, too, Bob McNair. Maybe you guys were wrong about what David Carr could have been, but you never gave him a chance to find out.

Of course, this is the same Richard Justice who, as recently as a year and a half ago, was effusive in his praise of both Carr and Texans management during the middle of the team’s free-fall from a promising expansion team to a laughingstock of the NFL:

The Texans are respectable. They’re coming close. They’ve got four 2-7 teams left on their schedule. They almost won in Jacksonville, and they made a run at the Indianapolis Colts before losing 31-17 Sunday. [. . .]
The Texans are a better offensive team since [since-fired offensive coordinator Joe] Pendry took over [for the fired Chris Palmer]. David Carr looks like he’s on his way to becoming a first-rate quarterback. He’s quicker and more accurate in his throws, less likely to take a sack.

In reality, Casserly and McNair were constantly attempting to upgrade the talent around Carr, they simply weren’t able to pull it off. Tony Boselli and Orlando Pace are just two of several top-level offensive linemen who the Texans unsuccessfully attempted to hire as an anchor for the OLine over the past five years. Granted, Casserly and McNair didn’t get it done, but it sure wasn’t for lack of trying. Justice is being petty in not pointing that out.
Meanwhile, Justice gushes over the progress of the Texans under the Gary Kubiak regime:

If you care about the Texans, you should be happy this morning. A page has been turned. Moving on, moving up. In two off-seasons under Gary Kubiak and Rick Smith, the Texans have undergone a significant facelift. By the beginning of next season, there’ll be few reminders of the [former coach] Dom [Capers] and [former GM] Charley [Casserly] era.
You should be happy about your new quarterback. Matt Schaub has a chance to be really good. He’s no sure thing, but Jake Plummer, Jeff Garcia and Brady Quinn aren’t sure things, either.
The Texans paid a high price for Schaub and they’re taking a chance. No franchise gets better without taking some chances. Let’s be optimistic for a second. Let’s pretend the glass is half-full.
They’ve got a Pro Bowl wide receiver on one side of the field in Andre Johnson. They’ve got a very good tight end in Owen Daniels. They’ve got a productive runnning back in Ahman Green. Hopefully, they’ll match the offer to FB Vonta Leach. They’ve got more depth and talent in the O-line than ever before. If they can find another receiver in the draft, they’ll have the makings of a very good offense. [. . .]
The bottom line is they’re making progress. They’ve added a running back and a quarterback and a bunch of experienced, professional guys. If they have a good draft, they’ll be positioned for their first .500 season.

Maybe so, but in addition to coughing up $48 million over six years for a guy who has never been a starting NFL quarterback, the Texans dealt some serious draft-day compensation to land new QB Schaub. Was it too much? Probably not, particularly given that a quarterback taken in the first round of the draft is not an even money bet of developing into an above-average NFL QB. For every John Elway, Peyton, Troy Aikman or Carson Palmer, there are far more David Carr’s, Tim Couch’s, Akili Smith’s and Ryan Leaf’s.
But while continuing to bash McNair and the previous Casserly-Capers regime, why is Justice giving Kubiak a pass on the first key decision that he made in his tenure as the Texans coach — that is, Kubiak’s initial blunder in agreeing to retain Carr in the first place? That decision was as bad as any of the dubious decisions of the Casserly era. The Texans paid an $8 million option bonus after the 2005 season ended and before Kubiak was hired to secure the rights to Carr for three more seasons, so maybe Kubiak took the Texans head coaching job without really having any choice but to keep Carr. But by not pressing the issue that Carr was an inadequate QB last year, Kubiak blew an opportunity to dangle the No. overall 1 pick during the 2006 NFL draft in a trade. A trade of that spot could have easily allowed the Texans to receive some much-needed value plus move back a few spots in the draft and still draft either Matt Leinart, Jay Cutler or Vince Young, the Houston and UT icon who went on to win the NFL offensive Rookie of the Year Award and become the first rookie quarterback to play in the NFL Pro Bowl.
Justice may not care about any of that, but my sense is that most Texans fans won’t forget about it until Kubiak and Schaub are leading the team into the playoffs. From my vantage point, that still appears to be a long way’s off.

In terms of championship rings, it isn’t even a close call — the Patriots’ long-time linebacker and special teams ace, Larry Izzo, who has played on all three of the Patriots Super Bowl winners and who the team recently signed to another contract.
Izzo is pure Houston, having played collegiately at Rice from 1992-95 after starring in Texas high school football at The Woodlands, where he continues to live during the off-seaon. Izzo is an example of the specialized type of player that has become common in the NFL, which has limited rosters that place a premium on good special team players. Izzo is one of the best special teamers and has led the Patriots in special teams tackles in five of his six seasons in New England. Izzo has now completed 11 seasons in the NFL (he played his first five seasons in Miami).
Izzo’s career is of special interest to me because he put on one of the best single-game performances of any football player that I’ve ever seen while playing in a big game for The Woodlands High School against Westfield High School in 1991. Former Texas A&M coach Emory Bellard was coaching Westfield, which was loaded. The Woodlands had a pretty good team, too, but not as good as Westfield. Playing both ways at fullback and linebacker, as well as on most special teams, Izzo dominated the game, running and tackling with equal ferocity. He literally willed The Woodlands team to a close win in a game that Westfield would have won handily had Izzo not played.
Izzo is not among the most physically gifted football players that I’ve ever seen, but he is one of best football players that I’ve ever seen.