SB Nation - Chaun Thompson

To me, the most surprising cuts are Arian Foster and Brandon Harrison. I know that John Busing has had a good preseason, but I still had a sneaking suspicion that Harrison would win that spot. Also, even though Moats has shown more this training camp, Arian Foster showed more upside, which I thought would win him a spot especially given his similarity to the oft injured Chris Brown. Lastly, I'm a little surprised that Chaun Thompson beat out Buster Davis, although I think tht is of little consequence either way.

What do you think of the final roster, BRB?

Contracts, Salary Cap, and the Future?

Riott — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 02:16:59 -0000

With all these questions about new deals for players springing up, and with contract negotiations dominating our attention as Texans fans, I decided to do a quick cap preview for the next 4 years, using InTheBullseye.com, Rotoworld.com, and pulling numbers out of my ass to acquire data to analyze. This examines the hypothetical future for our Houston Texans under new deals for our big name players in question.

According to InTheBullseye.com, for 2009 we are under the cap by about $10 million, and for 2010, with DeMeco Ryans, Mike Brisiel, Ryan Moats, and Tim Bulman (and others) as RFAs, and Chris Brown, Travis Johnson, Chester Pitts, Chaun Thompson, Kevin Walter, and Dunta Robinson (with some more low dollar contracts) as UFAs, we are $39.97 million under. If we pretend that Owen never signed his RFA tender, then we have an unsigned O.D. this year and the cap space for 2009 is $12 million.

Using the benchmarks Tim provided, as well as Rotoworld.com salaries for some comparable players, I established what I feel would be good deals for the three players in question:

DeMeco Ryans – Six years, $48 million contract. The deal includes $24 million guaranteed. 2009: $1.35 million, 2010: $1.85 million, 2011-2013: $4.35 million, 2014: $4.85 million, 2015: $5.5 million, 2016: Free Agent

Dunta Robinson - Four years, $16.8 million contract. The deal contains $8.5 million guaranteed, including a $6 million signing bonus. 2009: $2.15 million, 2010: $2.9 million, 2011: $3.293 million, 2012: Free Agent. (This is Cortland Finnegan’s deal. This is what Dunta deserves, as he hasn’t proven that he is worth a huge deal, but he is still a leader and an impact player if 100%. Undoubtedly, we will pay more than this to keep him, but we shouldn’t.)

Owen Daniels - Six years, $30 million contract. The deal contains $14 million guaranteed, including an $11 million roster bonus in the second year. 2009: $620,000, 2010: $2.325 million, 2011: $3.7 million, 2012: $3.8 million, 2013: $3.85 million, 2014: Free Agent ( This is Chris Cooley’s deal. I think this is too much for Owen, but he is a proven commodity and worth keeping around. HOWEVER, if someone dangles anything that even resembles a first round pick for him...bye Owen, and thanks for all the fish. )

I think those are fair deals. Will they accept them? No, but if they did, let us take a look at our salary cap scenario for the 2009 season. DeMeco’s cap number would be $5.35 million, Dunta's is $4.27 million, and Owen’s is $2.9 million. That allows us to just barely squeak by under the cap for the upcoming season, with probably less than a million dollars of cap space available (Remember, I am rounding).

What about the 2010 season? DeMeco’s cap number would be $5.85 million, Dunta’s at $4.32 million, and Owen’s at $4.65 million. Along with the rest of the salaries on the roster, that leaves $25.15 million left to re-sign Chris Brown (if he doesn’t break his wrist signing), Ferguson (if we still suck at safety after the 2009 season, my brain will explode), Travis Johnson (brain explodes), Chester Pitts (big contract here), Chaun Thompson, Kevin Walter, Matt Turk, Mike Brisiel, Tim Bulman, Ryan Moats, and some back-up fodder. Not too shabby, I think.

After 2011 is even more hypothetical, as there are so many variables as to who will even be here in two years, but for S&Gs let’s take a gander.

2011 is where it starts to get interesting. Mario Williams' cap number is $17-20 million, Andre Johnson’s is $8.675 million, and Schaub’s is $6.86 million, Antonio Smith is going to be about $6 million, and, by now, I bet we have given Steve Slaton a new deal. Lots of money there, plus Leach, Fred Bennett, Bentley, and a whole bunch of backups need new deals.

2012, I firmly believe, will suck. A lot. First, Mario needs a new deal. My stomach turns thinking about how much money I am absolutely willing to spend to keep Mario here: 6 years, $80 million is probably the price tag we will be looking at (if not much more). Schaub, AJ, Antonio Smith, Winston, DeMeco, Dunta, and Owen will all be making a lot of money. We will probably be paying Cushing quite a bit on his rookie deal here as well. We will need to resign Eugene Wilson, Apostrophe, Chris Myers, Dan-O, David Anderson, and if they haven’t already, Steve Slaton. Something’s gotta give, methinks.

The next few years look to be pretty interesting. We have finally reached the negative part of no longer sucking – paying the players who don’t suck. Managing contracts and acquiring cheap talent are going to be important parts of the future. We are going to see our first money casualties in the next few years, and watching one of our real stars leave for cash elsewhere for the first time is going to blow. Hopefully, this gave you guys and gals a little bit better idea of what the future may look like for our Houston Texans.

Sound off below.

Reviewing the Experts: CHFF's Fillability Index

SOLIS — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 02:12:44 -0000

They often say that the truth hurts. And when they say your team has been struggling to find a ground game and can’t rush the quarterback – there’s no denying the sting of reality.

Whether they make you happy or mad, the guys at ColdHardFootballFacts.com are always willing to let you know how good or how bad your team is – not based on opinion, but based on statistical analysis (a/k/a the cold hard facts).

With a sabermetrics-like approach to covering every aspect of football, they again came up with a bottom line that left me shaking my head. Let's take a look at their latest breakdown as they applied their Fillability Index to the teams of the AFC South.

Truth be told, I’m a big fan of CHFF.com and their unique slant on the NFL. They have several different indexes that they use to determine the strengths (and weaknesses) of any given team within the NFL. For example, their Offensive Hogs Index attempts to determine the strength of the offensive line while their Bendability Index seeks to find which defenses best demonstrated the ability to "bend and not break".

This week they took stock of which teams in the AFC South made the best offseason acquisitions based on last season’s greatest weaknesses. The better the team filled its needs, the higher they graded out on the CHFF Fillability Index.

Jacksonville Jaguars

According to the stat gurus, Jacksonville scored the highest marks in the AFC South. They received a respectable A- for drafting DE Derrick Harvey and DE Quentin Groves with their first two picks. CHFF said that the pass rush, although serviceable, was one of the only real soft spots for the Jags. I’m not sure that the two rookies can replace DT Marcus Stroud (BUF) and DE Bobby McCray (NO), but we’ll have two real good looks at them this year.

Tennessee Titans

The Tennessee Titans garnered a solid B+ with their moves on the offensive side of the ball. The Titans were offensively inferior to the stellar play of their defense. CHFF handed out the B+ based on the acquisition of free agent TE Alge Crumpler and rookie RB Chris Johnson. While Crumpler and Johnson are decent additions to the former Oilers, they still have an inept quarterback. That being the case, I don’t agree that they addressed their greatest area of need. They get an F- from me. (Sorry, that’s my Titan hate bleeding through).

Indianapolis Colts

Citing the Colts mediocre Defensive Hogs Index, CHFF thought that the defensive front seven is where the team should have focused its efforts. Apparently third round pick OLB Phillip Wheeler and fifth round pick OLB Marcus Howard were decent enough picks to warrant a B-. If that’s what you get by filling your needs with a couple of mid-round picks, then the Texans should have fared just as well – right?

Houston Texans

Well, about those Texans… let’s just say that they weren’t the head of the class. By CHFF’s estimation, the Texans Fillability Index graded out to a D. Yep, that's roughly a 65. Here’s their reasoning. According to their Defensive Hogs Index, which measures the overall productivity of the front seven, the Texans ranked next to last. Even with some of the best young talent in DE Mario Williams, DT Amobi Okoye and MLB DeMeco Ryans, the Texans failed to establish a consistent pass rush. No real argument there.

While they were looking under the sinks, they pointed out the Texans abhorrent Defensive Passer Rating that also ranked near last (30^th). (Shaking your head yet?) As abysmal as that was, it isn’t groundbreaking news.

CHFF justified the D grade because, although the Texans did address these areas of need through free agency and the draft, they didn’t provide any significant upgrades. According to them, a couple of journeymen and some mid-rounders aren’t enough to get us over the hump. A couple of games into the preseason, and you can kind of see what they are getting at. But a D?

So the question remains, can free agent acquisitions like LB/DE Rosevelt Colvin and OLB Chaun Thompson give the Texans other options to pressure the quarterback? Can CB Jacques Reeves and rookie CB Antwaun Molden help shore up the secondary?

In any case, it’s all just speculation. Last year the Texans earned a C- because they mortgaged their future on an unproven quarterback and another defensive lineman. Aside from having a nonexistent running game and several no name receivers they still managed to shoot up the offensive charts by slinging the ball all over the place. Here’s hoping this year the Texans can again prove the index wrong.

I know the Fillability Index didn’t take into account the hiring of assistant coach Ray Rhodes or the maturing of DT Amobi Okoye, but either way, it was too low. If I was grading out the acquisitions, I probably would have put us at a B-. From my perspective, we filled every glaring need. Whether those pieces will gel in time for the opening game remains to be seen.

So using CHFF’s rationale for assessing the offseason acquisitions, what grade would you give the Texans? Looking forward to reading your answers in the section below. Cheers to the new season.