SB Nation - Stanley McClover

Texans Down 'N Dirty: Twitter Edition

DreKeem — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 12:00:23 -0000

As curtisdisco mentioned in a fanpost, Xavier Adibi has bulked up to 240 pounds in an attempt to beat out Zac Diles for the starting weakside linebacker spot. One of the issues with Adibi coming out of college was his lack of size and it didn't help that he suffered a major illness before last season that caused him to lose even more weight. Before his season ending injury, Adibi's game weight was around 220 Ibs. It's nice to see the effort to improve from Adibi, but it's yet to be seen how the added bulk will affect his fluidity in coverage, which was an advantage he had over Diles last year.

Adibi also rightfully attributes much of the success of a linebacker to the play of the defensive tackles. It makes you appreciate even more the success of Demeco Ryans' rookie year, in which he compiled 156 total tackles playing alongside... bear with me, Lional Dalton, Thomas and Travis Johnson, Cedric Killings, and Anthony Maddox. Yikes. Good health and better inside play from the d-line should lead to a return to dominance for Demeco. Are you reading this, Rick Smith?

The Texans official site provides a nice interview with strong safety Dominique Barber. In it we once again see the obvious focus David Gibbs is putting on technique, which Jacque Reeves previously mentioned. Rest assured, it's a given that technique involves turning one's head around... we hope. Improved technique will certainly help the secondary, but improvements on the d-line should be an even bigger boost. It's also nice to see that veterans such as Nick Ferguson are really taking time out to teach young players such as Barber the guide to success in this league. You can't undermine the value of leadership from players such as Ferguson and Demeco. Are you reading this, Rick Smith?

The chronicle has implemented a feature that lets you access every snap taken by the Texans offense last year. I'm not sure what exactly this is useful for, but it's there for you to check out.

Chris over at HDH has put together another nice feature that allows you to follow Texans players through websites such as Facebook and Twitter. Andre Johnson's Twitter consists of a blank page. Go figure. If you know of any other players on these sites, go ahead and let Chris know in the comments section. I have one for you, Chris. Stanley McClover. Bet you forgot about him didn't you? Does he even count? Not surprisingly, the only image he could find of himself to put up is one of him getting absolutely no position on Steelers RT Willie Colon. Wait a second, McClover played a snap as a Texan!? Oh right, we lost that game 38-17.

Speaking of Twitter, it's interesting to check out the differences in personality between Chris Johnson and Steve Slaton. On Johnson's twitter, he eagerly states that "Smash and dash is having a divorce my new name is EVERY COACHES DREAM What u think bout that" and "Everybody last year football season will be my worst year. What about that". Slaton, on the other hand, calmly lets everyone know that he's "Relaxin on this beautiful night in the backyard. How your weather where you at? Are you enjoying the night?"