Friday, April 28, 2006

The last mistake Charlie Casserly will ever make

Let's see... It will probably be about midnight on Saturday, Central time when this post goes up, which makes it about 12 hours until the NFL Draft

And 12 Hours until the Houston Texans make their biggest mistake since they became a franchise.

They're going to draft Reggie Bush.

That's right, I said it. Drafting Reggie Bush would be the biggest mistake the Houston Texans have ever made.

(And by the way, this has nothing to do with his recent problems with an extortionist "agent", more on that later)

Why? First off, he averages 15 carries a game. That's not exactly the best conditioning to be a feature back. Feature backs in the NFL get somewhere in between 20-30 carries a game. No one knows if he's durable enough to take the pounding, and that punishment's going to be amplified in year one because of the Texans' so-called offensive line.

Second, the whole point of the first round in the draft is to fill your biggest need. And running back is not the Texans' biggest need, it's offensive line. Reggie Bush, for all his skill, would never be able to run behind the Texans current offensive line, any more than David Carr would be able to throw behind it. All the leg whipping and chop blocking that Gary Kubiak will probably bring over from the Broncos won't help this excuse of a line get Reggie Bush out of the backfield alive either. And there's a pretty good tackle out there in D'Brickashaw Ferguson that the Texans have completely ignored.

Oh by the way, this would make this the second year in a row (at least) that the Texans did not take care of their biggest need (offensive line), should they do what everyone expects them to do.

Thirdly, there's the Vince Young factor. Even though they've decided Carr is their man and talent right now dictates that Young go later than #1, Vince Young is a Houston kid with the potential to be a superstar. If he becomes an NFL icon when the Texans had an opportunity to get him, Charlie Casserly will get Bartman-ed out of Houston.

Granted, Casserly has some deniablility here because every other GM has Reggie Bush #1, but given his track record with the moves he's made since coming to Houston, he's on a short leash with the ticket buying public. And Reggie Bush will just prove to be another failure, should he go to the Texans

Speaking of Reggie Bush...

Thoughts on "Rent-Free Housegate":

- The biggest reason why this became a big deal? The media will jump on anything involving the words "Bush" and "scandal". Editors probably all thought it was Bush the president and not Bush the running back and told their people to run with the story.
- Colin Cowherd, for once, made a great point on his radio show this week: This kind of behavior from sports agents isn't going to stop until the federal government passes a law to stop it
- Speaking of laws, isn't threatening to go public with embarassing facts unless they either do something for you or give you money considered extortion? Isn't that a crime?

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