Clowney to IR, Ending His Rookie Season

[Arky]

Originally Posted by chuck

This is all fairly entertaining, and I have to say that I'm enjoying the board's being more active than it has been in a long while.

Bob, I know you think Carr would have been a good player under different circumstances. I think that is crazy and I think that the facts clearly state otherwise. He didn't lack confidence, he lacked intelligence. And he never studied film. If you're an idiot who never watches tape you are not going to succeed in the NFL as a quarterback. He had several fresh starts in other places and could never get anywhere close to the field, even on quarterback starved teams.

I was born and raised in Houston. I am a fan of Houston pro football. What do you want me to do, change teams mid-life? Have a second team like you do? I'll do neither. But my fandom does not preclude me from making a sober appraisal of the franchise I follow. It sucks. Two playoff wins in twelve years. That is indefensible.

No, I no longer have season tickets. I'm pretty sure I mentioned my letting them go at the time. When it became clear that the owner doesn't care much about winning and the team is more interested in advertising and cheap jingoism than a football experience inside the stadium I realized that it is lunacy for me to travel internationally six times a year or whatever it was simply to watch a team whose leadership is brazenly disrespectful to its customers. And the lock-out was absolutely the last straw.

And I have absolutely no idea why you think I'm an Astros fan. We've talked about this, too. My esteem for Bob McNair is stratospheric compared to what I think about the current and former owners of the Astros, two slimy dickwads who conspired in a most cowardly way to steal fifty years of history from fans like you and me. No sir, I am no longer an Astros fan. I will admit that I do enjoy watching the team struggle and it pleases me that Luhnow is a league-wide pariah. You'll note that several of their recent free agent targets have turned the Astros down in order to sign less lucrative contracts with other clubs. No one with any real options wants to play for this group of frauds and that makes me happy.

On the other hand I want desperately for the Texans to win; I simply recognize that as currently organized they won't.

The truth is I am not nearly as invested in the team as I once was, both literally and otherwise. It's impossible to continue to be as emotionally tied in as I once was when the team underperforms for more than a decade. Also, I am now a part owner of a professional futbol team here and that takes up a great deal of my sports-related emotion. It's a very rewarding experience, actually. Not financially certainly, but in every other way it has been quite something.

Looking back, I always felt Carr needed a mentor, someone to guide him right from the get-go. Show him how to be a pro in the NFL. Show him in the film room what he needed to do to become a better - someone that knew what they were doing. I've forgotten who his QB coach was at the time but whoever he was, he did a terrible job with Carr. Instead, he was allowed to be the Golden Boy, the face and savior of the new franchise and along the way, he picked up bad habits that were never corrected.

Re: season tickets, I read a lot of Texans stuff on the internet. One thing I've noticed is that the fans who regard their "investment" as disposable income are a lot more at peace with what transpires on Sundays. Especially, when things aren't going well with the team......

Interesting that the joke-of-a-franchise Texans have your favor and the joke-of-a-franchise Astros do not.....

[HPF Bob]

Chuck, I apologize if you're not the "Chuck" that posts at Orange Whoopass and its predecessors. He seems to have the same general attitude about many things as you.

I fully understand the "Houston or die" fandom and having to confront whether you can still support a team that's not heading in the direction you desire. I had to deal with it during the short-lived McDaniels era in Denver as well as the continuing Astros debacle.

I will disagree with the idea that two playoff wins in 12 years is "indefensible". I believe that is more than the Cowboys or Bengals over that time. Certainly more than the Lions, the Chiefs, the Browns or the Dolphins. Assuming they win one more game, the Texans will have just two losing seasons in their past eight. That sounds like they are giving their fans a legit franchise to watch.

I, too, have disagreements with the way some things are handled but, at the bottom, I believe the Texans do what they do because they want to be NFL champions. I believe the Astros do what they do to prove their pet theories and any championships they may accrue are just a byproduct.

[barrett]

Originally Posted by HPF Bob

Chuck, I apologize if you're not the "Chuck" that posts at Orange Whoopass and its predecessors. He seems to have the same general attitude about many things as you.

I fully understand the "Houston or die" fandom and having to confront whether you can still support a team that's not heading in the direction you desire. I had to deal with it during the short-lived McDaniels era in Denver as well as the continuing Astros debacle.

I will disagree with the idea that two playoff wins in 12 years is "indefensible". I believe that is more than the Cowboys or Bengals over that time. Certainly more than the Lions, the Chiefs, the Browns or the Dolphins. Assuming they win one more game, the Texans will have just two losing seasons in their past eight. That sounds like they are giving their fans a legit franchise to watch.

I, too, have disagreements with the way some things are handled but, at the bottom, I believe the Texans do what they do because they want to be NFL champions. I believe the Astros do what they do to prove their pet theories and any championships they may accrue are just a byproduct.

I think being respected in the Billionaire owner's club and in NFL circles comes first for McNair and championships 2nd. I think if you offered Bob a choice of the following;;

1 superbowl title in the next 2 decades with a 5-6 year stretch of losing that alienated fans somewhere over that time period, plus a scandal of some kind thrown in.

Or another 2 decades just like our last 8 years (6 non-losing seasons like you pointed out, and 2 division titles and playoff wins), general respectability, largely contented fan base, other owners back slapping him, etc...

I think Bob takes door number 2 every time.

[Keith]

Originally Posted by barrett

I think Bob takes door number 2 every time.

I don't always quote posts out of context.
But when I do, I make sure sodomy is implied.

Originally Posted by chuck

it pleases me that Luhnow is a league-wide pariah.

There was this Business Week article awhile back about the Astros, talking about Luhnow with the Cardinals before he came to Houston, where this was mentioned, which I enjoyed to no end:

But the people running the Cardinals’ old system resented the bespectacled interloper with his MBA and ideas about how they could do their jobs better. Behind his back, they referred to Luhnow as “Harry Potter”

http://www.businessweek.com/articles...ets-data-reign

That said, I'm a Moneyball lover, so I find the Astros interesting at least.

[chuck]

Originally Posted by Keith

I don't always quote posts out of context.
But when I do, I make sure sodomy is implied.

Awesome. Which Bob are we talking about, now?

I agree totally with barrett. McNair is far more interested in the accoutrements of owning a team than he is in winning. Would he like to win? Sure he would. Is he laser focused on winning with everything else distantly secondary? Hell no. That's why I think the team needs a head coach who has the stature and/or personality to work in a different hemisphere to where the owner is. And they certainly need a competent general manager. Every team needs a competent general manager, of course, but the Texans need one pretty desperately.

Yes, Bob, obviously I am the same poster. I announced very loudly over there that I would no longer be a fan of the Astros due to the league change. I'm not interested in being a fan of a team that is the MLB's prison bitch. Also, there, like here, my name is chuck. Chuck is who I am in real life. I use chuck here and there because this is not exactly who I am in real life. I mean, who I am here (and there) is mostly me, but these are message boards filled with a bunch of dumbasses like me and you arguing over idiotic things that don't really matter. And I'm playing a role. I suspect you are too in your own way. I mean everything I say here, of course; I just allow myself a certain latitude.

Arky, yeah, I agree with you on the mentor. As far fandom is concerned I can handle losing and remain a fan. I was an Astros fan for nearly half a century after all. The league switch is an insult that I just can't overcome. A lot of people can. Good for them I guess. But I can't.

[HPF Bob]

You certainly have my respect on that Chuck (or chuck, or possibly "illegal chuck" if you use it beyond five yards); regarding the league switch, that is. No greater an abomination has been done to baseball since the "color barrier" was imposed. I can't wait for Selig to die just so I can urinate on his grave or crypt or urn or whatever he's kept in for eternity. You can choose door number two on that one, should you like.

Y'all may be right about McNair. It doesn't sound like there is an Heir McNair that wants to take over when McNair passes on so at some point in the future the Texans will be sold and the choices will either be some oil patch cowboy who wants to win big but hires a bunch of buffoonish yes men to run the front office or it will be some corporate consortium that will make every decision by consensus and how much money could be saved if they just stripped out all the "luxuries" from the stadium such as hot water heaters for the showers and expensive video screens.

[chuck]

I'll meet you in Milwaukee when the time comes.

I always thought Cal would take over eventually. Maybe we'll get lucky and he'll run the team like that drunken clown in Indy, in other words well. Although the two other possible scenarios you present are more likely.