So, the Houston Chronicleís Richard Justice is now writing in the San Francisco Chronicle that it was the fault of former Texans GM Charley Casserly and former head coach Dom Capers that former Texans QB David Carr did not develop into a decent NFL quarterback.

Of course, Justice extolled the virtues of that same Texansí management team immediately before their disastrous 2-14 season in Year Four of the franchise (2004):

The Texans have made good use of their honeymoon. They’ve drafted wisely and spent shrewdly on free agents. They’ve assembled a front office admired around the NFL. Their players seem to be quality people. [. . .]

The danger for them is that their greatest strength could become their greatest weakness. They’ve done so many things right and have built such a model operation that it’s impossible not to put expectations on a fast track. [. . .]

So far, it’s impossible not to be impressed with what the Texans have done. They are run as efficiently as any sports franchise I’ve ever been around.

Just before the start of training camp, Casserly gathered his employees and thanked them for all their hard work. Then he went down the list of different departments and explained some little thing each had done that made the team – and the organization – better.

That’s the kind of thing the people who run sports franchises almost never do, and it left every person who was mentioned proud to be associated with the Texans.[. . .]

Capers believes it’s vital to emphasize doing things right because "if you ever slip, you can never get it back."

So far, the Texans haven’t slipped in any significant way.

In fact, look at what Justice was saying about the Casserly-Capers-Carr regime even after it had put up a horrid 1-8 record through nine games of the 2004 season:

The Texans are respectable. They’re coming close. They’ve got four 2-7 teams left on their schedule. They almost won in Jacksonville, and they made a run at the Indianapolis Colts before losing 31-17 Sunday. [.   .  .]

The Texans are a better offensive team since [offensive coordinator Joe] Pendry took over [for the fired Chris Palmer]. David Carr looks like he’s on his way to becoming a first-rate quarterback. He’s quicker and more accurate in his throws, less likely to take a sack.

But then a couple of months later, after Carr and the Texans had cemented a perfectly awful 2-14 season, Justice had changed his tune to something similar to the one he sings now:

What we’ll never know is what would have happened if Carr had gotten with an organization that knew what it was doing. The Texans never protected him or coached him, never put enough talent around him. Shame on you, Charley Casserly. Shame on you, too, Bob McNair. Maybe you guys were wrong about what David Carr could have been, but you never gave him a chance to find out.

Uh, Richard. Five seasons is long enough. Yes, the Texansí offensive line wasnít all that good during that span. But Carr wasnít very good, either, and that didnít help the offensive lineís performance.

The bottom line is that David Carr was a poor NFL quarterback in Houston. Nothing that he has done with two other teams (with decent offensive lines) since his time here has changed that evaluation. The Texans made a big mistake in selecting him as the teamís first draft choice.

It really is that simple, Richard.

If you are interested in really first-rate analysis of the Texans, then check out local bloggers such as Stepanie Stradley, Lance Zerlein and Alan Burge. Their work beats the Chron sportswriters product hands down.