Writers of Pro Football Prospectus 2008

printable version

Extra Points

Articles from around the Web

Need Help with KUBIAK or Premium?

blog advertising is good for you


26 Jul 2010

FOA 2010 MEDIA: Houston

Next stop in our media tour is Houston, where the first part of a chat with Steph Stradley of the Houston Chronicle is up, covering the disappointing projection for the Texans in FOA 2010.

Posted by: Bill Barnwell on 26 Jul 2010

19 comments, Last at 28 Jul 2010, 2:57am by theshadowj

Comments

1
by bingo762 :: Mon, 07/26/2010 - 12:48pm

Did you guys see this at the end of the article?

http://houston.sbnation.com/2010/7/26/1585842/texans-football-outsiders-...

It's a link to a blog that discects your prediction. They basically think the Texans are gonna be more like the '09 Cardinals. After '08 you predicted bad things which didn't tuen out to be the case

2
by jbrown (not verified) :: Mon, 07/26/2010 - 4:30pm

I've noticed lots of contradicting comments about the Texans this season as well. Somebody will end up being right, but I'm not sure which side.

For example:
--Matt Schaubs health: I get the basic idea that he could likely regress back to his "normal" injury rate, but the problem with his expected "injuredness" is A) It's based off of just 2 years starting data (before last season), B)For those 2 years there was a reasonably competent backup QB in Rosenfels so it might have made it "easier" to miss games (whether that was Schaub's or the staffs decision) and C) There was little to no running game to take some of the heat off Schaub

--Starting a rookie CB: The basic logic behind starting a rookie CB being a bad factor makes sense, but seems like there is some need for context here. I would guess there is a HUGE difference between starting a rookie because he plays well and beats out veterans versus having to start a rookie (i.e. the Lions or Browns, who might make up a significant % of the sample data). In the Texans case, they already have Jacque Reeves and Glover Quinn, so Kareem Jackson only starts if he outplays them (or someone gets injured).

3
by Vince Verhei :: Mon, 07/26/2010 - 6:40pm

1. Schaub's injury history dates back to his college days. That's why Atlanta was able to draft him in the third round.

2. If the Texans were happy with Quin and Reeves as a starting duo, they wouldn't have drafted Jackson. They picked him to be a starter. If he can't beat out either Quin or Reeves, then Houston's in even deeper trouble than we thought.

6
by jbrown (not verified) :: Mon, 07/26/2010 - 9:41pm

He missed a few games one year due to one injury, but also set a record for most games played by a quarterback. Not sure that's really "injury history" or why he went in the third round. His below average arm strength and other factors probably had just as much to do with it.

Again, on point 2, there is still a difference between replacing Quin and Reeves versus replacing a street free agent level player like other teams have to do. Their intentions with picking him shouldn't impact anything at all (teams don't usually spend 1st round picks to be a bench player). Not to mention Quin and McCain (plus Bennett wherever the one year-wonder is hiding now) all have more experience going into this year.

I'm not offended by the projections or anything, and personally think there are a lot of concerns for the team overall...it just seems like some of these issues fail to take into account context. The biggest thing I see that makes them hard to figure out is the amount of young depth on defense. It seems like each position has at least one promising young player--Barwin at DE, Mitchell at DT, Adibi at LB plus the trio of young CB's--that may make no impact or may save the team from a rash of injuries. It's a strange defensive makeup to me because you have so many young players and the "veterans" are guys like Demeco Ryans who aren't exactly old. I could see that blowing up or everyone growing up together, and neither would really surprise me.

13
by Mr Shush :: Tue, 07/27/2010 - 5:13am

As best I can tell, Schaub's college injury history consisted of one shoulder injury which led him to miss all of two games. I'm not sure that's much of an argument in favour of the notion of him as "injury prone". We just don't have the data to know whether he is or not.

The Texans certainly do strongly consider need in making their first round picks, and corner was undoubtedly a weakness for the team. That said, it was a weakness, not a gaping hole (believe me, as a Texans fan I know what gaping holes in the secondary look like, and Reeves and Quin ain't it), and you don't (or at least damn well shouldn't) draft people on the basis of what you expect them to do as a rookie. Reeves is an adequate starter; Quin was an adequate starter as a rookie and may perfectly well develop into something more. Jackson is not automatically a bust if he can't beat them out as a rookie (though it would be pretty disappointing if he hadn't displaced Reeves by his second year).

4
by Joey (not verified) :: Mon, 07/26/2010 - 7:51pm

You can make a case for anything, and there's certainly more than one plausible scenario for the Texans making the leap to a 10-6 or better season, but the point with the FOA chapter is that the statistically more likely scenarios line up with a 6 or 7 win season. That's not an all-caps, "fuck you!" type of statistical argument, it's just an analysis of certain factors that could trend in a certain direction. I'm sure that the FO writers would agree as much as anybody that the formula sometimes has trouble correcting its own mistakes with a team projection year after year, meaning that a team is going to carry many of its same indicators over multiple years even if it defied those indicators (up or down) in one or more of those years. Still, the book projected the Texans to win 7 games last year and they won 9 so it's not like it was crazy wrong, and that's without knowing about the home-run acquisitions of Cushing and Pollard.

5
by Joey (not verified) :: Mon, 07/26/2010 - 8:04pm

I also think it's worth noting that Bill answered perhaps the biggest potential problem with the projection, which is that it doesn't account for the quality of young defensive depth the Texans might have. As a Texans fan, I also think it underrates Eugene Wilson as a quality free safety, and if they get a consistent running game like they didn't have last year, the offense could actually improve. However, I don't think any Texan fan could seriously argue with the potential calamity that will come if Schaub misses multiple games. And being that he has been somewhat injury prone (not crazy injury prone, but he still has been), it's hard to argue with this factor depressing the 2010 win projection.

7
by jbrown (not verified) :: Mon, 07/26/2010 - 9:43pm

Agreed pretty much all around. If the running game doesn't get going I could see defenses just lining up to kill Schaub. It's amazing that the play-action worked as well as it did last year with virtually no running threat.

10
by theshadowj :: Tue, 07/27/2010 - 12:47am

In a season preview of the Texans on the NY Times fifth down blog, Andy Benoit mentioned that Schaub had the best play-action fake in the league. That would certainly explain its effectiveness, although other articles I've read of his don't particularly give me confidence in his scouting abilities.

15
by Rivers McCown :: Tue, 07/27/2010 - 8:06am

Texans game charter here.

Trust me, it's pretty damn great. Fooled a few cameramen last season.

But I wouldn't place all the PA success on Schaub, the PA pass is Kubiak's specialty and I think he runs it better than anyone else in the league.

17
by Trust Doesn't Rust (not verified) :: Tue, 07/27/2010 - 4:30pm

One thing you gotta give Kubiak credit for is that, even when generally ineffective, he keeps the run in the gameplan and forces front sevens to at least pay attention to it. He also did a great job of getting the ball to Slaton in the passing game when it was clear that he wasn't cutting it through runs. Just anecdotally from following the Texans last year, it seemed that the mid-season loss of Owen Daniels was a far bigger blow to the offense than the ineffective running game. So, I mean, if Daniels isn't able to come back and be the weapon that he was pre-injury, the offense could continue to find itself stagnant in key situations despite putting up decent numbers.

8
by tuluse :: Mon, 07/26/2010 - 9:52pm

Free Rex Grossman!

Is he still on the Texans? I didn't bother checking.

9
by Vince Verhei :: Mon, 07/26/2010 - 11:26pm

He's on the Redskins. Texans' top backup is Dan Orlovsky.

11
by theshadowj :: Tue, 07/27/2010 - 1:04am

Generally good article, but it's Nitpicking Time:

How are Jacques Reeves and Eugene Wilson the weakest part of the secondary? If anything, before Pollard came along, they were the best players in the (pretty bad) back four. In fact, Reeves has been the best cover corner on the team for two years straight.

Also, random question: if Sage Rosenfels is cut by the Vikings (and it certainly looks like he could be) and the Texans pick him up, would that change the projections at all?

12
by Mr Shush :: Tue, 07/27/2010 - 4:57am

I'm not convinced that it should, but I also submit that concerns about the effects of Schaub missing time may be somewhat over-blown. Orlovsky, based on past performance, looks a much better proposition than Rosenfels did before joining the Texans, and given his apparent inability to beat out Tarvaris Jackson I'd say it probably wasn't a case of Rosenfels suddenly improving enormously as a player upon signing in Houston. Orlovsky's DVOA in 2008 - the only season in which he saw meaningful playing time - was 0.3%, over 255 attempts in 10 games with 7 starts. Rosenfels' best previous performance was in 2005, with -4.2% DVOA over 61 attempts in 4 games with 1 start. In 2004 he threw 39 passes in 3 games with 1 start for a whopping -66.5% DVOA. Both men were on pretty bad teams. The Mountain Coast offense is very quarterback friendly (remember pro-bowl passer Brian Griese?), and I think a competent veteran back-up with knowledge of the system (which is what Orlovsky is) should be expected to post above average statistical production. I'm not saying Schaub going down wouldn't matter, but I am saying we should expect Orlovsky to produce at a level somewhere between Rosenfels 2008 and Rosenfels 2007 if he does, and that is still very much a passing game you can win with.

14
by Mr Shush :: Tue, 07/27/2010 - 5:41am

I understand and agree with a lot of what the projection system is picking up on. The schedule looks pretty murderous. Injuries are likely to be more of an issue (the one that I think would actually be a killer is not Schaub or even Johnson - remember 2007 - but Williams). I do suspect that the system probably gives undue weight to the horrific defenses of the Richard Smith era, and the shambles of the first three games of 2009, in predicting how that unit will look going forward. I also think that, as Bill notes, it is very, very hard for any system to appreciate just how well the Texans have drafted under Kubiak (note that he has final say over all personnel decisions, and that the good drafting starts with his arrival and prior to Smith's).

My view is that the running game is likely to improve thanks to the arrival of Dennison and the likelihood of some combination of Foster, Tate and a prospectively healthy Slaton playing at a vastly higher level than the woeful 2009 performance of the last-named. Jacoby Jones has been showing signs of finally delivering on his enormous potential, and could well have a break-out season, but even if he does improvement in the already strong passing game is likely to be fairly small. The defense may take a step back during Cushing's suspension, but health permitting should then be expected to perform at or above its 2009 second half level. Health may of course not be permitting, but I believe it would take a catastrophic rash of injuries to produce a return to anything resembling the suckitude of years gone by. The field goal kicking is very likely to regress to the mean from its horrible 2009 performance, whether it's Rackers or Brown taking the kicks. Stepping back from trends and changes, and examining the teams from scratch as they are now, it seems to me very hard to argue that the Texans are not significantly more talented overall than the Jaguars or Titans. Yes, they have harder strength of schedule games, but they also (if I'm right) have easier divisional games thanks to not having to play themselves. I fully expect the team to be in the 8-10 win bracket. 7 would be a disappointment, but not a huge surprise. 11 seems pretty unlikely, but not as unlikely as 6, and a total below 6 really would stagger me, absent truly catastrophic injury levels far beyond mere regression to the mean.

19
by theshadowj :: Wed, 07/28/2010 - 2:57am

I think your right in your analysis of Schaub and Orlovsky. I thought he had good potential as a backup in the Texan's system, and a big reason for that was the average season he put up for a terrible Lions team. In fact, I think Orlovsky could be better than Rosenfels, and my confidence would really go up if the Vikings released him and the Texans didn't even bother to sign him.

You say that an injury to Mario Williams would be worse than one to Johnson or Schaub, and I might have to agree with you. The thing is, Mario Williams has never missed a game in his career, while the offense has shown that it can continue to chug along without Johnson and/or Schaub. Without the elite pressure and double teams from Williams, the defense might fall apart.

On a related note, I found the note on injuries to the front seven to be kind of strange. It ignored the fact that all three stars of the unit (Williams, Demeco Ryans and Brian Cushing) have never missed a game in their combined nine years in the league, and the next best player (Antonio Smith) hasn't missed one in the last five years. The rest of the unit is mediocre and largely replaceable. It's certainly true that more injuries will probably happen on defense, but it may not have that much of an effect.

A final note on injuries. You seem to imply, Mr Shush, that regression to the mean would mean more injuries to the Texans next year. However, they actually had more injuries than average last year, taking into account offense and defense, so that would actually be a point in the 2010 Texans favor.

16
by Raiderjoe :: Tue, 07/27/2010 - 12:56pm

Eags and texans qbs having rhyming lsat namse. Interesting especially beecause eags one plaued collehe gootball at houston

18
by jbrown (not verified) :: Tue, 07/27/2010 - 8:30pm

Raiderjoe wins again. I had classes with Kolb & live in Houston and didn't even think of that. Actually, I watched the guy the play a lot in college and never would have guessed he would be the best (so far at least) QB from that draft.

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

More information about formatting options

CAPTCHA
To skip this, please log in.