it was a 5th (Harrison) and a 6th (Barber) and the street free agent who was clearly an immediate upgrade as he hasn't left the starting spot since he got it. i'm not saying he's great, i'm saying he's exactly what you won't recognize: an upgrade at S.

just wondering, what exactly equals effort to you?

Look how long we picked on C.C. Brown for 4 years, and then when he was finally starting to show some promise at the position, he got hurt. Same more or less, could have been said for Glenn Earl. Harrison is starting for the first time, and while Demps has been a pro, this is only the second year for him in our system. Barber, of course, has yet to see the field. My point is we can't seem to find any stability at our safety positions. That being said, they need to start coming on and doing more for us to succeed this year, if we are going to.

The best way to have stability at a position is to get someone good to play there.

Lets make it easy. Yes or No. Does anyone think we have good NFL safeties? Does anyone think we have good NFL OLBs?

I don't think anyone does, especially at Safety. Look at it this way though...any upgrade at Safety probably comes at the cost of another upgrade (or at least a shot at an upgrade) for another position. It wasn't like Smith only had two holes to fill when he got here.

So true, when you spend a pick on a DB then you neglect the LB or DE spot. To answer another question, I think we do have a quality OLB. He's #59, and he's playing out of position. It still burns me that we passed up on Patrick Willis. I hate to give up on Amobi, and I won't since he's still the youngest player in the NFL, but can you imagine how much better our defense would be if they'd selected Willis instead of Okoye? Putting Pat Willis at MLB, and moving Demeco back to his natural positon (OLB) would really have put this defense in a better position to succeed. Ryans was named SEC Defensive Player of the Year at OLB. He's a natural on the outside using his instincts to make plays. Now, he's doing a valiant job eating blocks and stuffing the run, but it will shorten his career long term. Maybe Okoye turns into a great player - I certainly hope so, but Willis could've made this team better. It's personnel decisions like this that I hope become a thing of the past.

Read my posts. I am glad we prioritized as we did. I think Rick Smith is doing a good job. But I can also see he has clearly not gotten around to S and OLB yet because he has had bigger concerns (everything else). This is why I won't blame Richard Smith (yet) for why we can't blitz well (I do blame him for everything else on the defense though).

barrett,

Not to pick on you but you need to remember that when Smith took over, the Texans had been run into the ground by one Charles Nelson Casserly. Our beloved franchise was in serious salary cap trouble.

Now combine that with the absolute FACT that Casserly had staffed our team with bad players, many of which couldn't find employment on other teams once cut. So because of the need to replace the personnel AND being in salary cap trouble, Smith has been in a dilema.

In order to upgrade personnel you need to spend the money. So he had to prioritize by position. As a result, overall, our team is descent in talent right now. We don't have a ton of superstars but, here we go, what would a Jeff Fisher do with our existing defense? Would we be giving up 30 points a game? No way.

A good coach can find a way to make descent players better. A good coach can make very good players go to the playoffs.

And don't give me a hard time about Fisher because I could've used a number of defensive minded coaches or their assitants. He was used to make a point.

no, but that's missing the point completely. was will demps an upgrade at safety over earl? yes or no? was zac diles an upgrade over danny clark? yes or no?

personnel is only part of the problem, yet every year (DC)Smith's personnel has been improved without any evidence of that on the field. besides his no-identity-having, undefined "vanilla" and playing crapshit players instead of young guys with potential we still rank near last in turnovers, yards given up per play and per game, bad at 3rd down stops, etc...if this isn't the same defense as when he started, why do they still play like the same defense? at some point i don't believe personnel is the problem anymore, that point is this year...now.

You guys just aren't listening. I think our defense is Richard Smith's fault. I think he should be fired and have laid it at his feet a half dozen times in this thread and twice as many in others. I also think if given better players at OLB and S he would probably misuse them. HOWEVER, at this point I will not blame him for this particular element of the defense, because there is no talent at these spots.

As for Rick Smith, God bless him. He has done a great (partial) job. And I am sure that with another season or two he will finish the job and complete the roster overhaul we so desperately needed. But obviously OLB and S are the back end of the job to him. Probably because they are two of the least valuable positions in the NFL.

Now you guys on the other hand want to go by the principal that since Richard Smith is at fault for other things he must be at fault for the blitzing. And since Rick Smith did a good job upgrading our overall talent, he automatically made our OLBs and Safeties better. The logic just doesn't lineup. It is actually possible for a guy to be mostly at fault or mostly right.

But if it makes you guys happy, I will say Richard Smith's defense is often out of position, and I will extrapolate it out until Richard Smith is the gunman on the grassy knoll.

like....for instance...he might misuse them in...blitzing? :D
it wasn't automatic, it took 2 draft picks and a free agent for safety, 2 draft picks for linebacker. speaking of not listening....

look there are 2 major thoughts in this thread as to why this defense can't stop passes, can barely stop the run, can't blitz, can't cover, etc...

1. Richard Smith's scheme and it's effectiveness
2. Rick Smith's overhauling the roster hasn't quite made it around to S, OLB

to 1 i say it's effectiveness ranks about 25th. every year. even with poopooplatterplayers you would think marginal improvements would happen through familiarity but quite contrarily our defense marginally gets worse. look up the numbers. to 2 i agree, a major move hasn't really been made but several small attempts have been made, pretty successfully i would say. you would think marginal improvements would come from marginal personnel improvements but again...the numbers don't lie. thing is, we've actually made attempts at changing personnel with little result so noooowwww let's change the other thing that has sucked on some big ones for 3 years.

what really chaps my hide is that we don't need a top 5 defense to be successful in a post-season manner. we need like...a top 17 or so because our offense is the dynamic side being top 6 or whatever we are now.

Yes. Misuse as in blitzing. That's my point. When he gets the players and uses them wrong, I'll blame him. Until then I'll blame him for what he could be doing now and isn't.

If you think we have been pretty successful in upgrading these positions, you are deceiving yourself. We are awful at OLB and S.

successful upgrade as in the position is better now than it was. i've never said they are great...and i'm pretty sure i've said they are bad.

As I have said, I think it is too early to judge the safeties we have back there now, because they haven't played together long enough to see how they are going to jell.

I am wondering what ya'll call a fair definition of stability.

I am thinking it must be some number of years.

And this might apply to both players and coaches.

And, maybe it's just me, but haven't we been better the last 4-5 games of the past two seasons. wonder why that was and then reverted at the start of the following year.

I think if we don't blame Richard Smith (which I have done long and loudly) we have to lay it at the feet of HC Gary Kubiak. He scripts the way he wants the defense to play and he expects RS to implement it. Take the game against Cincy yesterday. The defense started out a little tentative, but then came on and limited Cincy to two measly field goals inside the red zone. Intensity was evident for the whole game, not just the first half. If we are rounding into a pretty good team, these next few games will show it more than the last 3.

it's one thing to draw out the plans to build a ship, it's another to actually be responsible for nailing in all the planks. i don't know exactly how much kubiak has to do with the defense, defensive calls, personnel and such but i would think as far as who to blame with the defense it's got to be smith.

now, sticking with a coach for too long....that's on kubiak for sure.

I disagree. Kubiak was hired to coach the Texans, not the offense. If he is not involved in the Defense it is at his own peril. Bill Bellacik is a defensive coach and does anyone believe he leaves his offense in someone else's hands. If you are the head coach, you coach all 3 phases of the game (unless you are Joe Paterno, and then you sit in the booth alone at halftime while an assistant goes to the locker room and gives the halftime speech and makes the adjustements).

"involved" is a pretty ambiguous term. i honestly would like to know how much kubiak gets involved with the defense because if he's got 2/3 of the rest of the team to worry about as well i can't imagine his involvement is greater or even on the level with richard smith's.

"gap penetration, containment, coverage, or tackling" - If we could have been doing these things we would be contending for first in our division, IMO. These are the things we are going to have to do to beat Minnesota, our next opponent.