As regular as the sun rising, the Chronicle sports staff reverts to hometown cheerleaders during each pre-season training camp of the Houston Texans, chloroforming readers with puff pieces such as this Richard Justice column on new Texans wide-receiver, Eric Moulds.
For the first three seasons of the Texans, the training camp stories all lapped up the optimistic theme that the team was making steady progress behind the well-coordinated plan of owner Bob McNair, GM Charlie Casserly and head coach Dom Capers that had led the expansion team to the brink of being a playoff contender. Unfortunately, that theme fell rather flat last season as the bottom fell out for the Texans during a horrifying 2-14 season. It was rather comical to watch as Chronicle sportswriters John McClain and Justice went from fawning praise of the Texans during the pre-season to acerbic criticism just several weeks later during that awful season.
Given last year’s disastrous season, the Chronicle’s overall theme this pre-season is a bit different — the team has overhauled management and personnel, and the new, better-organized coaching staff and the new players who the Texans have brought in are moving the Texans in the right direction again. Maybe so, but there is no meaningful analysis in Justice’s column on Moulds that would lead an objective observor to conclude that the receiver is a significant upgrade over the seemingly serviceable Jabar Gaffney, the former Texans receiver who Moulds replaced.
Compare Justice’s fawning piece on Moulds with the following pre-season analysis by the folks at Football Prospectus, who base their evaluations of players primarily on objective criteria rather than subjective considerations:
Moulds has been an average receiver at best for several years now; even back in 2003, teammates such as Bobby Shaw outranked him in DPAR (“points above replacement-level player”). But the national media still considers Moulds an elite talent because the Bills throw him 150 passes per year, and he still has one or two 9-catch, 120-yard games each season, usually when the Bills are being beaten handily. The new Bills brain trust finally figured out that Moulds’ best years were behind him, and they did everythign but throw his cleats into a trash dumpster in their effort to get rid of him this spring. Moulds is a top candidate to fall off the map in 2006.
In short, based on objective criteria, Moulds’ decline in productivity has been masked by the fact that his former team threw to him frequently, albeit ineffectively. Thus, objective analysis suggests that the Texans overpaid for Moulds and that he will not be any better than a replacement-level player. Justice’s column might make you feel better about Moulds for awhile, but my sense is that most serious followers of the Texans and the NFL prefer the cold, hard facts to the type of subjective blather that the Chronicle regularly fees us during the Texans’ pre-season camp.
By the way, for current information on the Texans, check out the Chronicle’s new blog, Stephanie Stradley’s Texans Chick. Stephanie is an unabashed Texans’ fan, so she is unfailingly optimistic about the team and its players. However, she does pass along quite a bit interesting information and analysis on the Texans and its players that is not available from the Chronicle’s other sources. I recommend giving Stephanie’s blog a look.
Even if you accept the judgment of the Football Prospectus over Kubiak and the rest of the Texans brain trust, I still think that Moulds brings some intangibles to the No. 2 receiver slot that are worth having (albeit maybe not for the price paid). And if he can just hold on to the sorts of throws that clanged off Jabar Gaffney’s hands, he’ll be an upgrade (albeit maybe one who was too expensive).
Besides, what are people gonna write about at the moment? The fact that Domanick Davis is injured, the team has no legit NFL starter at the position, the fears that Reggie Bush would hold out proved unfounded, and Mario Williams can’t play RB? 🙂
Thanks for the nice comments, though I have to disagree with the assessment that I’m unfailing optimistic. I think it is completely possible to be a ginormous fan of a team but also recognize its strengths and weaknesses.
Just because I’m am not a reflexive critic and curmudgeon, doesn’t mean that I am unaquainted with reality.
I had a series of posts on the blog about the nature of optimism and pessimism, and though pre-season predictions are usually kinda pointless, I predicted a 6-10 record.
http://blogs.chron.com/fanblogtexans/2006/07/texans_2006_the_bad_news_and_t.html
If you think I’m optimistic, Mr. Cowboys Gil Brandt thinks that playoffs are a possibility for this year’s Texans due to its skill players.
http://www.nfl.com/news/story/9593266
The reality is that is it is hard to build a team, and much easier to criticize what is going on. I understand that, and bad armchair QBing makes me gag, so I try not to pretend to know more than I do.
Though I am often critical of the coverage of the Texans by the Chronicle, I can’t say that Richard Justice’s article was particularly out of line.
Out of the offseason free agent WRs available, I am happy we got Moulds and Walters because the suit the Denver style offense. Possession guys who run the precise routes that the system demands.
And the intangibles thing can’t be blown off as being inconsequential. Andre Johnson has never worked with a respected successful receiver before. You can’t expect Corey Freaking Bradford to mentor AJ and give him the tricks of the trade. Apparently, AJ and Moulds are nearly inseparable at camp.
The other thing that will help is actually using the tight ends to do something other than function as a skinny lineman. Pass catching tight ends are one of the ways to bust up the Cover 2 that has been giving the offense fits since mid 2004.
Carr is going to have a bunch of big tall WRs and TEs to throw to–not a bad thing to have given the stricter enforcement of contact rules for players in the secondary.
I like sabermetrics probably more than the next person, but it is harder for individual statistics to cleanly translate into such a team sport like football. For example, as the Justice article mentioned, Moulds has dealt with revolving door QBs and coordinators for the last couple of years. (Which is the reason why he wanted to leave before even this changing of the guard.)
Moulds has been facing double teams, and like AJ, hasn’t been playing with any other legit WRs. Most of the Buffalo fans I know are sorry to see him go.
Moulds has looked really good in camp, and I cannot blame the Texans for acquiring him. After the increase in the salary cap, his deal is not out of line, and if he can also help improve AJ’s play through a mentoring role, all the better.
There are any number of stories relating to this team where you could be critical of the Texans, but I am not sure that just rehashing numbers from the Football Prospectus without looking for the context of those numbers is terribly objective either.
(BTW, a lot of the national “expert” publications are a joke. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen recent analysis of the Texans done that suggests to people to chose Domanick Davis as a fantasy pick, even though it is quite likely his carries will be limited due to his knee).
Probably the biggest story where the Chronicle is giving the Texans a free pass relates to the Defensive Coordinator’s position. Richard Smith has never been a solo DC, wasn’t the Texans first choice as solo DC, and says he is running an aggressive 4-3.
McClain likes Smith, but Smith doesn’t have much of a history of running a show. See the questions relating to this here:
http://blogs.chron.com/fanblogtexans/2006/07/everything_i_think_i_know_abou.html
Nobody knows what his defense is going to look like at all, but where’s that story? Not-Fangio is an instant improvement over last year, and they might be fun to watch, but I can’t say I am terribly comfortable with this unknown.
Anyway, thanks again for the nice words in my general direction. 🙂
Stephanie, thanks for the input.
I am not critical of Justice for doing a reasonably positive column on Moulds. However, not only is Justice’s column imbalanced (i.e., includes no information on why the Bills were willing to let him go), but I have not yet read an article in the Chronicle that mentions Moulds that suggests anything other than that he remains a star wide reciever. That may be the case, but there is certainly another viewpoint.
Finally, the Football Prospectus analysis on its player ratings factors in the relative competence of a receiver’s QB or QB’s in establishing the WR’s rating. Thus, the fact that Moulds has had bad QB’s throwing to him does not hurt his rating.
I think Justice doesn’t need to include the FP perspective because it is just not true. Buffalo asked Moulds to take a paycut. Moulds said no. He had no reason to want to stay with a team in disarray.
He’s been a #1 receiver facing double teams for 10 years and has been to the ProBowl 4 times. He is not being paid top receiver money. And even if the FP guys look at QB ability, it doesn’t take into account the chaos that is caused by switching QBs and trying to figure out what they are doing–Moulds BTW, had better stats when Holcomb played last year.
I just don’t see how anyone can complain about him as a replacement for Gaffney.
Stephanie, I am aware of no consensus that Moulds is not in decline in terms of productivity. IIRC, the Texans signed him for something like $14 million over four years, including a $5 million signing bonus. If he turns out to produce only slightly better than a replacement-level player, then the Texans will have overpaid substantially for that production.
By the way, the reason Moulds’ statistics were better when Holcomb played is that he was a better QB than Losman last year. The Buffalo staff simply did not appreciate that fact. Those things happen sometimes.
I think Justice doesn’t need to include the FP perspective because it is just not true.
You may disagree with the perspective, but they do use hard numbers to back up their assertion. The season will tell us whether it’s true or not.
I happen to think Moulds is an upgrade, but Tom, et al, raise very good questions about whether he’s enough of an upgrade to justify the money paid.
His performance will ultimately determine who’s right, much more so than nearly a 20-paragraph comment from a hardcore homer.
Moulds’ deal is not #1 receiver money in the post increase of the salary cap world.
Moulds production is not going to be just his numbers, it will also be whether he helps free Andre Johnson up as well.
I like Jabar Gaffney better than some, but he signed his walking papers the day David Carr hit him way downfield in the shoulderpads when Gaffney didn’t turn around to even look for the ball. They repeatedly showed that on the Jumbotron, and I still experience flashbacks.
The Denver system requires very precise route running and good hands. Gaffney, at least during his time with the Texans, did not show those characteristics.
Stephanie, I don’t think the point is that Moulds is being paid Andre Johnson-type numbers or that he is inferior to Jabar Gaffney. Moulds has declining numbers over the past several years and last season produced at a barely above what a replacement-level player probably would have (as Gaffney did also). Inasmuch as Moulds is clearly being paid substantially more than a replacement-level player would, the point is that It is imprudent in rebuilding a professional football program to pay substantially more for production that could be obtained at a far cheaper price. Although you may not agree that such an analysis is an accurate reflection of Moulds’ true talent, dismissing it completely as not being a risk of the transaction is unrealistic. That’s my main gripe with Justice’s column.
By the way, if Moulds is indeed a declining talent, then he won’t be doing much to free up Andre Johnson.