The View From the Other Side (Houston) | Page 4 | FinHeaven - Miami Dolphins Forums

The View From the Other Side (Houston)

Oraclepz said:
No disrespect to bong or another texans fans out there but if theyre expecting to win this game in the fashion we just lost like they have something coming to them.. Nolan is going to be licking his chops to unleash this defense and prove that last week was an aberration. If we score 21 points this game is over book it.
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It would be foolhardy to expect a blowout in most NFL games regardless of who is playing. Especially since this series overall is so close in terms of point differential.

EDIT: I will say this, I do think overall that most of the fans posting here aren`t big believers in the Texans defense, which is fine because they were flat out awful last year in almost all 3 areas (Dline, LB`s, DBs). But I`ve watched a ton of crappy Texans defenses before, and I have to think that this particular one looks the best out of all the ones I have seen. It does help a whole lot that the front 7 is generating a lot more pressure than what we did last year. It helps the DB`s the most in my opinion because it doesn`t look like many QB`s are getting nice comfortable pockets (including the preseason teams we have played) to just pick and choose who to throw to.
 
b0ng said:
It would be foolhardy to expect a blowout in most NFL games regardless of who is playing. Especially since this series overall is so close in terms of point differential.

EDIT: I will say this, I do think overall that most of the fans posting here aren`t big believers in the Texans defense, which is fine because they were flat out awful last year in almost all 3 areas (Dline, LB`s, DBs). But I`ve watched a ton of crappy Texans defenses before, and I have to think that this particular one looks the best out of all the ones I have seen. It does help a whole lot that the front 7 is generating a lot more pressure than what we did last year. It helps the DB`s the most in my opinion because it doesn`t look like many QB`s are getting nice comfortable pockets (including the preseason teams we have played) to just pick and choose who to throw to.
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Dolphins fans (and more importantly, the Dolphins themselves) should be worried about the Texans' front seven. The back four? Not so much. Even prized free agent pickup Jonathan Joseph -- who for my money is one of the, if not the, most underrated cornerback in football -- didn't play very well against the Colts. Success on offense will be 100% about protecting Chad Henne. If they can do that, we'll move the ball like we did against New England. If it's a jailbreak every play, we won't be able to do anything.
 
Mr. Magoo said:
Dolphins fans (and more importantly, the Dolphins themselves) should be worried about the Texans' front seven. The back four? Not so much. Even prized free agent pickup Jonathan Joseph -- who for my money is one of the, if not the, most underrated cornerback in football -- didn't play very well against the Colts. Success on offense will be 100% about protecting Chad Henne. If they can do that, we'll move the ball like we did against New England. If it's a jailbreak every play, we won't be able to do anything.
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To me, I think the back 4 of pretty much any defense absolutely depends on how much havoc is being wreaked up front. If you`re getting hurries and pressure on better than half the snaps then you`re back 4 are going to look like world beaters (I call this the Courtland Finnegan effect) because balls are going to be coming out hurried, or hit and be a lot easier pickings. I think the Dolphins best bet is short routes targeting the middle of the field and inside runs picking on the Texans NT.

One other thing is that a lot of people are saying Schaub played crappy last week (It was not a good performance for Schaub) and I guess the thought is that will carry over into this week. While it is possible that may happen, I find it far more probable that if the Texans are finding themselves in a shoot out that Schaub is a good enough QB that he can put up lots of yardage on almost any defense. Usually if the Texans are up big and the opposing team looks like it has no answers for the running game, then Kubiak usually sticks with that and only makes Schaub pass when defenses are playing lots of players in the box. I do expect that if they want Schaub to get in a rhythm to get the passing game going, it`ll be early and often to Andre Johnson, with Daniels being the number 2 target. A big wildcard in this thought is whether Jacoby Jones (Who will be playing in the spot of Kevin Walter who is going to be out with a bone bruise in the shoulder) can take advantage of being in single coverage. A very inconsistent player, but with the ball in his hands in space, he`s pretty good.

Do remember, that last season, Schaub had a pedestrian performance against the Colts, and then turned around and had a 38 for 52 performance for 497 yards and 3 TD`s against the `Skins.
 
b0ng said:
To me, I think the back 4 of pretty much any defense absolutely depends on how much havoc is being wreaked up front. If you`re getting hurries and pressure on better than half the snaps then you`re back 4 are going to look like world beaters (I call this the Courtland Finnegan effect) because balls are going to be coming out hurried, or hit and be a lot easier pickings. I think the Dolphins best bet is short routes targeting the middle of the field and inside runs picking on the Texans NT.

One other thing is that a lot of people are saying Schaub played crappy last week (It was not a good performance for Schaub) and I guess the thought is that will carry over into this week. While it is possible that may happen, I find it far more probable that if the Texans are finding themselves in a shoot out that Schaub is a good enough QB that he can put up lots of yardage on almost any defense. Usually if the Texans are up big and the opposing team looks like it has no answers for the running game, then Kubiak usually sticks with that and only makes Schaub pass when defenses are playing lots of players in the box. I do expect that if they want Schaub to get in a rhythm to get the passing game going, it`ll be early and often to Andre Johnson, with Daniels being the number 2 target. A big wildcard in this thought is whether Jacoby Jones (Who will be playing in the spot of Kevin Walter who is going to be out with a bone bruise in the shoulder) can take advantage of being in single coverage. A very inconsistent player, but with the ball in his hands in space, he`s pretty good.

Do remember, that last season, Schaub had a pedestrian performance against the Colts, and then turned around and had a 38 for 52 performance for 497 yards and 3 TD`s against the `Skins.
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Well, it certainly helps. But you're fooling yourself if you think that having talented players in the secondary isn't important (and conversely, that having bad players doesn't hurt). No team that has Jason Allen playing a significant portion of snaps in the secondary is going to be very sound. I really don't care what kind of pressure they get. He has poor awareness, bad technique and has the wonderful habit of slipping and falling when he's trying to make the tackle. He's a wonderful athlete and actually has fairly good ball skills but as for the rest? Pffft. Guys like Kareem Jackson and Brice McCain are no better if they're better at all, based on my tape study.

As for Schaub, I'm not expecting him to play bad but he also isn't the the big bad wolf on that offense. If you can stop the run (and thus, the bootleg PA), he's a much less effective player. Which isn't to say he's bad or even mediocre, because he's a good quarterback and good quarterbacks play well. But he doesn't have a particularly strong arm and he can't escape pressure which means that if you can disrupt his footwork his power and accuracy really suffer.

I personally don't think Jacoby Jones is a very good wide receiver but perhaps that's just me. He's sort of a bigger, slower Devin Hester in a way. Dangerous in space but isn't enough of a receiver nor does he have consistent enough hands to really get the ball very often. He's a big downgrade from Walter that way and also on cut blocks across the grain in the running game. Walter is very effective doing that. Jones isn't nearly as good at it.

Oh, and Schaub's stats against Skins? Seriously. The Redskins were one of the few secondaries in the NFL actually worse than Texans, so let's not pretend that counts for much of anything.
 
Mr. Magoo said:
Well, it certainly helps. But you're fooling yourself if you think that having talented players in the secondary isn't important (and conversely, that having bad players doesn't hurt). No team that has Jason Allen playing a significant portion of snaps in the secondary is going to be very sound. I really don't care what kind of pressure they get. He has poor awareness, bad technique and has the wonderful habit of slipping and falling when he's trying to make the tackle. He's a wonderful athlete and actually has fairly good ball skills but as for the rest? Pffft. Guys like Kareem Jackson and Brice McCain are no better if they're better at all, based on my tape study.

As for Schaub, I'm not expecting him to play bad but he also isn't the the big bad wolf on that offense. If you can stop the run (and thus, the bootleg PA), he's a much less effective player. Which isn't to say he's bad or even mediocre, because he's a good quarterback and good quarterbacks play well. But he doesn't have a particularly strong arm and he can't escape pressure which means that if you can disrupt his footwork his power and accuracy really suffer.

I personally don't think Jacoby Jones is a very good wide receiver but perhaps that's just me. He's sort of a bigger, slower Devin Hester in a way. Dangerous in space but isn't enough of a receiver nor does he have consistent enough hands to really get the ball very often. He's a big downgrade from Walter that way and also on cut blocks across the grain in the running game. Walter is very effective doing that. Jones isn't nearly as good at it.

Oh, and Schaub's stats against Skins? Seriously. The Redskins were one of the few secondaries in the NFL actually worse than Texans, so let's not pretend that counts for much of anything.
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The reason that I believe in the front 7 giving the most help to the DB`s is you can see plenty of mediocre DB`s look all-world behind a great pass rush (Ike Taylor and Courtland Finnegan immediately spring to mind). Is the Texans pass rush that good? That remains to be seen for this season, but you don`t need to have a secondary filled with All-Pro players in order for them not to be a gigantic liability. You want to have talented players on every level of the field, but if I`m having to choose an elite pass rusher and an okay corner vs the opposite I`d take the former every day of the week and twice on Sundays. Now with respect to the Texans, a lot of the blame of being as bad as they were can also be chalked up to Eugene Wilson and Bernard Pollard being completely out of position more often than not did not help a rookie corner and a 2nd year guy at all. While Pollard is a great hitter, he`s been a liability in coverage for awhile now and was one of the reasons he was able to be picked up off the street in 2009, and why he`s now a Raven. Now you look at the secondary now, and you`ve got an obvious upgrade in skill in Jonathan Joseph, and Danieal Manning, and the ability to put Glover Quin in the safety spot, and it`s basically a brand new unit. A brand new unit, with a brand new alignment in front of them that has generated volumes more pressure (so far) on the quarterback than they did last year. I think the question of whether the Texans secondary can handle what the Dolphins can present in receiving targets hinges a lot more on whether the 3-4 look Texans can generate that pressure than it does with the overall talent level in the secondary (Which to re-iterate is very much upgraded over the 2010 version of what the Texans marched out there and called a secondary).

How can you say that Schaub isn`t effective without a running game? He had no running game in 2009 and had his best statistical season of his career (Throwing for 4700+ yards and a way better than positive TD:INT ratio). I pointed out the Skins game because it has the most similarities in terms of scheduling and what happened last year with respect to what could happen this year. I can point to any number of games on the 2010 schedule that were great games (in my opinion) for Schaub. Against Philly he had 330 yard performance with 2 TD`s, against the Ravens he threw for 393 yards and 3 TD`s, against the Jets he threw for 250 yards and a TD, and you can`t say that these are terrible teams like the Skins.

Opinions on Jacoby obviously vary, and with Walter out he`s going to have to step up, but he`s certainly got more natural physical gifts than Walter does he`s just not as hard of a worker. Will Walter being out hinder the running game enough that it`ll turn into something easy to shut down? Probably not, but Walter will be missed no doubt. I only point out his presence because he definitely made himself known against the Colts last Sunday both on ST`s and in the passing game.
 
b0ng said:
Right well I mean think about it this way, were Dolphins fans really worried about the Texans in 2008 when we came in 0-4 and you guys had already smoked the Pats once by unveiling the wildcat? Not saying the 2 situations are completely the same, but you`re catching all the fans right after the biggest beatdown of the big bullies on the block so optimism will run high.

I don`t think you`ll see the Texans players making comments akin to not giving the Dolphins any respect, and as a fan, I am much more worried about the 3rd, 4th and 5th games on our schedule than the 2nd. I`m not going to go around **** talking any other NFL teams because I don`t think the Texans have earned that right, but I don`t think you can fault us for not being as particularly worried about a team who just suffered a loss at the hands of their big bullies.
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That is exactly my point. The Op says Texans and their fans see us as a threat while in reality they do not. If I was a Texans fan I wouldn't be scared of the Dolphins either. Hell if I was a Bills fan I wouldn't be scared of the Dolphins.
 
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