Casserly drafted in 2006: 1st: Mario Williams 2nd: Demeco Ryans 3rd: Charles Spencer 3rd: Eric Winston 4th: Owen Daniels 6th: Wali Lundy 7th: David Anderson Rick Smith takes over in June 2007: Traded for ATL backup Schaub losing 2 2nds and allowing a pick swap in the 1st (only two slots). 2007 Draft: 1st: Amobe Okoye - unproductive. Part of the problem. 3rd: Jacoby Jones - big project 4th: Fred Bennett - CB junk 5th: Brandon Harrison - S junk 5th: Brandon Frye 6th: Kasey Studdard 7th: Zac Diles 2008 Draft: 1st: Duane Brown - Juice! 3rd: Antwuan Molden - CB w injury bug 3rd: Steve Slaton - One year wonder, trash now 4th: Xavier Adibi 5th: Frank Okam 6th: Dominique Barber - S junk 7th: Alex Brink 2009 Draft: 1st: Brian Cushing - Juice! 2nd: Connor Barwin - Injured 3rd: Antoine Caldwell 4th: Glover Quinn - Made some plays this year. Decent pick. 4th: Anthony Hill 5th: James Casey 6th: Brice McCain - CB junk 7th: Troy Nolan - S junk 2010 Draft: 1st: Kareem Jackson - Falls down. Was supposed to be NFL ready. 2nd: Ben Tate - Injured, reserving judgment. 3rd: Earl Mitchell 4th: Daryll Sharpton 4th: Garrett Graham 5th: Sherrick McManis - CB junk 6th: Shelley Smith 6th: Trindon Holliday 7th: Dorin Dickerson So tell me this... in a passing league... with a HOF QB in your division. WHY DO YOU NEVER DRAFT A FREAKING SAFETY EARLY?! We gave up the most 40+ yard plays... We ended up starting(at any point during the year): Kareem Jackson - 1st round rookie Glover Quin - 4th round 2nd year player Brice McCain - 6th round 2nd year player Troy Nolan - 7th round 2nd year player Eugue Wilson - Patriots trash Jason Allen - Miami trash Bernard Pollard - KC trash The roster decisions and drafting of our DBs have been so bad, we could have predicted how bad our pass D would have been this year. We have enough sample size of Rick Smith's drafting to know that he should not be an NFL GM.
Here are some defensive players drafted AFTER Okoye: Spoiler Patrick Willis LB Darrelle Revis CB Michael Griffin S Brandon Meriweather S Jon Beason LB All have been to the Pro Bowl. Think the Texans could use any of these guys today? Eh, can't really complain about this one. Brown is getting better every game. MUCH improved from a year ago. Clay Matthews was taken after Cushing. He's worked our pretty good for the Packers. Plus, he's Bruce Matthew's nephew. In hindsight, we picked the wrong USC LB. He does have cool workout videos on YouTube, though. He was really a reach. Dude was undersized and had only played DE for 1 year. And we draft him in the 2nd round?? Plus, he's pretty much a one-trick pony. 3rd down pass rusher. You shouldn't use a 2nd round pick for a situational player.
Instead we drafted the kid that was still in diapers. No complaints on drafting Brown. I think Cushing will be fine. Reserving judgment. GB's defense is studly all around now. So 2nd round picks shouldn't be situational players?
Not arguing with the overall point, but I wouldn't be so quick to call Nolan junk. He's shown a lot of flashes this year and I wouldn't mind him taking Wilson's spot deep.
If they could find some way to get Clay Matth-juice and Brian Cush-roids on the same roster and on the same health plan, the team would save $20 in co-pays, something near and dear to McNair's heart.
He showed more than Eugene Wilson and should have started all year. With that said, he's still junk compared to your average safety.
The Texans Draft the best player avilable in there eyes, instead of drafting for need hence back to back tightend last year. Which is fine when you have multiple needs and low production but I feel we are just a BIG Nasty DT and a Good safety away from the playoff. If we could of got more pressure on the QB our CBs would not of been so exposed. Imagine someone 325lbs plus next to Mario commanding a double team! Mario would lead the league in sacks hernia or no hernia!
Now you're talking nonsense. Didn't you know the Texans already had a great LB at that time? Let's do the math here. We have 1 great LB. A 4-3 system can use 3 LBs, and 2 LBs in nickel situations. But that's layman's number crunching. Obviously, by the Texans advanced statistics, they understood that they don't need more than one awesome linebacker. So Okoye was the logical choice over Willis, which was taken next. Willis/Ryans would've never worked. See, you just don't understand NFL defense like the Texans do.
It's actually why the Steelers are mired in mediocrity too. Woodley and Timmons in the 1st and 2nd when they already had Harrison and Farrior? Textbook idiocy.
Agree with the rest but will disagree here Cushing was arguably the best OLB in the NFL his rookie season and was etter than Mathews Matthews is better this season but also plays a totally different position I will give cush a pass this season with the suspension, change in position, and no demeco
IMO the Texans have drafted players earlier than needed. Why was Connor Barwin drafted in the second round? The guy was a TE then moved to DE for one year, are you telling me that guy couldn't have been drafted in the 4th or 5th rounds? Ditto for Jacoby Jones, why was this guy drafted in the 3rd round? Came from a small school that no one had ever heard of and probably could have been taken in the 5th or 6th round. I don't understand the Texans' draft philosophy, I'd like to believe its to take the best player available, but that doesn't seem to be the case in regards to the current developments. Are they drafting the best available athletes? It seems like the Smith/Kubiak and Co. like to take the "project" guy or the guy with the most "potential", IMO thats why Okoye, Barwin and Jones were drafted, why is a team that is still trying to build itself up to a contender drafting project players? Take the big mean, space eating DT that could help free up your franchise DE! Draft the ball-hawking CB, no wait, lets take the too-light-in-the-@ss DT who is really young but will "develop" into an elite DT. Watching the Texans draft players is horrible. I wish Kubiak and Co. wouldn't try to outsmart everyone else and take a player two to three rounds early cause he "fits the system". If the Texans didn't need to draft Willis because they already had Ryans, then why draft James Casey and Anthony Hill and sign Joel Dressen when you have a pro-bowl TE in Owen Daniels? Draft the best players and find away to get them on the field. I love the Texans, but its getting more difficult to watch this team make boneheaded moves.
I agree that our drafts have been slightly below average. I think people don't give Rick Smith enough credit for his late round picks (every year it seems he's found some pretty decent talent in the last two rounds of the draft), and for his mid-season free agent signings(Pollard, Mark Anderson, Jason Allen, Derrick Ward, etc.) I also think people are too quick to judge on some picks. Connor Barwin showed some great flashes his rookie season, and many were calling for him to have a breakout year. Don't count him out. Between him, Mario, Antonio Smith, Mark Anderson, and Tim Jamison (who made some plays late in the year), this team has some defensive end talent. Tell me they don't, and I won't believe you. Troy Nolan, with some quality coaching, can be a pretty good safety in this league, also. Dorin Dickerson is going to be a player. Zac Diles, while being a merely average player (if that), has been a serviceable 7th round pick. As far as Barwin and Jacoby being reaches, I don't buy that, either. If I remember right, Barwin was one of the top players on Kiper's board (and a few others) when he was taken. Just because he's a project doesn't mean he was a reach. Yeah, maybe he was a luxury pick for a team that couldn't afford it, but he wasn't a reach. You absolutely cannot judge him as a pick yet, either. To do so would be silly, especially considering some of the potential he has shown. Same with Jacoby. He was actually considered a good value pick, and never would have made it to the "5th or 6th round." Besides that, look at what he's done in his career. Yeah, he drops passes, but he makes plays, is a good punt returner, and given a different offense, would possibly have a shot at being a number two receiver. He stepped up the last two weeks with Andre gone, big time. Where Smith has failed, HOWEVER, are the first three rounds, and ultimately, these are the rounds that separate playoff teams from consistently mediocre ones. You mean to tell me that in four years, Brian Cushing, Amobe Okoye, Duane Brown, Jacoby Jones(PR), and Kareem Jackson are the only starters you've drafted in the first three rounds? That's ridiculous, considering only two or three of those would start on most teams. Let's look at the starters the Patriots have stockpiled in the first three rounds of their last four drafts: Patrick Chung, Sebastian Volmer, Jerod Mayo, Brandon Meriweather, Devin McCourty, Rob Gronkowski, Brandon Tate (KR) That's seven compared to our five. They also have drafted a few key backups that play quite a bit (Ron Brace comes to mind). Saints: Malcolm Jenkins, Sedrick Ellis, Tracy Porter, Robert Meacham, They only have four starters, but several key backups, also. The four listed are all first or second round picks. Their third rounders, haven't panned out. The first and second round picks from this year, are on the bench, but have potential. Steelers: Maurkice Pouncey, Ziggy Hood, Mike Wallace, Rashard Mendehall, Lawrence Timmons, LaMarr Woodley, Emmanuel Sanders (KR) That's seven. Colts: Pat Angerer, Donald Brown, Jeraud Powers, Mike Pollak, Anthony Gonzales, Tony Ugoh(albeit he starts for Detroit) Jets: Mark Sanchez, Shonn Greene, Dustin Keller, Darrelle Revis, David Harris Not counting 2010 (in which they have no starters, but several backups who've played a bit this year...well Joe Mcknight started last week...), 5 out of their 6 first round picks are starters. The other: Vernon Gholston. I could keep listing teams, but I don't want to list every team in the NFL. There's a variety of ways that NFL GMs have used to acquire this many starters in their first three rounds of the draft. You could go the Patriots way and trade older players for picks (well, I guess we can't because we don't really have any older players that we could get picks for...or quality subs for them), stockpiling first through third rounders. This gives you starters by pure quantity of picks. You could go the Jets way, and amass quite a few first rounders, and not so many second or thirds. Fact of the matter, is that somehow, some way, you have to make successful picks in the early rounds of the draft. It's all good and well if you find "diamonds in the rough" in the sixth or seventh round. Those players hardly sustain a career, though, and are usually good for one or two good years. They rarely make the Pro Bowl. What it ultimately comes down to, is the fact that Rick Smith is a decent to above average GM in certain areas. Like I said before, he does a good job in bringing in mid-season free-agents. He does a pretty good job drafting in the later rounds (where he usually takes the best player available). What he doesn't do a good job in, is the first few rounds (where he seems to pick for need, but also reaches from time to time). In my opinion, Kareem Jackson was a reach. There are, I would guess, at least five corners that were taken after him that have been more successful so far in their careers. You can argue that they are on better teams with better secondaries. While true, Kareem has still shown nothing other than the fact that he can hit, which in essence, is the reason our secondary sucks. They've been drafted to hit people, not cover. What it ultimately boils down to, is the fact that Bob McNair is happy with people who are average to good at half of their job (see: Kubiak, Gary). If that's the case, he's willing to overlook the other half that you suck at.