Five Burning Questions 2015: Your Team

[Go Coogs']

Houston Texans

#5 - Can DeAndre Hopkins be THE guy?

No more #80 in that WR rotation. He truly is a gamer and one of the game's best WRs in the 2000s, but he no longer will suit up for the Texans as he took his talents to division rival Indianapolis. Hopkins caught 76 balls for over 1200 yards in his sophomore season as a professional and he did all that with 4 different quarterbacks last season. Pretty damn good. But how much was that due to the attention #80 drew from opposing secondaries? Can Cecil Shorts and Nate Washington garner enough respect to allow Hopkins to do great things? We shall see.

#4 - Can the o-line correct it's early preseason struggles?

I wouldn't be concerned with this if Arian was playing Week 1, but now it's an issue. We'll most likely see a RB by committee with Alfred Blue getting most of the work in for the first 6 weeks. But this o-line needs to be able to pass protect, because teams won't have to worry so much about play action or finding the RB out of the backfield as a receiving threat if Blue is the guy. Defenses are going to blitz and blitz often and this o-line needs to be ready.

#3 - Can the Special Teams be the difference this season in gaining a win or two?

Ever since Jacoby Jones was released we've lacked any semblance of a return game. We've seen some decent returns in preseason and that needs to carry over to the regular season so field position is good. Too many times over the last three seasons I've seen our offense have to start from the 20 or worse. Without a prolific passer at the helm, our defense and special teams will have to win those battles every Sunday.

#2 - With Jadeveon Clowney coming back week 1, how good can this defense be?

Watt, Wilfork, Cushing, JoJo, Kareem, etc. It's a stacked D with rookie CB Kevin Johnson checking in like he's a five year veteran. His technique is sick. The idea of Kareem covering the slot more often than not makes me giggle on how great this secondary can be. The front seven can be even better if JJ Watt doesn't have to do it all on his own. Mercilus showed signs of improvement last year, but the playmaking will need to come from a third source. Cush and Clowney will have to be those guys. And if they do provide that extra pressure this defense needs, then the Texans can sneak out an extra win or two.

#1 - Is Brian Hoyer a good enough game manager to get the Texans in the playoffs?

Unfortunately, I just don't think he's good enough. Even if he beat out Mallet after BoB studied the film, I still would've given Mallet the job. Cleveland fans say Hoyer went to shit when Josh Gordon came back from his suspension because he only focused on him and didn't go through his progressions. They basically said Gordon stunk it up too and didn't run correct routes and he was far from sharp. I don't buy all that, but maybe that was the case with Hoyer being god awful after week 7. It will be a miracle if Hoyer somehow manages his way to leading this team to a 10 win season. I don't see it happening.

9-7

[Mikey]

#1 Can the Chargers get out of San Diego before the season starts?

#2 Who cares?

#3 See #1

#4 See #2

#5 See #3

[MgoBlue-LightSpecial]

#1 - Is Brian Hoyer a good enough game manager to get the Texans in the playoffs?

Unfortunately, I just don't think he's good enough. Even if he beat out Mallet after BoB studied the film, I still would've given Mallet the job. Cleveland fans say Hoyer went to shit when Josh Gordon came back from his suspension because he only focused on him and didn't go through his progressions. They basically said Gordon stunk it up too and didn't run correct routes and he was far from sharp. I don't buy all that, but maybe that was the case with Hoyer being god awful after week 7. It will be a miracle if Hoyer somehow manages his way to leading this team to a 10 win season. I don't see it happening.

I'm pulling for Hoyer since he's a Spartan so I can't claim impartiality here, but...I wouldn't make any predictions based on what happened in Cleveland. That's an utterly shit franchise where quarterbacks go to die. Even still, Hoyer managed to escape that hell hole with a winning record which no QB had done before him since 1999.

He's in a much better spot now that he's far away from the Johnny Football circus show. It's just unfortunate he will be without his two best offensive weapons, although I do like Hopkins a lot.

[BSmack]

#1. Can the switch to cover 2 cover up the lack of top tier talent in the secondary? Were Bill Murray asked to sum up the Steelers secondary his words would be, "Average talent!"

#2. How bad is Lawrence Timmons' toe? Tomlin let slip Timmons' injury was turf toe. We won't be seeing him the rest of preseason. Will this injury linger into the regular season?

#3. Can Dri Archer turn into Darren Sproles II? He's showing signs of life in preseason both as a pass catcher and returner. He might be starting to get a feel for the NFL game after all.

#4. Can Mike Vick turn back the clock if asked to play? Will he come prepared? Obviously, I hope Vick never sees the field other than for mop up duty. But his performance last year was scary bad. Better coach him up guys.

5#. Can anybody put James Harrison on the bench? Arthur Moats looks to be LOLB, leaving ROLB as a battle between Jarvis Jones and Debo. Jones needs to win this battle to validate his 1st round selection. Debo is looking to outlast everybody. Harrison is one of three guys left from the SB XL Champions. The other two are Big Ben and their long snapper Greg Warren.

[BSmack]

#6. WTF Martavis Bryant??? Someone needs to sit this guy down and explain what FU money is. Because he has the skill to make some serious FU money if his lifestyle off the field doesn't derail him.

[Go Coogs']

I'm pulling for Hoyer since he's a Spartan so I can't claim impartiality here, but...I wouldn't make any predictions based on what happened in Cleveland. That's an utterly shit franchise where quarterbacks go to die. Even still, Hoyer managed to escape that hell hole with a winning record which no QB had done before him since 1999.

He's in a much better spot now that he's far away from the Johnny Football circus show. It's just unfortunate he will be without his two best offensive weapons, although I do like Hopkins a lot.

Don't get me wrong, I'm pulling for Hoyer, but I just don't see him as a guy who can lead the Texans to a better showing than 2011 and 2012 (2nd round playoffs). What did 9-7 exactly accomplish last season? Nothing. I would've preferred the Texans trading up from 33rd to high 20s and drafting Teddy Bridgewater last season. This isn't a hindsight perspective either because I remember yelling "FUCK!" at the top of my lungs when Minnesota traded up to get him at 32. If the Texans took Teddy, they would've struggled to get 6-7 wins last season, but that wouldn't have hurt them this at all.

It would've given them better draft position although I'm stoked about Kevin Johnson as a top 5 corner in a couple of seasons. Teddy wasn't a potential #1 pick because of his cool name. He has all the tools to be great, yet we're stuck with Tom Brady's backups for now because they know BoB's system. And, of course, we had our second go-around with Keenum and people here went ape shit when he was the starter the last few games of the season. We could have avoided all of this if we drafted Teddy.

I've got nothing against Hoyer, but he doesn't exactly scream success. I really like BoB as our head coach but I've hated his approach to the QB situation since he got here. Yes, it's the most polarized position in all of sport and it's the biggest risk selecting a QB in the first round because of the failure rate (i.e. Gabbert, Freeman, Sanchez, Tebow, Quinn, Ponder, Locker, JaMarcus, Lienart, VY, Boler, Carr, Harrington, etc). But, there are successes out there and with 3 of them going in the first round last season, I though Bridgewater was least risky pick of them all. Bortles didn't run a pro-style system and Manziel is pretty much self-explanatory. At some point, the Texans are going to have to roll the dice with a long term QB solution. What they are doing right now, I've seen the Dolphins do the same thing for years until they took Tannehill in 2012. Russell Wilson is the closest thing to a game manager to win a SB since Dilfer did it with Baltimore, but he's got legs which helps extend the play. Hoyer doesn't.

Mediocrity is going to settle in for Houston for years to come if BoB thinks he can pick up backups and make them successful starters.

[Go Coogs']

Houston Texans


9-7

I'm kinda of a big deal.

[Goober McTuber]

Houston Texans


9-7

I'm kinda of a big deal.

I though that was your wife.

[atmdad]

1) With the Chargers sucking shit all season do they think they will have a fan base in Los Angeles? That is Dodger, Laker and King country, they wont give a flying fuck about a inept Charger team run by Dean Spanos.

2) Ownership shit all over the local fanbase to protect their supposed "20%" interest in the Orange County/LA market, do they really think they will have many SD locals that will follow them to LA?

3) Do the NFL officials in NY really believe that belittling the 2nd largest county in California is going to get us to suck their Viagra enhanced cocks?

4) With the over the top greed, rising concussion issues, and the back burner but still simmering HGH and PED issues, is the NFL going to be what it is today in ten years?

5) If financing a 1+ billion dollar stadium is such a good deal, why don't the owners and teams pay for their own playpens and lease them back to the host city for other events the other 355 days of the year when there is not a game going on?

6) Where are they going to play while a new stadium is built? Pasadena/Rose Bowl basically told the NFL to Fuck Off, The Dodgers and the Angels said the same thing but were more polite about it. The Home Depot Center were the Galaxy, futbol, is played, yea the NFL really wants to play at a venue just over 20K capacity. Television shots of 30K people at the 90+K capacity decrepit Trojan flavored colon-seeum is going to go over swimmingly in gang central (the Raiders got the fuck out of there years ago).

I had been a die-hard Charger fan since the mid-70's up until shortly after the ball dropped in 2015, anymore, FUCK the Spanos's, FUCK the CHARGERS and FUCK the NFL. I have washed my hands of this crap, there are too many other things to do than get wrapped up in what a bunch of steroid induced apes and their uber-rich handlers are doing from week to week.

[BSmack]

#1. Can the switch to cover 2 cover up the lack of top tier talent in the secondary? Were Bill Murray asked to sum up the Steelers secondary his words would be, "Average talent!"

Survey says... NO!

#2. How bad is Lawrence Timmons' toe? Tomlin let slip Timmons' injury was turf toe. We won't be seeing him the rest of preseason. Will this injury linger into the regular season?

Fortunately Timmons was good to go by game one.

#3. Can Dri Archer turn into Darren Sproles II? He's showing signs of life in preseason both as a pass catcher and returner. He might be starting to get a feel for the NFL game after all.

Archer got cut in favor of Jacoby Jones, who got cut and was replaced by Ross Ventrone.

#4. Can Mike Vick turn back the clock if asked to play? Will he come prepared? Obviously, I hope Vick never sees the field other than for mop up duty. But his performance last year was scary bad. Better coach him up guys.

Vick can feel free to walk his dogfighting ass out of Pittsburgh right about now. To say he was abysmal as a QB would be an insult to abysmal QBs. He can't run and nobody respects his arm.

5#. Can anybody put James Harrison on the bench? Arthur Moats looks to be LOLB, leaving ROLB as a battle between Jarvis Jones and Debo. Jones needs to win this battle to validate his 1st round selection. Debo is looking to outlast everybody. Harrison is one of three guys left from the SB XL Champions. The other two are Big Ben and their long snapper Greg Warren.

Since game one Harrison has been "demoted" on the depth chart, but the Steelers have settled on a rotation with all 8 of their LBs getting steady work.

#6. WTF Martavis Bryant??? Someone needs to sit this guy down and explain what FU money is. Because he has the skill to make some serious FU money if his lifestyle off the field doesn't derail him.

So far so good. Of course the 4 game suspension and the knee injury curtailed his totals this year. With a full offseason and no more relapses, he should be ready.