Pro Bowl Snubs!

So the Pro Bowl selections were announced yesterday and, of course like a typical Houston fan, I’m upset about the apparent lack of respect for the Houston Texans.  I know that Pro Bowls are much more about star power than actual performance and no one outside of the beltway has heard of players like Conner Barwin or Chris Myers.  Two Texans did make the initial roster and nine Texans were named as alternates.  Arian Foster will be making his second consecutive trip to the Pro Bowl and Johnathan Joseph gets the call for the first time. But on a team with the best offensive line in football and the 2^nd best defense to have only 2 Pro bowlers is a slap in the face if you ask me, and neither of which will be starters.

The fact that the Texans have no Pro Bowlers on arguably the best offensive line in football is possibly the biggest Pro Bowl snub in the league. LT Duane Brown gave up zero sacks and had only 2 penalties all year.  A left tackle gave up ZERO sacks! Think about that for a second.  Profootballfocus.com said Chris Myers at center was easiest selection of all the AFC players and that no one was even close.   Yet the Jets have 2 Pro Bowlers on their offensive line that wasn’t even close to the Texans.  700 less rushing yds and  8 more sacks given up than the Texans.  The Texans sack numbers are also a bit inflated too due to the addition of a rookie QB.

The other big snub for the Texans is Brian Cushing.  Ray Lewis gets voted in off sheer reputation.  He’s missed 4 games this year and his stats don’t stack up well against Cushing.  Every Pro Bowl projection I’ve seen had shown Cushing and Derrick Johnson as the starters.  Cushing has played lights out this year with impact plays all over the field. He has 110 tackles, 4 sacks, 2 interceptions and 2 forced fumbles.  Many of the pundits have said today that Cushing may have been affected by his previous PED suspension 2 years ago. But to that I say what about Ray Lewis? He was allegedly picked up at the border trying to sneak out of the country in a car trunk after he was implicated in a murder!  I guess that makes Ray Lewis a scary bad ass and Cushing a cheater?

I think that Conner Barwin is deserving of a Pro Bowl selection, but again, ask someone in New York or LA who Conner Barwin is and most likely you’ll hear something like “huh?” or “who?”.  Plus Barwin gets penalized for being an OLB on a 3-4 defense.  If it were a 4-3 he would likely play DE in which he would have most certainly made the Pro Bowl… I hope.  Considering that he had 11.5 sacks compared to Dwight Freeney’s pathetic 7.5 sacks and 18 total tackles.  The fact that Freeney gets a Pro Bowl start with JAG numbers off of the worst team in football and one of the worst defenses in the NFL is downright outrageous! It’s not like he didn’t have his chances either.  The Colts defense was on the field longer than any in the league and they were 3^rd from the bottom in plays allowed.

I always tell fans that are angry about lack of Texans coverage from ESPN or NFL network that respect is earned and the fact that they are not getting it just means they have to work harder.  The Texans have done well this year in the underdog role and have responded to adversity at seemingly every turn. Hopefully the Texans will post this one on the bulletin board and try to prove themselves to their doubters, again.

Kubiak needs to let Yates play

I am going to apologize in advance for what I’m about to say.  I’m not even sure I believe any of it but I have to let off some steam or my head is going to blow up! I was literally throwing things and breaking things last night I was so livid!  If you want to be considered a legitimate playoff team, you cannot lose to a 1 win team.  Under no circumstances can you lose to a 1 win team. Bad officiating or not, I repeat, you cannot lose to a 1 win team!!!

The officiating was awful!  Terrible!!  It was near scandalous.  The two main penalties that most fans are complaining about are the two separate roughing the passer calls that were so bad even Colts fans had to be scratching their heads.  It just seemed every time the Texans made a play on defense they were getting flagged.  And it wasn’t just the calls against the Texans, it was the non calls against the Colts. Mathis slapped TJ in the head on one of the sacks and on another TJ got popped in the head helmet to helmet. If you are going to call that weak ass penalty, you HAVE to call it both ways!!

That said, there is so much blame to go around, singling out bad officiating would be almost unfair. You won’t beat many teams if you don’t convert a single 3^rd down until late in the 4^th quarter.  And that one was a fluke!  1 for 10 on 3^rd down against a 1 win team is inexcusable!! Utterly inexcusable!!!  Many people are putting this loss on TJ today, but TJ wasn’t the problem.  He only had 3 incompletions and one of those was a hail mary. The problem is Gary Kubiak and Rick Dennison.  They have absolutely no faith in TJ and its obvious! Last week TJ only threw the ball deep down field 3 times, this week only twice, and again one of those was a last second hail mary.

If you won’t even attempt to stretch the field then you have to operate with 8-9 in the box every down.  Credit Arian for still being very productive in that environment but against a good Jets or the Steelers defense it won’t work!! Yes TJ played a bad game against Carolina, but he’s a rookie!  He is going to make mistakes but that’s part of the learning process. If you won’t let him get some confidence with those downfield throws now against a team like Indy, then when are you planning on doing it?  When we’re down by 21 to Pittsburg in the playoffs?  Yates showed he can play well against a good defense, if you let him.  So let him!! The 1^st round bye is gone.  Stop being so damn conservative!   I thought that would make me feel better but I’m still so pissed today! Inexcusable!!

Wake Up Call or Exposed

The Texans hadn’t lost a game since mid October. They showed last week they could go on the road, get punched in the mouth, and respond with a spectacular come from behind win. Well this week they punched in the mouth again, hard.  They tried to respond after halftime but Cam Newton and the Panthers laid the knockout blow with a 7 play, 80 yd, 4th quarter drive that put the game essentially out of reach.

On one hand the Texans, as they have all year, had the cards stacked against them in this game. This was a classic trap game after a super emotional comeback win that claimed the first ever playoff spot for the franchise. The assistant coach of the year who has turned this defense from worst to first wasn’t available for his signature half time adjustments after a mid week medical procedure.  The best offensive threat on the roster was sitting on the bench AGAIN for the 8th time this season.  And the best weapons we had left combined for a pretty poor performance offensively.  Not to mention Ron Rivera was running trick plays from the kid’s movie “Little Giants”.  All of this combined with the fact that the team has been getting patted on the back ALL week may have set this team up for a letdown. And maybe a much needed wake up call.

On the other hand, this isn’t the first time the Texans offense has struggled under Yates. I know we all, including myself, had him up on a huge pedestal after the Atlanta win and especially after the Cincinnati win, but he looked like a rookie on Sunday in ways he hasn’t the 3 previous games.  He seemed to always be going straight to the check down receiver rather than looking to move the ball downfield.  Only 3 of Yates 19 completions were long throws over 10 yards.  He didn’t complete his first long throw until the 4th quarter with the game almost out of reach.  Both of the interceptions were caused by bad decisions, especially the one in the end zone.  Yates tried to squeeze a ball into Jacoby with triple coverage because, as the TV analyst put it, he saw the flash of color he was looking for. He obviously failed to see the 3 defenders surrounding Jones. For all you Schaub haters out there ready to hand the keys to Yates, this was the 5th best offense in the league under Schaub scoring 27 points per game, now with the 3rd stringer Yates, were down to 17 points per game and 19th in total offense over the last 4 games.

Let’s not put this all on Yates though. There’s plenty of blame to go around for this bad performance.  Arian fumbled and gave Cam a short field, the defense failed to secure a much needed turnover, and let’s be honest, the defense laid an egg in the first half. 3 out of 5 drives in the first half netted TDs for the Panthers.  The defense got caught sleeping on trick play and our linebackers had no answer for Cam when he got outside the pocket and ran. Interim Defensive coordinator Reggie Herring seemingly made great adjustments at half time but after the 3rd quarter we couldn’t stop Cam Newton and the 5th ranked offense in the NFL.

Now I ask you, should we as Texans fans write this off as a bad game and expect the Texans take it as a wake up call, or should we be worried that maybe the Panthers exposed a weakness that will limit us against the higher competition we’ll see in the post season. Antonio Smith said today that this is going to be the fuel they need.  I hope so…

Can Yates be "Legendary"?

The Houston Texans trailed the Cincinnati Bengals on the road by two scores with less than 12 minutes left in the game. The Texans running game wasn’t providing its rookie QB the protection it normally does and the defense wasn’t getting to the Bengals QB like the Bengals were getting to ours.  After he fumbled the ball away on 4^th down early in the fourth quarter, most 3^rd string rookie QB’s would have folded up the tent and gone home, but Texans rookie QB TJ Yates, with his parents watching from the nosebleed seats,  put on his big boy pants, put the team on his back and won Houston is first division crown in team history.

Yates was near legendary on the final game winning drive.  Watching him pull it off with the poise and precision of a grisly veteran I couldn’t help but be reminded that the guy on the sidelines calling the plays witnessed, first hand, another QB define the “game winning drive” 25 years earlier. Before you have me committed for comparing Yates to Hall of Famer John Elway, hear me out.  Yates game winning drive had a lot of similarities to “The Drive” by John Elway in the 1986 AFC Title game.

Elway was backed up on his 2 and Yates got it at his 20 but Elway had over 5 minutes to play and Yates had only 2:33 and no timeouts.  Elway dinked and dunked down the field until he had a huge 20 yd completion to Mark Jackson.  Yates completed a few short passes until he hit Kevin Walter on a long pass over the middle.  Both QB’s took sacks in the drive, and both QBs had to scramble for long first downs but neither saw a 4^th down during the drive. Yates went 5-9 (not including spikes) and Elway went 6-9.  Both QB’s finished off the drive with a TD pass to the same receiver that made the big catch to get them in position to win it.

Now Elway’s legendary drive was in the playoffs and won the Broncos an AFC Title while Yates’ drive only won a regular season Division Title.  So before we anoint Yates the second coming (Tebow already has that title by the way), let’s see what the kid can do in the playoffs.  He will still have chance to prove he’s the real deal against NFL legends like James Harrison and Troy Palamalu, or Ray Lewis and Terrell Suggs.  Just remember no rookie QB has ever started a Super Bowl so Yates will have to succeed where so many others have failed.  But then again this team is doing all sorts of things that are “impossible” so, not to be too cheesy but, who knows where this magical run will end?

Notes:

Texans reclaimed the top defense spot after allowing only 111 yards and 3 points in the second half including -1 yards for RB Cedric Benson.

Texans sustain more injuries losing KR Sherrick McMannis for the year with an ankle injury and G Mike Brisiel for 3 to 4 games with a broken leg.

Kevin Sumlin... Really?

The Texas Aggies will apparently wrap up their coaching search tomorrow, and all signs point to the Aggies handing the reigns over to UH head Coach Kevin Sumlin.  Sumlin is coming off the best year in UH history and the program's only undefeated regular season.  UH has set records all over the offensive side of the field and led FBS in total offense and total points.  Sumlin has ties to the A&M program as he was an assistant coach for the Aggies from 2001-2002, so he seems like the obvious choice. 

If you look though a bit deeper though at Sumlin’s accomplishments at UH, you will see that they weren't against anything close to the top flight competition the Aggies will see in the SEC. On top of the easy schedule, the Heisman hopeful that led the Cougars to the C-USA title game wasn't his recruit.  The real architect of UH’s resurgence was Sumlins predecessor, Art Biles.

Art Briles came into UH after the Coogs went 0-11 and won 8 games in 3 years under Dana Dimel. The program was in the worst shape it had ever been in. In his first year he won 7 games and took the Coogs to their first bowl game in 7 years. He won the conference title 3 years later and the program starting putting players in the NFL.  In 2007 he left the Cougars for another program that needed to be brought out of the shadows of the college football powerhouses.  The Baylor Bears hadn't had a winning season in 15 years and went 0-8 in the Big XII the year before Briles arrived.

Briles and the Bears battled through 2 rebuilding years in 08 & 09 in which they went 4-8 both years. But they broke through in 2010 and went to their first bowl game since 1994.  He followed that up this year with a 9-3 season in which the Bears beat TCU, Texas, and OU. The Bears have also secured their first winning season in Big XII conference play since they joined the conference.

Briles is Texas football through and through.  He’s coached football in the state for over 30 years. He has outstanding relationships with high school coaches all over Texas from his years at Texas Tech, UH and Baylor. He recruited Robert Griffin III to UH and then was able to get him to follow him to Baylor.  All the polls now are pointing to RG3 being Baylor’s first Heisman winner.  If you can win a Heisman at Baylor imagine what he can do at a school with near unlimited resources, rich football tradition, and playing in the country’s premier football conference.

Briles has the experience needed to push through several inevitable bad rebuilding seasons and the high school connection s to tip the recruiting scales back in the favor of the Aggies.  If Bill Byrne and the A&M administration haven't placed a call to Waco and backed up a Brinks truck to Briles front door, they're not only crazy, they're bordering incompetent.

Why Gary Kubiak should be coach of the year.

The 49er’s have already clinched their division and have made an impressive turnaround with a rookie head coach.  Many people have already written Jim Harbaugh’s name on the Coach of the Year award and maybe deservedly so.  I just hope they wrote it in pencil because as amazing as that turnaround is, I don’t think it’s as amazing as the job Gary Kubiak has done with the amount of adversity the Houston Texans have had to deal with.

Both the Texans and the 49er’s finished last season with 6-10 records and both underperformed to their expectations of their respective fan bases.  The 49er’s failure cost Mike Singletary his job and gave Jim Harbaugh his first NFL head coaching gig.  The Texans poor performance only cost defensive coordinator Frank Bush his job and brought us defensive whiz Wade Phillips.

Both of these teams have similar schedules and share 5 common opponents (Tampa & AFC North) As of right now the common opponent W-L record is 2-1 for both the Texans and the Niners as both squads lost in Baltimore.  The Texans have a tougher strength of schedule currently at .458 to San Francisco’s .444.  They edge us out though in strength of victory though at .400 to our .380.  Their division is also a bit tougher than ours but they had no real challenger for the division crown and our division is being drug down by the winless Colts.

With these stats though and the fact that the (10-2) 49er’s are a game ahead of the (9-3) Texans and have already clinched their division I would normally lean towards Harbaugh for this award .  But if you look at what Kubiak has had to deal with this year and how well he’s done it, you can’t ignore Kubiak has done an outstanding job this year  The Texans injury woes are well documented so I won’t go through them individually.  Just ask yourself this, would the 49er defense be where it is without Patrick Willis or Justin Smith?  Would their offense be where it is without Frank Gore or Vernon Davis?  The Texans have suffered, on average, a season ending injury every game! According to Nick Scurfield of the Houston Texans, the Texans have 12 players on IR through 12 games. The 49er’s lost 2, and no one the caliber of Matt Schaub or Mario Williams.

This team definitely mirrors its head coach as nothing seems to phase it.  Lost our best defensive player? That’s OK we’ll replace him with a rookie whose now produced 6.0 sacks in the last 6 games. Lose our starting safety? Ok we’ll take the top defensive spot the next week. The league rushing champ is hurt at the beginning of the season? No problem, Ben Tate can get us 1k yards this year. Problem after problem has been solved with little to no panic.  Every week we seem to take another gut wrenching blow and every week this team just seems to respond.

If the Texans finish the season with a first round bye which, according to NFL.com, is where they sit right now, I think Gary Kubiak will have done the best coaching job in the NFL this year.  He will have had to do it with a 5^th round rookie at the helm and minus his best defensive player for 10.5games and his best offensive player for 7 games. 

 

How the Texans can win the division this week!

The Texans can claim their first division crown and first trip to the postseason this coming weekend if they can beat the Bengals and the Titans lose to the Saints.  The scenario in which Gary Kubiak will  get the gatorade bath in Cincinnati this week is quite complicated and goes to the 3rd divisional tie breaker.
Here are the tiebreakers:

1. Head-to-head (best won-lost-tied percentage in games between the clubs).
2. Best won-lost-tied percentage in games played within the division.
3. Best won-lost-tied percentage in common games.
4. Best won-lost-tied percentage in games played within the conference.
5. Strength of victory.
6. Strength of schedule.
7. Best combined ranking among conference teams in points scored and points allowed.
8. Best combined ranking among all teams in points scored and points allowed.
9. Best net points in common games.
10. Best net points in all games.
11. Best net touchdowns in all games.
12. Coin toss  (that would suck!)

The first tiebreaker in this scenario would still be even as we already beat the Titans in Tennessee in week 7, so a loss at home in week 17 is meaningless.  The second tie breaker (divisional record) would also be even as we are currently 4-0 in the division and Tennessee is 1-2.  The worst we could possibly finish is 4-2 and the best that Tennessee can finish is 4-2 as well.  The third tiebreaker is W-L record in common games and this is where it gets complicated.  Our common games would be Indianapolis twice and Jacksonville twice, then we both played the AFC north and the NFC south. Neither of our Strength of schedule games were common.  At this point we can do no worse than 3-1 against Indy and Jacksonville and the best Tennessee can do is 3-1. We are can do no worse than 2-2 in the NFC south as we've already beaten Atlanta and Tampa. If Tennessee loses this weekend their NFC south record will be 2-2 as well. At last we get to the AFC north.  If we win this weekend we will finish the year with 3 wins in the AFC north over Cleveland, Pittsburg, and Cincinnati.  Tennessee already lost two games in the AFC north this year to Cincinnati and Pittsburg, so our 3-1 AFC North record will trump their 2-2 record and break the tie.
Whew!!  I need to take a breath!! So as you can see its possible.  This scenario does require TJ Yates to win his first road game in the NFL, but they always say when you go on the road in the NFL, the two things to make sure and pack are your defense and running game.  Our two strengths.

Go Texans!

A little about me

Well where to start...  I am a native Texan and have lived here my whole life.  There are more than a few teams I root for but I am a huge believer in rooting for your home town team.  I have a few non Houston teams that I root for but I root for EVERY Houston team first.

Let me give you a break down of "My" teams. I love all the Houston teams: Texans, Rockets, Astros, Dynamo, and even the Aeros from time to time.  My non Houston teams consist of Manchester United, and the USA Mens National Soccer team.  I am also a big college football fan and I root hard for the Texas Aggies and any team playing Texas.

Anyone who knows me knows I pretty much HATE every team from Dallas.  Call it a regional rivalry, call it being jaded by obnoxious Cowboys fans, whatever... I hate Dallas teams.  That said, I will try not to let that bubble over too much in my posts as I know a few of you are Cowboys fans. 

You may be wondering a bit about the name of the blog,  8 to 80...  it obviously refers to Matt Schaub and Andre Johnson, the two Texans franchise players.  The idea of the name comes from a very well known Indianapolis Colts blog 18to88.com.  I saw the name of that and loved it so I carried it over to my blog.

This wasn't exactly "the book" on me but if you have any questions please just ask.  I'll reply to the "appropriate " ones.

Welcome

Welcome to the 8 to 80 Texans Blog.  While the primary focus of this blog will be on the Houston Texans, AFC South, and the NFL as a whole, we will delve into other sports topics and popular culture from time to time.

This is my first time blogging but I have enjoyed communicating with the twitter format. Many times though I find the 140 character limit to be too constricting.  I can be quite wordy if you know what I mean.  Plus this gives me a way to talk to all of you without filling up your inboxes. 

There will be a place for you to comment on posts and I will try my best respond to all of them.  Please let me know if you have any suggestions.

And away we go!