“Houston, we have a problem.”
After an absolutely awful performance in Week One of the NFL schedule, the Texans outdid themselves in their home opener by rolling over and playing dead to the Pittsburgh Steelers, 27-7. This is a Texans team that is clearly in turmoil, as most of the players are lifeless and merely going through the motions. In fact, the Texans are beginning to resemble those vintage Oiler disaster-teams of the early 1970’s.
QB David Carr is now officially a basket-case who is reverting to survival instincts in the face of even a moderate pass rush from the opposition. Unfortunately for Carr and the Texans, even that approach is not doing much good as Carr was sacked eight times by the Steelers and vented his frustration openly on the field and on the sidelines throughout the game. In fact, a Steelers linebacker Joey Porter was quoted with the following after the game by media reporters:
“[Carr] didn’t know what to do. We had him confused. He was arguing with his offensive linemen. It’s always a good sign for the defense when the quarterback’s yelling at his teammates.”
“Sometimes he sacked himself. He was running everywhere, (taking) delay of games, throwing the ball in the dirt, taking sacks, running into guys — he was scrambling for no reason at times.”Texans offensive coordinator Chris Palmer was not exactly ebullient with his QB, either:
“They scramble around and make plays. We scramble around and we don’t make plays.”
Not a ringing endorsement of the Texans’ first draft choice in franchise history.
Meanwhile, the Texans defense remains incapable of generating any meaningful pass rush on the opposition’s QB, so the Steelers were able to gain huge chunks of yardage through the air on Sunday. By the way, would someone please introduce new Texan cornerback Phillip Buchanon to Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward?
Frankly, Texans owner Bob McNair has some tough questions to address with the Texans football management. The Texans problem is that they do not have enough good players to compete with teams such as the Steelers, and the responsibility for that deficiency is squarely in the lap of Texans General Manager Charlie Casserly. The Texans have drafted 40 players in four NFL Drafts and, from what I can see, only three players taken in those drafts — WR Andre Johnson, RB Domanick Davis, and CB Dunta Robinson — are better than average NFL players. That appears to be an extremely poor drafting record for any NFL team, but particularly for an expansion team such as the Texans. It may not be time to clean house, but it’s sure time to start addressing what’s wrong with the Texans’ plan or the execution of that plan.
Finally, one key hint to the Texans’ front office — give up on this silly notion that the Texans achieve some type of competitive advantage over the opposition by keeping the roof of Reliant Stadium open on a brutally hot afternoon when tempuratures in the sunlight in the stadium easily exceeded 100 degrees.
The Texans will be underdogs against their open week this coming Sunday, while they travel to Cincinnati in two weeks to get pummelled by the red-hot Bengals.
Update: The good news is that the offensive coordinator has been replaced. The bad news is that the new offensive coordinator is the offensive line coach! Can you say “Rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic?”
Does anyone else think that freshman RB Jamaal Charles looks a lot better than Cedric Benson did as a freshman?
The Horns (3-0) toyed with Rice (0-2) before taking the next week off. The Horns travel to Missouri for a warm-up game before taking on the Sooners in Dallas on October 8th. Given OU’s troubles, the Horns biggest problem against OU this season may be over-confidence. Rice (0-2) has tough games against Navy in Houston next weekend and then at UAB the following weekend, so an 0-4 start is a distinct possibility for the Owls.
Despite the loss to Clemson in their first game, my sense is that the Ags (1-1) are going to be a very good team by the end of this season and may be — along with Tech — one of the only teams that can give the Horns a run for their money this season. This is a very fast, strong and deep Aggie team that runs and passes the ball equally well. If the defense improves over the course of the season, this bunch could develop into a Top Ten team. The Ags get a JV game against Texas State next week before hosting Baylor the following week in their initial Big 12 game of the season.
The Coogs (1-2) are a frustrating team to watch. They clearly have some talented skill position players who can break an exciting TD run or pass at virtually any time. Meanwhile, however, their games are a mish-mash of penalties, sacks, fumbles, turnovers, missed assignments and poor tackling. I’m not sure that this is entertainment. The Cougars host Southern Miss next Saturday.
Finally, remember to check out Kevin Whited’s weekly Big 12 report for analysis of the rest of games involving the rest of the Big 12 Conference.
On the Texans: Given the advantages an expansion team has in drafting, it’s really unfortunate that a competitive, long-term nucleus wasn’t assembled for this team. That’s all on Casserly. I continue to hold out hope that David Carr might be a serviceable quarterback if the team can get the right offensive coordinator/QB coach in place, but frankly, neither Palmer nor Pendry inspire any confidence in that regard.
On the Coogs: I’m starting to question the wisdom of hiring a guy who had never been a coordinator at the college level and then putting other high school coaches all around him. I think Briles might make a fine college offensive coordinator and hope that he will grow into the head coaching job, but the team just seems plagued with problems of discipline, and general ineptitude on special teams/defense. Even though they won some games the first season, the same things were true really.
The fact that the Texans are $8 million under the salary cap, yet have a patchwork offensive line, is totally ridiculous and outright shameful. Casserly has drafted terribly, as was his record in Washington, for the most part. The last two first round picks have been a joke – we basically drafted projects on a team that needs help now. I just don’t get it.
Carr, a reach at the number one pick to begin with (oh that we had taken Julius Peppers), has degenerated into a lower-tier QB with confidence and attitude problems – basically Brian Griese with good hair. Since Griese has seemingly been reclaimed from the scrap heap into something servicable in Tampa, there is hope yet for Carr. However, if we don’t get better receivers (Johnson excepted), and a more offensive-minded tight end, we are pretty much doomed.
As far as the defense, anybody understand the thinking behind releasing Sharper and essentially forcing Glenn off the team? I sure don’t.
Don, the only observations that I can make are that the Texans flirtation with Pace in the off-season reflects that (i) they understood the OLine problems, and (ii) their decision not to go after anyone else when the Pace deal fell through reflects their opinion that the market for available OLineman did not justify the price they would have to pay.
With regard to the decisions on Sharper and Glenn, it appears that those were purely economic decisions. However, as you point out, if you aren’t going to use the money to help the team in other areas, what’s the point?
The cause of the Texans’ offensive ineptitude is much more deep-reaching than any one position or draft mistake. When you combine a shaky O-line, a frantic QB, a below-average running game and a WR corps with only one above-average playmaker, the result will certainly be terrible.
To me, the finger-pointing is too widespread to be productive. Whether or not you like Carr, he’s not going anywhere, and Banks/Ragone offer no potential for an upgrade. Unfortunately, I don’t think that the Seahawks would trade Darrell Jackson for Jason Babin, so the receiving corps is not going to be upgraded until next season at the earliest. Capers and others have said that much of the blame for the sack totals is more accurately placed on Davis, the tight ends and Carr than on the offensive line. What’s needed are effective solutions and ideas, and Joe P has 13 days to come up with some.
It’s very hard to build a great O-line through free agency – most of the time its done through the draft, so that makes it all the more mystifying as to why the Texans have failed to do this. Yes, an O-lineman would have been a reach at our draft position, but the Patriots took one with the 30th pick and he’s starting.
Incredibly, only 5 of the Texans 40 draft choices over the past four drafts have been real offensive linemen (I didn’t count one who was drafted as a long snapper), only one in the past two drafts. The underwhelming Chester Pitts is the only starter among the group.
It was bad, but at least it was hot and sticky
We all know Monday’s firing of Chris Palmer was an unfortunate, but necessary thing. Such is life in the NFL. AUDIO: Chronicle’s John P. Lopez: Palmer’s firing was needed function MM_openBrWindow(theURL,winName,features) { //v1.2 window.open(theURL,win…