(AP Photo/Mark Humphrey; previous weekly reviews are here)
Titans 28 Texans 20
Let’s see here. The Texans (5-7) lose another game on their way to their sixth straight losing season and lose their starting QB Matt Schaub to injury. Schaub is injured after being brutally hammered two plays in a row when two different Titan defensive ends waltzed virtually untouched threw the Texans’ offensive line, which has been a chronic weak spot of the team for its entire six year existence. Schaub has now had to leave three different games this year with injuries and missed one game entirely (Oakland) that the Texans won.
Viewing this landscapte, the Chronicle’s Richard Justice reacts to all this by expressing concern that second-year coach Gary Kubiak might not be the right coach for the Texans:
Now the Texans are at another crossroads. They’ve got four games left in a season that’s again going nowhere. I hope Bob McNair takes a hard look at his franchise and asks this question: ”Are we headed in the right direction? Are we getting the pieces in place? Are Rick Smith and Gary Kubiak the guys that can get us to the playoffs?”
He can ask himself that question today, but he really should answer it at the end of the season. Kubiak and Smith have had two. That’s enough to know whether they’re what he hoped they’d be. When you see the turnovers and penalties, when you see leads consistently disappear, it makes you wonder.
Of course, this is the same Richard Justice who wrote the following only two months ago:
Do you think Gary Kubiak is the coach that will lead us to the playoffs? Not this year, but ever? Do you believe he is doing all he can do after the injuries to add talent to the team and positions?
My point is that there are a dozen different ways to do it. All NFL head coaches have to be smart, and Kubiak is plenty smart. They all have to understand the game, and he certainly does that.
Successful coaches all have a strength–dignity? toughness?–about them. If the rumors about what Kubiak said to Mario Williams after the summer speeding incident are true, he’s got plenty of toughness.
So in the things that can be measured–knowledge, organizational skills, etc.–he’s got plenty of all those qualities. Does that mean he can put it all together and lead a group of men to the playoffs?
Based on what I’ve seen, I’d say he definitely can. He has to get the right kind of players. He has to get guys who care. He has to get talented players. But I think if the Texans do their job in the personnel department, Kubiak is plenty good enough to take them to the Super Bowl.
Of course, that was absolutely restrained in comparison to what Justice wrote about Kubiak just a week earlier:
Gary Kubiak is smart and Rick Smith is competent and Matt Schaub is on the fast track to the Pro Bowl. If they win this afternoon (against the Colts), the Texans will be the NFL’s best story. [. . .]
With two solid rookie classes and the addition of 10 veterans with playoff experience, this group isn’t burdened by those past failures.
“That’s right,” Ahman Green said. “You’ve got people in here now who’ve won and expect to win.”
Thus comes a cautionary tale. The Texans might have crossed one threshold but many more are ahead. [. . .]
That’s the road the Texans finally have started down. They’ve put themselves in the conversation around the NFL. In other words, they’re legitimate. Now comes the fun part.
And the foregoing doesn’t even compare with how Justice was extolling the Kubiak regime before the season.
Of course, anyone who reads this blog regularly knew before the season that the Texans continue to make questionable personnel decisions and probably wouldn’t improve much this season over the 6-10 record of last season. Frankly, I remain unsure whether Kubiak is the right fellow to be head coach of the Texans, but nothing that has happened this season has changed my view or been particularly surprising or unexpected.
The Texans return home next week to face a tough Tampa Bay (8-4) team, and then have Denver (5-7) and Jacksonville (8-4) at home sandwiched around a trip to Indianapolis (10-2) to close out the season. The way Justice’s attitude about Kubiak goes up and down, the Texans better win one soon or else he will have soon have him in the same boat with Dom Capers.
You missed what Richard Justice wrote in his blog during the first Titans game.
He wrote that he wanted Kubiak fired and replaced with Marty Schottenheimer. And then he thought better of it and then deleted that comment. The only reference to it later was this:
http://blogs.chron.com/sportsjustice/archives/2007/10/texans_embarras.html
“I’d like to apologize for all the bad things I said about Gary Kubiak and others. I’ll just hit the delete button.”
Because he is such a Vince Young fan, he goes out of his way to slag Mario Williams. A few weeks ago, Richard Justice was saying in his blog he wasn’t even playing at the level of a sixth round pick. Whether any rookie is worth first pick money is doubtful, but gee, Williams is 2nd among AFC linemen in sacks by defensive linemen, and is the best out of all first and second year players.
Out of all the problems the Texans have right now, Mario Williams who has played 90 to 95% of the snaps this year (crazy high number for a dlineman) is not “the problem” for the Texans. Talking about Mario will get Justice some page hits, but there are tons worse issues with the team.
If you think that Richard Justice is often full of it, check out what this Texans blog thinks about him in its photo essay (warning very messed up and vulgar in ways too many to say):
http://www.atexansblog.com/photo-essay-on-richard-justice-by-matt/
The Texans are a team that depends on young and inexperienced players in just about every key position (except where they have experienced key players who are hurt). Inexperienced and young players make mistakes. If you look at the turnovers the Texans offense has made, they are mostly from rookies and inexperienced players.
Probably the biggest mistake made by Kubiak is being overly fond of the pass. If defenses know you aren’t dedicated to running the ball, they will kill your quarterback. The series of playcalls that got Schaub injured was questionable.
2nd and 3: Schaub tries to pass. There is a pass rush up the middle and his throwing arm gets hit. Enough to make him shake it some.
So do they run the ball the next down to put a good Haynesworth-included defense on their heels? Or at least give their quarterback/line a bit of a break after a bad play?
No.
On 3rd and 3, they try to pass again, and Schaub gets pancaked. Calling for another pass in that circumstance, did no favors for Schaub.
With the upcoming year, I would like for the Texans to upgrade their defensive coordinator to get someone that Kubiak can trust to give the keys to the defense to. Someone who has experience at that position. Especially with Sherman gone, Kubiak is probably going to spend more time working on the offensive side of the ball, and probably shouldn’t be relying on a guy who has never run a 4-3 before.
This is Year 2 of the Richard Smith Texans defense, and we still have no idea what it is supposed to look like scheme wise other than bad. John McClain likes Smith, and hates to go off on him, but the truth is that what the Texans defense has always been under Smith is “look at what happened last week, and don’t do that stuff that was horrible.”
He was supposed to be bringing an “aggressive 4-3”–but it seems like his play calling is aggressive when it should be conservative and vice versa. They get into so many 3rd and long situations where they should have an advantage and I can’t count the number of times where teams have gotten big plays in those circumstances.
Player acquisition is always going to be difficult for the Texans because they will have to overpay for players to come to a team who has never had a winning record. Kubiak is an engaging guy on the offensive side of the ball, and you can see why players might want to work with him. I do not believe the same can be said for Richard Smith on the defensive side of the ball.
As for the rest of the season, the Texans are in survival mode. Only one legit quarterback, and a bunch of shuffling on the line. That most of their games are home games will help the line some, but that Colts game is rough on any offensive line.
The Texans have to hope to get through the rest of the season without losing any more of their few solid players that they are trying to build a team around.