Chronicle sportswriter John Lopez has a good column today regarding the poor personnel moves of Texans’ general manager Charlie Casserly that have been primarily responsible for the Texans’ disastrous season this year. Included in the article was the following quote from Casserly:
“We’re 1-7, but we’re not a 1-7 team,” Casserly said. “This isn’t a sinking ship deal. I’m not trying to blame coaching or anything like that. Sometimes these things just happen. If we make a couple of good moves, boom, we’re back to where we should be next year.”
H’mm. Of their eight games this season, the Texans have been competitive in precisely three. QB David Carr continues to be sacked more than any other quarterback in the NFL, and the defense is one of the worst in the league in terms of stopping the run and in sacking the opposing team’s quarterback. Sounds precisely like a 1-7 team to me.
Oh well, at least Casserly doesn’t blog.
I saw that early this morning, and wondered if you’d have a comment. 🙂
This was fun:
I’m not trying to blame coaching or anything like that.
I’m not blaming the coaches, BUT…. 🙂
This is essentially the same team that played much better than 1-7 football for the majority of the season in 2004. They have played much worse in 2005 and deserve their 1-7 record, but I understand and agree with what Casserly seems to be implying here.
It’s not essentially the same defense, Scott. The Texans released their leading tackler (Sharper) and signed an undersized MLB (Greenwood), brought in an overrated, short little corner (Buchanon) to replace a proven, though aging cover corner (Glenn), moved Wong out of position, who’s now been replaced by injury anyway. We still get no sacks and can’t stop the run.
The O-line is still terrible, if that’s what you mean. The players seem to have tuned out Capers and staff, agree with you there. Same thing that happened to him in Carolina.
Sharper averaged 1.6 tackles per game more through the first 8 games of 2004 than Greenwood has averaged through the first 8 games of 2005 and was due to cost significantly more. That move was lateral, at best, for 2005, but upgraded the speed and the salary-cap flexibility of the defense in the long-term, which to me offsets Sharper’s missing short-term attributes.
Glenn was considerably over-the-hill last season and has proven to be the same as a below-average nickel corner in Dallas in 2005. Buchanan’s been a bust thus far, but he’s in a contract year and in my opinion, his upside made him worth the gamble. It’s not like Faggins/Simmons/Sanders were better options either.
The one move that was made that was horrendous from the start was signing fat journeyman RT Victor Riley the starting LT position. I’ve yet to hear a good explanation for that gem.
Wong got zero pressure on the QB from the OLB position and was moved to a position where he had previously prospered, MLB, and was replaced at OLB by Peek, for whom Texans’ fans were clamoring to see for two seasons.
I agree wholeheartedly that the Texans have been sorry this year, but those moves that you mentioned are not to blame. You’ve got a 3-4 defense playing conservative, contain-type schemes rather than aggressive, attacking schemes, which contradicts the whole idea behind playing the 3-4. You’ve got an offense whose stated philosophy is to “get it to 3rd down and short”, not “make first downs” or “score points” and that converts 3rd downs at a 35% clip, so that the odds of them sustaining a long drive to score points are horrendous. Additionally, you’ve played most of your games without your only playmaker in Andre Johnson. To top it all off, you’ve got a QB who would not recognize a pocket if it was on his Wranglers and who completely lacks composure and productive decision-making skills. Sure, the O-line has not helped, but a terribly high percentage of the sacks that Carr’s taken this year have been his own fault, not that of his blockers.