Official Texans @ Saints Thread, 08/16/2008

[Bigtinylittle]

Jacoby Jones has two problems. One, he is spooked. I think he's afraid of getting hit on the returns and is showing it. Two, he doesn't seem to be football smart. He made two serious mistakes on punts last night. On the fumble he lost focus because he was too zeroed in on the defender coming down. The second big mistake was not fair catching the punt which landed outside the ten yard line. Unless I'm mistaken, the rule of thumb is fair catch anything outside the ten because for each yard the ball lands outside the ten, the greater the chance that it will trickle down to the goal line. Which is exactly what happened.

I think at this point it would be best to remove Jacoby from punt return duties. If you look at his return average after he came back last year, it won't be a big sacrifice. Let him focus on his receiving duties. He is very raw in that area too. I'm not sure he has the maturity to get better, but he has the chance to be a good number 2 reciever if he works hard at it. Right now I think he's no better than number 5.

Schaub didn't surprise me. He showed again that he's very accurate and very smart. His biggest weakness by far is lack of mobility. But last night that was not a problem because he got no real pressure the whole first half. If he gets anywhere near that much protection this year, and if he stays healthy, he will have an impressive season.

Slaton looks like a good pick. He unlike Jacoby, he seems really football smart.
I don't think he has much power, but he's shifty enough to have some effectiveness running up the middle. That has surprised me.

Brown ran more than well enough to make the team. He looks like he has more power than Taylor and probably makes better decisions. He seems a bit faster too. I think right now he is our number two back and if Green has lost anything Brown could pass him up.

Our D-line looks no better than last year. I guess it's too early to write it off, but I'm not feeling optimistic. And when we blitzed things didn't go any better.

I'm guessing Cook gets released. If he doesn't I think Walker goes to PS. I think that's a safe move because I'm doubting that another team will pick him up.

I wouldn't be surprised if Weaver gets released too. I don't think he is totally healed. I heard an interview last week where he said as much. He also implied that he would never be 100% again. If Cochran passes him up it will surprise me if Weaver stays. I don't see how we can pay six million for a backup. I know we will have to eat a lot of cap money, but I don't think anyone expects him to be here for more than one more year anyway, so basically we would be adding about three million or so extra dead money and saving 3 million on what his non-guaranteed money would be this year. Maybe we could do something with that money.

In the little time Brink was in, he showed good poise. He definately makes the PS.

The Saints defense got good penetration into our backfield way too many times on running plays. I hope that's only because our new line is still jelling, but it has me worried. At least it wasn't as bad as last week, though. Last week it was horrible.