Wade Phillips is the new DC

[chuck]

Originally Posted by WMH

I for one am on board. May work, may not, but either way they should be entertaining again. Just renewed our tickets, again, been there since day 1, and don't plan on going away any time soon.

I'm still wavering. I haven't renewed and haven't decided if I will.

I admire your style of fandom, I really do. I'm not being disingenuous or snide or anything like that; it must be great to be able to embrace something wholly and without regard for its obvious flaws.

Wade Phillips inherited a terrible defense with a shocking lack of talent. What the hell is he supposed to say? Is he supposed to admit the truth? Hell no, he's supposed to say Hey, we can make anything work. That's a bluff. I mean, obviously.

Look, I never wavered in my own fandom through the 2005 season. I went to all the games and renewed my tickets without a second thought. I can handle losing. I'm a lifelong fan of Houston sports so that much should be painfully obvious. What I can't handle is being misled or lied to. Drayton McLane idiotically asks his players what they have done to be a champion. What he's done to be a champion is fire the best GM in the history of Houston sports and refuse to pay draft picks. The Astros are now in the MLB wilderness and comparable to the likes of Pittsburgh and Kansas City. I have no idea how long they'll stay where they are, but I'm pretty sure Ed Wade is not the person to lead them out. Anyway, as I was saying, I don't appreciate an owner pretending to want to win while in reality he obviously doesn't care. So I don't patronize the Astros financially. I watch all the games, sure, and I'll go to a game if I'm invited. But in terms of buying tickets, no thank you.

It's not as clear to me that McNair doesn't care about winning but I'm getting there. His retaining Kubiak is problematic. He knew that a lockout was a certainty and as I long imagined he didn't want to pay two head coaches to do nothing for a year. It's impossible for me to know whether he would have retained Kubiak if there hadn't been a lockout. I suspect he would have, but I'll never know.

My Texans fandom has matured over the decade. Like you I was once willing to overlook or minimize obvious deficiencies, obvious examples of organizational ineptitude. I find I can't do that anymore. It's a natural process I guess. But I am certain that the team cannot and will not win with Kubiak as the head coach, and I suspect that Rick Smith is equally inept although it's unclear who holds the final say in personnel matters. Smith insists he does but I don't believe it.

And last year was the first year that I didn't particularly enjoy going to the games. I like sitting in my seat and watching the game, sure, but everything else has sort of lost its luster for me. I guess my sobering up about the team has allowed me to see what was visible all along. Standing in an ugly parking lot in front of an ugly stadium at 11 am in unbearable heat dodging cigarette smoke wafting over from drunk, tattooed, chicken fried rednecks blasting Kid Rock or some goat roaping nonsense is just not as fun as it once was. Maybe I'm just getting old. Hell, I'm ten years older than I was when I started in on this idiocy.

Anyway, it looks like my 50 minutes is up. I'll see you next week.

[Fonz the Boss]

Texans really disappointed me last season but darn it I still love my f@ck!ng team. Don't really know what to expect this year but I'm 100% sure I'll be rooting for them every step of the way. I'm pretty sure I'll be raging if we get plagued by incompetence once again but I'm hoping we finally turn it around.

[nunusguy]

Originally Posted by chuck

It's not as clear to me that McNair doesn't care about winning but I'm getting there. His retaining Kubiak is problematic. He knew that a lockout was a certainty and as I long imagined he didn't want to pay two head coaches to do nothing for a year. It's impossible for me to know whether he would have retained Kubiak if there hadn't been a lockout. I suspect he would have, but I'll never know.

You know, I think the only major mistake McNair has made was not canning Kubiak after he missed a golden opportunity to go to the playoffs in 2009. He really should have taken the Texans to the playoffs in 2009 with that pud schedule, but blew some close ones and didn't have the Texans ready in the season opener vs the Jets. And maybe McNair really wanted to get rid of him this year, but with the lockout and all I can appreciate the uncertainty teams would be facing with in 2011, which maybe seemed almost like a throw away season ?
He didn't wait too long on getting rid of Capers did he ? Dom had that 7-9 season, then he won the first Draft pick next year and McNair promptly let him go IIRC ? Was there a problem there ?
I sincerely believe McNair really, really wants to win and get into the playoffs. More than we do. I might be mistaken, but FWIW that's my opinion ?

[NBT]

In 2009, just like in every year, the Texans could not win out in their division. If Kubes could have at least broke even in division he would have been over the hump. But that was then and this is now, and I am back at the trough, dreaming that this is the year we go to the playoffs.

With Mclain and Alexander it has always been how much can I extract from the fans of Houston, while putting the very least product on the field/court. I still think McNair is trying to put a good team on the field.

[nunusguy]

Originally Posted by NBT

In 2009, just like in every year, the Texans could not win out in their division. If Kubes could have at least broke even in division he would have been over the hump. But that was then and this is now, and I am back at the trough, dreaming that this is the year we go to the playoffs.

With Mclain and Alexander it has always been how much can I extract from the fans of Houston, while putting the very least product on the field/court. I still think McNair is trying to put a good team on the field.

Just remember in 2009 we had a really easy schedule, while this year we've got another tough one like last year.
But remember when the defense got a slow start in '09, then played better as the season progressed ? The early difficulty was attibuted to adjusting
to Frank Bushs version of the 4-3 IIRC, but we had a whole preseason to get ready. This year we're going to have a major defensive conversion (4-3 to 3-4), with much less and possibly very little or no preseason to prepare. In other words, just keep dreaming about the playoffs in 2011.

[coloradodude]

Chuck, You have all the signs of an aging man. Soon football will not have the shine it used to even on tv...your interest will dim.


Anyhoo, the reason you don't fire Koobs is because he had the best run game in the NFL last year. Dominating run game is a key component of a championship caliber team. He was responsible for that. The QB was decent enough. Disagree if you want but the Baltimore game was very impressive in the 4th qtr. Shaubb showed excellent composure, freaky calm.

Defense was absolutely horrible. Defense coach has been addressed, personnel is next. Wade Phillips is a terrible HC but is a very good DC overall.

We are close even though most will disagree.

[WMH]

Originally Posted by coloradodude

Chuck, You have all the signs of an aging man. Soon football will not have the shine it used to even on tv...your interest will dim.


Anyhoo, the reason you don't fire Koobs is because he had the best run game in the NFL last year. Dominating run game is a key component of a championship caliber team. He was responsible for that. The QB was decent enough. Disagree if you want but the Baltimore game was very impressive in the 4th qtr. Shaubb showed excellent composure, freaky calm.

Defense was absolutely horrible. Defense coach has been addressed, personnel is next. Wade Phillips is a terrible HC but is a very good DC overall.

We are close even though most will disagree.

I don't disagree. I can't remember where I saw it, or who I heard it from, but the Texans were voted one of the most exciting teams to watch. Granted, we came up on the short end of those "exciting" games 8 times last year.....they were still pretty damn entertaining.

Here's hoping Phillips has some magic vodoo dust or something, and we can turn that record around and sniff some January football.

If there is January football of course......

[Nconroe]

Originally Posted by coloradodude

Chuck, You have all the signs of an aging man. Soon football will not have the shine it used to even on tv...your interest will dim.

I am just wondering, at what age does this shining diminish you refer to young one?

If true, I must be getting close. What is the medication required to solve this problem? Do you think vitamin D might help? maybe more tacos?

And even on TV, I think that is a bad theory as I am loving the HD TV more and more.

[NBT]

Very well said CD. I agree pretty much in all respects. We had a lot of injuries last year, and the defense really let us down. Koobs wasn't entirely responsible for that. This Draft, coming before FA and all, will be instrumental in whether or not we can reach that next step.

[Joshua]

Originally Posted by coloradodude

Anyhoo, the reason you don't fire Koobs is because he had the best run game in the NFL last year. Dominating run game is a key component of a championship caliber team. He was responsible for that. The QB was decent enough. Disagree if you want but the Baltimore game was very impressive in the 4th qtr. Shaubb showed excellent composure, freaky calm.

Wow. After 5 years, all a head coach needs to show you is that he is good for one season at one aspect of one of the 3 phases of the game. That, my friend, is grading on a curve.

Best I can recall, under Kubiak, we had a terrible running game for his first 2 years. Had a breakout year with Slaton that was encouraging. Saw that evaporate the next year and us fall back to sucking again to the point where the Texans were practically taking out billboards to advertise that they would draft a RB in the first couple of rounds. Then, in year 5, put a great running game on the field. By my count, that's 1 really good year, 1 good year, and 3 bad ones. Moreover, there's not much indication that any of this was because of any masterplan by Kubiak. I think even Kubiak admitted that Slaton was never envisioned to be the lead back and all were surprised by his rookie production (and equally pantsed when he failed to back it up his 2nd season). As for Foster, they believed in him going into this season so much that they drafted Tate in the 2nd round. And I'm firmly convinced that the only reason Foster was able to succeed was because of Tate's injury. Kubiak always plays his high draft picks over UDFAs and other scrubs. If Tate had stayed healthy and looked remotely adequate in preseason, I have no doubt he would have been the starter and Foster would have been watching from the sidelines.