Houston Texans preview
Houston Texans 2008 Preview ReportJuly 7, 2008
Okay, so they were late bloomers. No big deal. What’s important is that they’re here now. Robert Kraus didn’t include a chapter about dwelling on past failures in his epic children’s book Leo the Late Bloomer. The Houston Texans are here, and they’re doing things right. This is what people were clamoring for a few years ago, no? The story was always supposed to be how the fresh-start Texans win six games and establish an identity in the process. Then, how they grow from their mistakes, build on their successes, win eight games the following year and suddenly become the upstart Texans. This is precisely what people had in mind; this is what a so-called “expansion franchise” is supposed to do.
After dilly-dallying for their first four seasons, the Texans finally started doing it right. Much of the thanks goes to third-year head coach Gary Kubiak. The longtime Broncos offensive coordinator has effectively planted his football seeds in Houston’s soil. He’s invested in a quarterback (Matt Schaub, with the outside possibility of Sage Rosenfels). He has fine-tuned his coaching staff (zone-blocking genius Alex Gibbs was recently hired to coach the offensive line; 28-year-old Kyle Shanahan, son of…you guessed it, was promoted to offensive coordinator). And he has allowed the front office, headed by GM Charlie Casserly in 2006 and taken over by Rick Smith that same year, to build a defensive foundation primarily through the draft (first-round defensive end Mario Williams and second-round linebacker DeMeco Ryans in ’06, first-round defensive tackle Amobi Okoye in ’07).
