Oh, my.
It’s only been three games, but let’s face it — the Kubiak Era is looking like an utter disaster. As noted in this earlier post, when Bob McNair replaced former general manager Charley Casserly and head coach Dom Capers, he changed the model of the football operation from a strong GM-field coach model to the strong coach-support GM model. Thus, Kubiak — who had never been a head coach — was a somewhat unusual choice to replace Capers.
Through three games, Kubiak looks like a marginal improvement over the Texans’ previous offensive coordinators, but a fairly disastrous choice as a head coach. Indeed, there is precious little that has occurred in the first three games that indicates that this team is any better overall than the 2-14 team of last season. Although the Texans’ offense has been dreadful in large parts of each of the first three games, the Texans defense is in complete disarray after giving up almost 500 yards for the third straight game and making 36-year old Redskins QB Mark Brunell look like Hall-of-Famer Steve Young. But what’s most distressing is that the Texan defenders don’t even look as if they have ever seen a screen pass or draw play, and don’t appear to have a clue as to situations in the game when those plays are likely to be called. Talent limitations aside, such lack of preparation is a sure sign of bad coaching.
Absent a win next week against a Miami team that has a feckless offense but strong defense, the Texans will likely be 0-6 because, after their bye in Week Five, they play at Dallas and at home against Jacksonville. Thus, the next realistic chance for a victory would be in Week Eight against the Titans. Moreover, based on their performance in the first three games, the Texans appear to have a realistic chance of winning only three or four of their remaining games — my pre-season prediction of six wins is a pipe dream at this point. Bob McNair does not deserve this.
Houston Cougars 34 Oklahoma State 25
The red-hot Coogs (4-0) rode a superlative performance from senior QB Kevin Kolb to an impressive victory over Oklahoma State (3-1) before a near-capacity crowd on the UH campus. The Cougars are looking as if they are a bonafide Conference USA title contender this season, although they have a difficult next month as they play a well-rested and hungry Miami Hurricane team at the Orange Bowl next Saturday, then always-tough Southern Miss at Hattiesburg two weeks after that game, and then explosive UTEP at home the week after that.
Texas Longhorns 37 Iowa State 14
In their first Big 12 Conference game of the season, the Horns (3-1) methodically hammered a solid Iowa State (2-2) team, although this game would have been closer had the Cyclones not sustained a Longhorn scoring drive with a penalty while trailing 16-14 and later failed to execute an easy interception that resulted in a Texas touchdown. The Horns have an impressive blend of speed, size and strength, particularly on defense where their lock-down cornerbacks allow the front seven to bring withering pressure on the opposing team’s QB on virtually every pass play. The Horns have another scrimmage next Saturday in Austin against Sam Houston State (a Division I-AA team), but then it’s OU weekend in Dallas the weekend after. My sense is that the Sooners are going to have their hands full with this Texas squad.
Texas Aggies 45 Louisiana Tech 14
H’mm. After last week’s debacle against Army, the Aggie fans had to endure a two-hour weather delay before this game and then a first quarter in which the Aggie offense had two three-and-outs and a fumble that led to a La Tech TD. Thankfully for Coach Fran, the 4-0 Ags turned it on and cruised to an easy victory over a mediocre and outmanned La Tech (1-2) team. After completion of the cupcake portion of their schedule, the Aggies next face a battle-tested 3-1 Texas Tech team that has largely owned the Aggies over the past decade. My sense is that the Aggies have made a big mistake in not playing a more challenging schedule before facing Tech.
Now that 0-4 Rice is through with the brutal part of its schedule, here’s hoping the Owls get back starting QB Chase Clement (injured since the end of the Owls’ first game against Houston) back this week in time to play against Army this week in West Point. The Owls can’t compete against such teams as Texas and FSU, but they are capable of pulling out at least a couple of wins in their remaining games if Clement returns and the Owls can avoid injuries that deplete their fragile depth.
“Bob McNair does not deserve this.”
Well, McNair hired Kubiak and has continued his stubborn assertion that he won’t draft players he thinks have an inkling of holding out – something that is just part of the NFL.
He buried his head in the sand when Casserly made stupid pick after stupid pick and Capers refused to let go of friends that were ill suited for their assistant coaching jobs.
McNair seems like a good guy, but blame starts at the top and he’s made plenty of rookie franchise owner mistakes along the way.
Jeff, McNair did not draft Reggie Bush for reasons other than the likelihood that he would hold out. Suffice it to say that his reasons were reasonable.
It is a myth that Casserly’s draft picks were poor. As noted in this earlier post, they were average to above-average. It would be more accurate to say that development of those picks has been poor over the past 20 games. However, other than he hired the coaches responsible for the development, it’s hard to criticize McNair for that.
I also find it hard to criticize McNair for allowing Capers to handle his coaching staff in the manner that he thought appropriate. If McNair does not delegate that authority to his head coach, then he will have trouble finding good coaches in the future.
McNair has certainly made his share of mistakes. However, it is increasingly apparent to me that the problems are a result of poor development of personnel as opposed to problems in the GM’s office or at the ownership level. It’s hard for a owner to do much about that other than to try and make good choices, give the coaches an opportunity to succeed and then make a change when it doesn’t work out. McNair has done that. Thus, my statement that he deserves much better.
Thanks for reading Clear Thinkers.
Unfortunately, Mr. McNair does deserve this. Being a good person or businessman does not mean if you buy an NFL franchise you deserve to win. Overall, there is a dearth of NFL level talent and their offensive and defensive systems were bad, and now they’re new. They had not invested in the offensive or defensive lines in the past, and it takes 2 years to get a good cohesive unit (ask the Chiefs). Both GM/Coach regimes were hired by and consulted with Mr. McNair and he is partially responsible for this team’s successes and failures. As a Cowboys fan who is married to a Texans fan, I hope the Texans get it together no sooner than October 16th.
Go RICE!!!
I think part of the problem is that on offense, Kubiak was able to get the coaching staff he wanted–Shanahan was very reasonable in letting Bronco coaches interview with the Texans, and Kubiak got a number of former Denver guys.
On the defense, he did not get his first choice of defensive coordinators, and by the time he was hiring, there really weren’t any great DCs McNair could buy. For more information on this, check out my most recent fanblog post:
http://blogs.chron.com/fanblogtexans/2006/09/if_the_texans_defense_were_a_t.html
I think that they thought Richard Smith could be at least a placeholder coach in 2006. I don’t think they anticipated how horrible the defense would be.
McNair has the checkbook, but generally teams don’t want to give up great DCs.