After watching Texans-Saints for the third time, digesting the coaches' thoughts and reading a lot of quality analysis, there are five things that continue to stick out. First, our standard preseason disclaimer: The game results don't mean a thing. Preseason is just a process to get ready for Sept. 11. Getting overly excited or ridiculously depressed is pointless. All you really want to see is some individual improvement, how rookies respond as the water gets deeper and most importantly, no injuries. With that in mind, here we go:
1) Stop with the Mario Williams back to DE talk off of two meaningless games. Fans want to see sacks; that's how they judge players. The sacks will come. One thing Wade Phillips is very good at doing is finding ways to free up his players to get pressure on the quarterback. We won't be able to fairly judge how this is working until Week 3 or 4 of the regular season. It won't stop people from speculating, of course, but it's a little silly at this stage. Yes, he needs to step up, but he showed improvement last week. This change to a 3-4 is not an overnight process, especially for Mario. But Phillips is learning how to best use Williams, too. Give it some time. Some people just don't like Mario and will find any reason to call him a failure. That's life as a No. 1 pick. But the Texans will run a lot of 4-3-type sets when the bullets start flying for real. Let's just all calm down.
A spin-off of that thought is "move Mario to DE and put Brooks Reed in at OLB." Reed has looked good and made some nice plays, but let's see how he does against better O linemen. Remember last week when Bryan Braman was the talk of the town? A more pertinent debate should be whether or not Reed should be pushing Connor Barwin for more time with the 1s. And if he really is this good, he will be on the field on passing downs anyway, perhaps with Mario AND Barwin. The kid looks sharp, and there is plenty of room for excitement, but let's see how he progresses.
2) We can also stop with the "Saints did not show anything on defense because they play again in Week 3." And anyone who thinks that game has any impact on what happens in New Orleans is delusional, but let's be fair: The Texans did not show anything either. You have two of the best defensive coordinators in football in Gregg Williams and Phillips. We will see a much different approach in Week 3. You only have to turn the page back one year when the Texans beat Dallas in the preseason then got rolled when it counted. So yes, the Saints were vanilla, but so were the Texans. The encouraging part was how physical the Texans were and how they matched up athletically with a superior team. That's a positive; that and the fact that the Texans managed four sacks with no real blitzes. That bodes well for down the road.
3) The interior of the defense remains a serious concern. We were always for getting a bigger, more powerful nose tackle, but it's obvious the Texans couldn't fix everything in one offseason. That might eventually come back to haunt them. Shaun Cody was getting rag dolled with regularity and while the coaches are high on Earl Mitchell, it would be nice to see some real improvement. Brian Cushing was more active, and they should be better with DeMeco in there, but that's hoping for a lot. To be fair, the Saints interior line is one of the best in football, but the Jets first teamers ran all over the Texans as well, with two starters out of their OL. It's not panic time, but when a big, hamburger-eating DT comes across the waiver wire, the Texans need to be all over him. Rick Smith is very good at finding players like that, and he will need to do so again.
4) A lot of people wanted to blame Kareem Jackson for the long touchdown pass; blaming Kareem is kind of like Mario bashing -- everybody does it. Besides, it's fun and he usually deserves it. But Danieal Manning is the one who failed to pick up coverage fast enough. That doesn't mean Manning is garbage and a free agent mistake off one play. It means he is still learning the defense and made a mistake, The failures of the Texans secondary last year will come up every time this group makes any error, but there's no reason to panic yet on that one. The pressing question remains as to whether or not Jackson will beat out Jason Allen at second corner, and more than that, which corners make the team? You can pretty much assume one high draft pick (Antwan Molden, '08 third round) is gone, Brandon Harris has shown little, but you can't punt on a second-round pick. Roc Carmichael has been hurt, too. Shiloh Keo doesn't look like much at safety yet. Clearly the lockout has impacted the rookies in the secondary. The question is how many can the Texans afford to carry of these draft picks, knowing their contributions might not happen until Week 8 or 9, if then, when Brice McCain and Sherrick McManus looked like they can help? There is depth here in terms of numbers, but not so much in skill. Which corners and safeties actually make the roster bears watching.
5) It's too early to panic on special teams, too, since most of the guys who will be playing as a unit on Sept. 11 aren't on the field together. But the return blocking has been shoddy and none of the returners look like NFL caliber players. Of course, we'll probably see Manning returning kickoffs on Sept. 11 and Jacoby Jones on punts, but it sure would be nice to see somebody else step up so you don't have to use your starting safety and No. 3 WR. You'd also like to see better blocking on special teams and better coverage as well. This was an issue all last year, and you really want to see improvement. So far that hasn't happened.
All in all, a lot of what we have seen in practice is showing up in the games. Better athleticism, a more active defense and maybe the most talented Texans team yet. But there are also some fair concerns, too, most of which won't be answered until the season starts.
There are plenty reasons to be optimistic, however, and fans have every right to be excited. Let's just try to keep it in perspective.
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