2010 Cincy Jungle Mock Draft: The Houston Texans Select...

I appreciate your thinking, but the fact of the matter is that our offense, while not the best in the league was very good last year. Duane Brown is no pro bowler, but he’s not a slouch either. He is what most would call average, some above average. He’s also coming into a third year in which he should continue to improve. He has the tools, but he’s still working on the finer details of the position. He improved toward the end of his rookie season and improved moreso last year. He will be better than serviceable and will be in the league for a long time. The fact remains that sacks, regardless of what position on the line they came from were not the reason for another mediocre season by the Texans. The real problems were, in order of the most relevant, 1) Inability to put pressure on the QB, 2) An inexperienced/less than average defensive backfield, 3) Inability of the offensive line to force their will upon the defensive line when running the ball. That said, there were also other contributing factors such as a new defensive scheme which hurt early on in the season and an offensive coaching staff that failed to prepare the team in a couple of games early on, and the inability of our running backs to HOLD ON TO THE BALL. I don’t know if you can tell, but I’m still a little bitter about the torrent of fumbles by the backs last year.

Now I’ll talk about the issues as they relate to the problems above:

1) We need a DT in a bad way, but not for the reason most people think. We don’t need a DT to pair next to Amobi, we need a DT to REPLACE Amobi Okoye. Amobi is just not very good. He hasn’t lived up to his potential. He disappears in games. He gets run over and very seldomly does he get penetration. However, he is better than his DT partner, no matter which one seems to be starting there that particular day. If they get a DT to replace Amobi, Antonio Smith can move down to the other tackle spot and wreak havoc. He can move down because of the emergence of Connor Barwin at DE toward the end of the year last year. This was the 3rd down configuration for the better part of the season last year and it worked better and better as the season wore on, yet there was always the weak spot(Amobi).

2) Dunta was not the same player he was before his injury. One of his more valuable assets in the past was his ability to make the tackle in run support. There wasn’t anyone better in the league at that from the corner position. However, last year he whiffed a lot. That told me that he didn’t have confidence in the knee or he couldn’t do the same things with the surgically repaired knee. Dunta has never been a great cover corner. He was above average at best, but now he is average at best and I hope Atlanta enjoys him. He was a good leader and that can’t be underestimated. Most of the prognosticators talk about Dunta as if it were 2006. He is just not the same guy. Believe me when I say that if he were, the Texans would have kept him. Good corners are just too hard to come by. Another problem was the horrible safety play until Bernard Pollard dropped into our laps as an in-season FA pick-up. Also, we had 2 rookies in the mix with Brice McCain(probably too small to be a good full-time CB) and Glover Quinn, a great 4th round pick who will be the starter at one side after getting better and better each game. He beats out Jacques Reeves, who statistically speaking is not as bad as everyone thinks, but he’s still average. And to wrap up this point, Free Safety is a need. We are below average to average there with Eugene Wilson.

3) I wish I could give you a definite answer on the problem running the ball last year, but I just can’t. I don’t think anyone really knows but the coaches and perhaps they don’t even know. I do know that they let Alex Gibbs leave to Seattle, which tells me that they think he may have lost his touch. We lost both of our guards last year around the 3rd game of the season, so I would point to that, but we hadn’t run the ball well in the 1st or 2nd game either. I do know this. Alex Gibbs’ system requires guys that are light and fast on the line. This means that they are light enough to get pushed around on a regular basis and if they aren’t quite good/fast enough to get where they need to be in order to execute they will look horrible running the ball because they are too light to hold their ground. I believe that this is what the problem was. Our starting interior line last year was average to below average. With as good as Chester Pitts has been in the past, he is at the end of his career and Mike Brisel is just a guy in my opinion. When the guards went down, it wasn’t much of a drop-off to the back-ups, but “not much of a drop-off” from bad is still bad. Hence the poor running game. Andre Caldwell did show some progress in his rookie year last year and it is hoped that he will take over the starting guard or center positions. I don’t even want to think about how bad Chris Meyers has gotten, just watch this video of our resident ragdoll http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiJ9lYyj4uQ . Kris Jenkins is good, but that looked like Chris Meyers all season last year. Just too light in the britches.

That said, I can’t for the life of me find the rest of your mock-draft, so it’s hard to say who I would choose because I don’t know who was left, but from the people you say are left in your post and people I hope are still there, it’s like this:

1) Joe Haden(please let him be there)
2) Devin McCourty
3) Dan Williams

While the DT is a huge problem spot for the Texans, it’s not nearly as scary as going back to Jacques Reeves as a starting corner. We must get a top notch corner in the first round. A “better than Amobi” DT can be had in the second round. Also, we do need a better running back because none of our running backs seem to be able to hold on to the ball consistently. Look for the Texans to go running back in the 3rd round. Montario Hardesty or Ben Tate would be good pick-ups. Hope that helps to answer your question. ken