As noted earlier here and here earlier, even his hyprocrisy in turning on the Texans during their disastrous 2005 season after predicting in the pre-season that the team was a playoff contender does not deter Chronicle NFL sportswriter John McClain from engaging in more cheerleading for the Texans with this puff-piece regarding the team’s recent acquisition of journeyman running back, Ron Dayne (for a positive, but more realistic, view of Dayne, see John Lopez’s column here). The article even includes a chart noting that Dayne is the fifth Heisman Trophy winning running back to have played for a Houston professional football team, the others being former Oilers Billy Cannon, Earl Campbell, Mike Rozier and Eddie George.
Not mentioned in McClain’s article is that Dayne is overweight and slow, and is unlikely to have any meaningful impact on the Texans’ performance this season. Football Prospectus, which uses objective criteria to rank Dayne as a below-NFL average running back for his career, observes that “Dayne’s problem has always been finding the hole to run through. You literally have to stick the hole in front of him, slap him across the face, point, and yell ‘HOLE!'”
Now, this all may work out just fine for the Texans, but don’t you think that such a counter-analysis of Dayne might creep into at least a part of an article by the Chronicle’s lead NFL writer? Stay tuned for my pre-season evaluation of the Texans coming this Friday.
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I know that The Best Running Back Evaaar, gets all the hype, but the intriguing missed possibility is DeAngelo Williams. Rumor had it that the Texans were trying to trade up to the bottom of the first to pick up Williams but it didn’t work out.
Kubiak’s system values a back that always gets positive yards and doesn’t get drive killing negative yards while trying to make something out of nothing. At least in the preseason, Bush’s total numbers look OK, but he has had a lot of negative yard carries.
As for sixth round picks, back in the day, Terrell Davis was a pretty remarkable one. The Denver system has always treated running backs as a fungible commodity, a commodity that you try not to spend too much money on because they get hurt.
Your point of view regarding Reggie Bush tends to be the national one, but here is an alternative point of view: http://blogs.chron.com/fanblogtexans/2006/08/domanick_davis_knee_and_relate.html
You might disagree with it, but I have to say I find it refreshing to actually have an offensive philosophy and following through with it. Not having a consistent philosophy in the past has been a week spot for the Texans–it makes it hard to draft and acquire players if you can’t figure out what sort of offense you are trying to be. (The whole Palmer/Pendry conflict).
Looking forward to reading your evaluation.
Steph, actually, my view is that the Texans may well have made a better choice in choosing Williams over Bush. My point is that McClain — while extolling the “virtues” of a mediocre talent such as Dayne — should be pointing out that the unsettling position that the Texans find themselves in at the RB position is partly due to their decision to pass on Bush.
My point is that McClain — while extolling the “virtues” of a mediocre talent such as Dayne — should be pointing out that the unsettling position that the Texans find themselves in at the RB position is partly due to their decision to pass on Bush.
This is the same reporter who last Tuesday speculated that the Texans might cut Davis. When Kubiak blasted that rumor Tuesday after practice (wondering out loud where in the world it came from — when it came from a Chronicle headline, that was a pretty strong calling out of a certain reporter), McClain AGAIN speculated it was one of the Texans’ options in his Wednesday column. By Thursday, he explained on his blog that some unnamed source on the Texans had told him the Texans were considering cutting Davis, only to change their tune later.
In reality, this was lazy reporting that we’ve grown accustomed to from McClain — and incidentally, it was wrong from the start, since the team would have been forced to reach an injury settlement with Davis and couldn’t simply have cut him. McClain spreads a lot of interesting tidbits that he hears from sources, but rarely covers the extra ground (as Tom suggests in this post) that would make for really good reporting. It strikes me that he’s coasting a bit, and maybe he deserves to after the career he’s had. But that doesn’t help readers who might like a little more in their coverage.
In your view, does McClain have to mention Reggie Bush in every article relating to the running back position? (even though a good case could be made, DeAngelo Williams may have been a better fit from a salary cap/systems perspective).
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/fb/texansfront/4159272.html
I know your position about the Chronicle’s puffery, but given the fact that the Texans running game has looked better than New Orleans, can’t the columnists wait until the season actually starts before slamming the Texans for the decisions they make?
Does Dayne count as a journeyman running back because this is his third destination? (Antowain Smith seems to fit that designation better). Dayne was the preseason pick for the #1 running back position in Denver, but couldn’t practice because of turf toe, so he got booted because he didn’t get enough playing time.
Personally, I think his basic value is that he is a veteran that we don’t have to teach the system to.
http://texans.aolsportsblog.com/2006/09/03/ron-dayne-is-a-texan/
I definitely get that there is some cheerleading from journalists that happens. And you are right that Lopez has a more accurate depiction. But, it seems like, lately, the only time a group of very vocal fans are happy is when the Texans are just being crushed by the local media.
In fact, it is RARE to hear on sports talk radio or in commentary to the newspaper or online ANY positive sentiments about teams. What happened to the times when we supported our teams regardless of how bad they were? And, believe me, as long as I’ve been a Houston sports fan (a long time), I’ve seen plenty of horrible teams I continued to support.
Obviously, I want reporters to be balanced in their coverage as the son of a journalist who happened to major in journalism myself. And I agree with YOUR assessment. But, it doesn’t kill me to occassionally see positive spin the paper nearly as much as it pains me to see the constant harangue from so many “fans.”
And yours doesn’t rise to that level, but being a fan yourself, don’t you get bummed reading all the negativity? I know I do.
Jeff, I don’t think balancing an article on Dayne by pointing out that the Texans, in electing not to take Bush, took the risk of having to accept untested or below-average talent at RB is necessarily negative. It’s just accurate and more candid regarding the true situation with the Texans RB’s.
As for overall negativity, I really don’t perceive much of it with regard to the Texans. I do think that more balanced reporting of the team by McClain and other Chronicle reporters would have forseen at least the potential of the backsliding of the team that occurred last season. As it was, McClain and other Chronicle reporters touted the theme that the Texans were a playoff contender when they clearly were not.
Dayne was the preseason pick for the #1 running back position in Denver
Seth Wand was the preseason pick for #1 left tackle with the Texans too.
The best advice is not to believe anything you hear from coaches in preseason, or before the draft. 🙂
Reporters and columnists have to write something, and there’s only so much interesting information out there. So when a heisman winner (like Gino Torretta or Rashaan Salaam) comes to town, it makes a splash. Sure, waiver wire pick-ups usually have a minimal impact, but at least it fill up 2 or 3 columns in the paper.