Texans to the Pro Bowl

[papabear]

Originally Posted by Keith

Agreed, but have you noticed how little teams have thrown Dunta's direction since he's been back though?

With so many players and moving parts in the game itself, I'm glad the fans have no more than 1/3 of the Pro Bowl vote. We're among the most interested and knowledgeable fans in forums like these, yet even we are having a hard time differentiating a player's "reputation" from his actual 2008 on-field performance.

I agree that Dunta immediately became the most feared player in our secondary...although I'm not quite on board with the idea that teams have been avoiding him all that much. Maybe a little, but I don't think teams avoided Dunta all that much to begin with before the injury. They might have picked on weaker players, but I never felt like they were scared to throw at him.

I'm fascinated by how quickly guys get labeled by fans and/or media, and how hard it is for them to shake a label once it's stuck on them. It's like when ESPN anoints the"next" Gayle Sayers (Reggie) and then it takes three years of sub par play for them to admit that maybe Mario was a better choice. I made a comment in a bar during a Texans game earlier this year that Demeco wasn't having his usual good game...he'd wiffed on a couple of tackles, seemed slow to react to the run, and had gotten beat in coverage. I had to listen to how crazy I was for next thirty minutes because he's the "best player on our whole team". That might be true, but he still wasn't playing that well that day.

Why aren't we bombarded with news about the investigation into the investigation where Marvin Harrison might have shot someone the way we are with Burress shooting himself....because Burress has been labeled a trouble maker and Harrison's supposed to be a nice guy? I guess media market size can play into that one, but it still proves my point.

Sorry for the completely off topic rant.