2012 Houston Texans Off-Season Cheat Sheet - Houston Chronicle (blog)

Here’s my Cliff Notes-sorts of thoughts on various Texans subjects being discussed these days:

Bob McNair is planning on giving head coach Gary Kubiak and GM Rick Smith a contract extension.

There’s no salary cap for coaches or staff, so go for it. Means it won’t be a distraction in the last year of their contract. If they do a great job this year, terrific. If McNair wants to fire them at some point, he can do that too. That’s how those sorts of contracts work. I give this news a “Oh, okay, yawn.”

The Texans acquired former-Redskin John Beck. (UH alum teeth gnash)

The Texans were likely going to need a fourth quarterback for the off-season given Matt Schaub’s recovery from his foot issue from last year. Great acquisition because he is familiar with the offense which means better practices and more internal competition to get better. If Case Keenum does a nice job this off-season, Cougar fans, there is always the practice squad. (I think the Texans carry three quarterbacks on the roster this year and not two. They’ve done it both ways but given Schaub coming off of injury, I bet they go three QBs)

As an aside, Beck, like Sage Rosenfels is a product of the Dolphins-Redskins inability to develop a quarterback history. Not sure that Beck could ever be a true starting NFL QB, but his particular welcome to the league is not how you would like to develop quarterbacks.

The Cliff Notes for Moby Dick are better than the book.

If I start a book, I tend to finish it. In high school, I hated Moby Dick, ended up skimming it, and then did my book report mostly based on things I read in the Cliff Notes. Got my best grade of the semester which made me a bit bitter. As another aside, I am very glad not to be in high school any more, with no offense intended to the fine folks at Cypress Creek High School.

A Texans rookie said he was going to be the next Andre Johnson.

This is a manufactured controversy. Undrafted Rookie Free Agent Dwight Jones gave a phone interview with Sports Radio 610. The podcast was labeled, “Texans UFA Dwight Jones: ‘I Am The Next Andre Johnson’” If you actually listen to the interview, he says that phrase in a sort of a throwaway way. He talks of Andre Johnson with great respect and as a role model.

What is the better things from those interview is hearing about his physical skills, hearing that he is already familiar with the city of Houston working at Plex with Case Keenum, and how his the offense he played in college was similar to the one the Texans play.

Ultimately it is a so what story. Good for him that he has confidence in his skills. If Jones works out for the team, excellent. Would be nice to have another big body on the field. If it doesn’t, who cares, he’s a undrafted rookie free agent.

Can the Kubiak Texans develop wide receivers?

Too small a sample size to say for certain. The highest drafted wide receiver for the Texans under Kubiak was Jacoby Jones in the 3rd round. They haven’t made the offensive side of the ball a priority in the draft for most of the Kubiak years because they were spending so many draft picks trying to fix their defense.

We can expect __________ from the Texans rookie wide receivers.

No telling. This will likely be a wide open competition. The WRs who learn the play book quickly, can contribute on special teams and stay healthy throughout camp and the preseason are the guys who will stick.

If the Texans play the type of games they want to play, Andre Johnson will have big numbers because he’s AJ, but the tandem of Arian Foster and Ben Tate will have huge numbers because the running game will be used to close out games. The rookies’ main role is to not be a problem, move the chains, be solid on special teams, make plays when they are available.

What are the biggest Texans concerns going into next year?

1. How fast Matt Schaub recovers and whether he can get back to where he was. The Texans apparently do not see this as a concern or else they would likely have done other things in this off-season

2. Offensive Line. There’s going to be a new right side of the offensive line in 2012. Will this disrupt the offense at all, keep Schaub on his feet while facing some very good pass rushers next year?

3. Unproven players at wide receiver. This is an offense that can make wide receivers look very good, but there’s uncertainty at how they performâ€"possibly both good and bad.

4. Special teams. Texans drafted a rookie field goal kicker. That can be an adventure. Last year, not being able to depend on field goals wasn’t really a problem because most games didn’t come down to field goals.

What should we expect from Wade Phillips’ Year 2 of the Texans defense?

The Texans believe that the defense will be better this year because they will have an entire off-season to learn more of Wade Phillips’ defense. That is the most consistently stated thing by players on the defense and the coaching staff. Some people think that Phillips’ defenses tend to get worse in their second year. (Or as an alarmist prediction “will collapse”). Read that Battle Red Blog link if this is a concern to you.

I will add: 1. Small sample size; 2. The Texans defensive starters are younger than the ones that Phillips has worked with previously. 3. Defensive predictions, no matter the coordinator are hard to do. Defensive rankings from year to year tend to be less predictable than offensive rankings. You don’t have to tell Dom Capers and the Packers that.

To sum up, if the Texans have health at key positions on defense, I expect them to be average to above average on defense. And that’s what they need at a minimum to be able to play winning football. (And what they didn’t have prior to Phillips’ arrival to the team). With a serviceable to good to great defensive play, the Texans will have the ability to win different kinds of gamesâ€"low scoring to high scoring.

So did I miss anything?

Uh oh. Now I’m going to have to think of random stuff to fill the rest of the time until actual news happens. Did I leave anything out? Is there anything you want me to discuss further? Is there anything you want to discuss further? Is there stuff you want to see a future blog post about? Did anyone out there actually enjoy reading Moby Dick? Really? Next you’re going to tell me you liked Beowolf.