(AP Photo/David J. Phillip; previous weekly reviews here)
Texans 28 Buccaneers 14
The Buccaneers (8-5) had the incentive of being able to sew up the NFC South Division title with a win over the Texans (6-7) on Sunday afternoon at Reliant Stadium. The Texans could manage to generate only 286 yards of total offense and had two turnovers. The Texans were playing their backup QB, their third and fourth-string running backs, and an offensive line that included a couple of third stringers because of injuries.
So, what happens? The Texans win by 14. So it goes in the wacky world of the NFL.
This was a plucky performance by the Texans, particularly the defense and backup QB Sage Rosenfels. Even though Tampa Bay had to go with their backup QB Luke McCown, the Texans’ defense brought consistent pressure and, with the exception of one TD drive, never let the Bucs’ offense get into rhythm.
Meanwhile, Rosenfels threw three TD passes and managed the game quite well, allowing the Texans to have a decided advantage in time of possession. Rosenfels still shows his lack of game experience from time-to-time by holding on to to the ball for too long and throwing into coverage. But he is a gamer and as tough as nails, and it’s clear that his teammates rally around him. It’s amazing to me (and not terribly encouraging) that Coach Kubiak and his staff didn’t realize early on last season that Rosenfels was a much better NFL QB than former Texans QB David Carr, who will probably be out of the league after this season.
Finally, with the win, all is well again in Richard Justice’s Texans world, who was in a quite different mood after last week’s loss.
The Texans take on the Broncos (6-7) in the NFL’s Thursday night nationally-televised game this week at Reliant Stadium before finishing up the 2007 season at Indianapolis and then back home against Jacksonville.
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To be fair to the Kubiak Regime, he had to tell McNair that Carr was the guy because of the investment to that point (not the extension, but the draft pick and 4 seasons of play). Kubiak was stuck trying to make a QB out of Carr. Once that didn’t happen, he was stuck with Carr because Rosenfels went on Injured Reserve and was unavailable.
I contend (and there seems to be some anecdotal evidence to support this) that Kubiak had to use Carr if he wanted a the job, but then had to use him once he had no other options. So Kubiak had to win with a bad QB in a dumbed-down offense. Schaub has played well when available (and as Stephanie Stradley pointed out, the shots that have taken him out were pretty vicious and unnecessary).
I wonder if Richie Justice noticed that the NBC guys (Bettis, Collinsworth, Barber) were talking up the Texans in the pregame last night and giving them credit.
Bouj, if you were in McNair’s shoes, what would you think about a coach who tells you what you want to hear about Carr — resulting in the team picking up an expensive option on Carr that has a negative salary cap impact on the team — just to get the job?
FWIW, I don’t think Kubiak did that. I think he simply misjudged Carr in the same manner as a lot of folks did. That was the first of his expensive mistakes; Ahman Green was his second. Hopefully, those will be the last ones for awhile. This team does not have the depth to take on those salary cap hits regularly.
Bob McNair’s “consultant” Dan Reeves told management that David Carr wasn’t the problem with the Texans. Charley Casserly was so out of touch that he didn’t know or say that Carr had lost that locker room or that he was a nicklehead.
All that Kubiak could base his decision on was tape because the decision on Carr had to happen right away. Tape of mostly worthless stuff because the offensive scheme was such a joke. There was so much bad stuff happening with the Texans, it was hard to separate the bad, from the bad bad. Carr actually statistically was great for the first part of 2004 and had moments of good in 2005 when he called his own plays.
Physically, it appeared as though Carr could run a offense with movement and bootlegs, but the problem was that mentally Carr didn’t have it. That’s not something Kubiak would have been able to judge without actually working with Carr.
Rosenfels certainly would have gotten playing time last year but for the extremely flukey injury to his hand. (The Texans punter/holder had a cut on his hand, so Rosenfels subbed as a holder. Brown missed a very long FG attempt, the Jets started returning it, and Rosenfels broken his hand during the tackle).
Kubiak cut his losses with Carr, but remarkably had worked with him enough that the Panthers took Carr on with yet another fat contract. Lots of Panther fans saw him as the future of the franchise. Casserly still maintained when Carr went to the Panthers that he could be a good QB. Carr went from inconsistent with the Texans to down right catastropic with the Panthers.
As for Ahman Green, that was a calculated risk. On a team where the players were very young at many positions, the Texans looked to have experience at a position where inexperience hurt them last year.
Injuries can make a lot of decisions look bad in retrospect–Ahman Green reportedly has the same injury that Marvin Harrison suffered at the beginning of the season. OT Charles Spencer looked to be a good pick until he went down with a bad knee injury.
Carr’s issue was not knowing what was in his head and heart. Green’s issue was taking a chance on a running back with a lot of heart, who had his season derailed with injury.
I will defer to Stephanie’s assessment of the situation, because I think she nails it. But as to the issue of if I were in McNair’s shoes, I would have wanted an honest answer. But I’m not McNair. It’s entirely possible he’s the type of owner that “likes” to hear a specific answer. Peter Angelos in Baltimore is an extreme example, but it’s the general idea. It’s entirely possible he was not going to hire anyone who contradicted his ideas about Carr.
If McNair had a notion of Carr as the franchise QB (especially after the financial investment up to that point), he could have been looking for someone to confirm that. I don’t blame Kubiak for doing something that got his foot in the door. Kubiak knew he was either going to get Carr to work for him or toss him aside after one season. It was a no-lose situation, so long as the team didn’t completely tank on him.
Reasonable points, Boug. But I disagree that the Carr decision was a no-lose one for Kubiak. It has had a negative salary cap impact on a team that desperately needs the flexibility to pay for better players in a number of different positions.