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Eight Isn’t Enough for Team Texan Anymore
Published: August 10, 2009
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Jim McCurdy
CBSSports
HOUSTON—The feel around team Texan is one of upbeat optimism. All’s good on the homefront, minus one cornerstone cornerback holdout.
All the draft choices are signed, all are getting their assignments down. People within the organization and even those who’ve slowly become indirectly part of this Texans’ family have a collaborative connection—a bond that continues to become tighter as the days toward the season shorten.
Welcome to Houston Texans’ football. Installment number eight.
Problem is, eight truly isn’t enough.
For the past two seasons, eight is the number the Texans have been moderately linked to. Offensive guard Chester Pitts, who’s been with the organization since its inception in 2002, has higher expectations this year. He and everyone else.
“This year, there shouldn’t be many teams better than us,” Pitts said on a day he worked out against the defense in no pads.
Expectations and reality are two completely different things. The Texans believe there’s not much of a fine line with this year’s team.
True, in an organization that’s put its emphasis, in so many ways, on defense over the years, the numbers just don’t add up. This year, the team changed to a different defensive scheme—one that could be a little more exciting with increased fanfare—tabbed a new defensive coordinator in Frank Bush and addressed its woeful secondary issues.
All that being said, this team still hasn’t even had a preseason game to evaluate itself against another color uniform. But for so many, the anticipation for Saturday’s preseason opener at Kansas City, this is more than just an audition. This is a chance to let a can out in an anticipatory year.
“The way that our group has developed, it’s because of work,” said Texans’ fourth-year coach Gary Kubiak, whose 22 wins and 16-8 home record have become a hallmark in an organization eyeballing an even greater uphill climb.
Don’t be mistaken, the pinnacle is resting well beyond the steep slope the Texans are about to embark on. But when 50-50 is the ratio you shoot for in a marriage, it’s not what a football team is after. Not when you consider the end of tunnel.
That’s why eight is no longer enough. This year, if the Texans ever hope to see the end of that tunnel, it must start on defense. Bush will tell you that, if you read between the lines.
“Our offense, they are a well-oiled machine, so we try not to compare ourselves,” the newly-appointed defensive brain trust confessed. “They go about their business, and they are good at it.
“There is a learning curve. We’re trying to be aggressive, get guys going forward, not going sideways. Those things are coming around. After a week, we kind of like where we are with those things, and you know, we’ll keep getting better at it.”
How much better the Texans become by January has a lot to do with, right now, an extremely green defense. A lot is being asked from two rookie cornerbacks during this process. Numbers have dogged the Texans’ defense since the organization’s inception. But each year, hope springs eternal, and each year, the grind of training camp offers an exemplary purpose to shoot for.
This year, the Texans are beyond purpose. Special teams’ coordinator Joe Marciano will tell you the nature of the game begs for something so much more.
“We’re in a profession where everything’s got to be perfect,” said Marciano, who begins his 24th NFL season, including the eight in Houston.
Professional teams better be perfect, and Marciano will be the first to admit that. Especially with the type of dollars being thrown around to play a game where once the season starts only two true days of intense practice defines the week.
“Where else can you go and start off making $300,000 a year?” Marciano said, his salary numbers loosely hinting at the short end of what so many pro athletes command these days.
As Marciano eluded to, so many people in society are faced with minimum wage-level earnings. Not here. Not in pro football. Not when performance and negotiation is all dangerously too commonplace these days.
All that said, let the truth be told: The Texans don’t want to negotiate this season. They want to win. Yet there’s only one way to do it.
It starts here, in training camp, and it’s all about setting the bar high.
“It’s hard to get to the top, and it’s hard to stay on top,” Kubiak said, referring more to winning a starting job.
That same analogy easily applies to the big picture of a team. Especially a team that has never tasted the spoils of the postseason.
“The thing I’ve been most impressed with our team is our core players,” Kubiak said. “We’re on schedule, but I think it changes every day.”
Tomorrow is another day. And come January, the Texans hope there’s an awful lot of tomorrows.
Texans tiptoe towards training camp
Published: July 19, 2009
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A little more than two weeks away from the start of training camp, the Houston Texans have proved to be a stay-at-home-type of team.
And we’re not just talking about defensive assignments.
While many NFL teams venture off a few hundred miles — or, even in the case of Houston’s Texas brethren Dallas Cowboys, a few states — away from the home turf for training camp, the Texans are true to their surroundings. When camp opens for the Texans this year, it’ll be much like the past. At least in terms of setting. Sure, faces and personnel have changed to some degree, exciting additions already drawing interest. But the home base is the home base.
Houston isn’t going anywhere for the season’s preparatory practices. In fact, the Texans will practice right next door to the state-of-the-art Reliant Stadium where game days fill with passionate Texans in search of a winner.
Training camp begins 8:30 a.m. Friday, July 31 at Methodist Training Center in Houston. Tickets are free at any Houston-area Wingstop location for the first week of training camp. Rookies report to camp next Sunday.
The Texans held training camp at Methodist Training Center last year. In the hub of one of the country’s largest and most renowned medical districts, the Texans training camp is a few first downs away from the brewing game day euphoria. Methodist Training Center is located just west of Kirby Drive and east of Main Street, north of I-610 in the Reliant Center neighborhood district.
It pays to be a Texan when fans fly free. Right in their own backyard.
As Houston readies for the upcoming season, impending optimism starting to circulate following a solid off-season of upgrades and momentum seemingly carrying over from a .500 season in 2008, training camp is just the starting point. Last year the Arizona Cardinals didn’t carry as much hubbub into preseason when those birds flocked off to the High Country in Flagstaff, some two hours north of the Phoenix metropolitan area they make their home.
And look where they ended up.
Anything is possible they say in football. Heck, they made a movie about it, what with “Any Given Sunday” serving its place that any year could be any team’s. Especially when it seizes the moment.
Carpe diem comes now for the Texans. Right here at home.
Houston Texans Training Camp Open Dates
July 31 8:30-10:45 a.m.
Aug. 1 8:30-10:45 a.m.
Aug. 2 8:30-10:45 a.m.
Aug. 3 8:30-10 a.m.
Aug. 6 7:15-9:15 p.m.
Linebacker Offers ‘Cush’-y feel to Houston Texans defense
Published: May 25, 2009
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When the Houston Texans unveiled their No. 1 draft pick on the first day of organized team activities, eyes were definitely on the top prize.
“He’s pretty ready to go,” Texans head coach Gary Kubiak relayed to team insiders after getting a first-hand look at his first round pick. “We’re just excited about him. Getting him out here and getting him to work, and having him here in the city of Houston is exciting for everybody, including this guy.”
This guy is University of Southern California linebacker Brian Cushing, whom the Texans selected with the No. 15 pick in last month’s NFL draft. Cushing became Houston’s fifth defensive first round pick in the organization’s eight-year history. The Texans have chosen a defensive player with their first pick in five of the last six years.
Here’s why:
Since 2003, the team’s second year in the league, Houston has finished no higher than 22nd in the NFL in total defense. In two of those seasons, the Texans’ defense ranked 31st in the 32-team league.
After selecting quarterback David Carr with the first pick in franchise history in 2002, Houston ranked 16th in total defense.
That begs the question: What kind of an impact will Cushing have as defense once again remains a focal point?
“I’m really trying to get the base defense down,” he said. “I’m sure as camp progresses and the more I learn, I can also work in the nickel a little bit. The biggest thing for me right now is to get out there and run around. I’m not going to know everything, but the biggest thing is effort.
“I’m going to try to learn this playbook inside and out, know what every single player’s doing on the field, and like I said, help this team as best as possible.”
Cushing found himself soaking up the system from fourth-year linebacker DeMeco Ryans, the Texans’ first pick of the second round in 2006.
“It’s been a privilege already to play next to him,” Cushing said. “All-Pro linebacker, just an unbelievable talent, so I’m going to try to get everything I can from him. He was in the same situation, and he’s just been doing a great job since day one.”
Ryans has started every game since he’s been in the league. He’s also led the Texans in tackles in each of those previous three seasons. In his rookie season, he had a career-high 156 tackles and three-and-a-half sacks, while picking off one pass, and recording five pass deflections. Last year, Ryans had a team-high 112 tackles, a sack, and four pass deflections.
In 13 games at USC last year, Cushing had 73 tackles, including 10.5 for loss, and three sacks. His 73 stops was second on the team behind Rey Maualuga’s 79. Cushing had six pass breakups, one interception, and a forced fumble.
A team captain, Ryans silenced rumors he would skip the non-mandatory OTAs after he missed several weeks of offseason workouts while negotiating a new contract with the Texans.
“It just lets them know that I care about them and I’m here to win games, and that’s what it’s all about,” Ryans said in an interview with HoustonTexans.com.
“We’re here to accomplish the goal of winning games. With me being here and all the other guys seeing me here, that just lets them know that that’s what I’m about. I’m about winning, winning first. That’s what it’s going to take for us to move forward as a franchise is to start winning games.”
Ryans’ presence registered well with his coaching staff.
“DeMeco’s upholding his end,” Kubiak said. “He’s busting his tail. He’s out here leading his team, which everybody expected him to do. We understand the issue he’s working through and those type of things. That’s part of football, but the thing that’s always been impressive about him, and continues to be, is that he’s going to take care of his business, and everybody out here knows that he will do that.”
What kind of influence Ryans has on Cushing remains to be seen. Either way, the Texans haven’t been shy expressing they are pleased with their investment.
“I can’t tell you enough how excited we are to have Brian,” defensive coordinator Frank Bush said after making the USC linebacker the team’s top pick. “Brian was a kid that we targeted all along. We just like the way he plays football. I like the energy he brings, the intensity he brings.”
