This time sucks, nothing is happening in Texans nation and I really miss reading Beefy's smart ass comments so I figured I would give him and the rest of you guys some fodder for comments. Fine, you don't want to comment, that's OK with me, I'm done with my board exams and I'm seriously bored now. This is more for me than anyone else.

I know this point has been beaten to death but I figured I might just try to put it all together. I wonder what is going through Rick Smith's mind right now with all the contracts he has to deal with. There's Demeco, OD, Dunta, Chester Pitts, K-Dub, Steve Slaton...ugh...who else? Maybe Andre in a year or two? 

Alright, I guess we have to start somewhere right? So, Demeco is a leader on the defense and one of the top MLB's in the league. How much do you guys think he's worth? Is MLB a position where you invest $20+ mil guaranteed these days? Personally I feel that this is one guy that we need to lock up even though a few of the national writers feel that this isn't a position that you invest a lot of money in. I say that if there is one player that we can't afford to lose it's Demeco. He wears the headset and is an upstanding guy who plays hard and practices even harder, please Rick Smith, pay this man.

So let's move on to OD. Personally, I just don't think that he's worth anywhere near Winslow money. I love this guy and I have seen him make catch after catch for a first down and I can't tell you how much I appreciated that. But come on (and I know Chris will make excellent points against my point of view), if we can't sign him to a multi year deal that makes him maybe the 3rd or 4th top paid TE in the league, it just isn't worth it. Rick Smith has a lot of tough decisions to make, he has to think about Mario becoming a free agent very soon. Yah, he could franchise Mario for 11+ mil but Mario is a guy that we cannot afford to lose. I truly feel that Mario and Andre are the only real "franchise" players that we have and there is absolutely no way that they could be replaced. If it comes down to overpaying for OD or saving a little for Mario, I'm definitely taking Mario. Though I love OD and think he has some great talent, I honestly feel that he could be replaced in a year or two so I am all for Rick Smith (RS) taking a harder line with him.

I know it was a long time ago but I made my feelings toward Dunta very clear in a loooong drawn out post. I don't know how much I need to elaborate right now except to state that none of us can possibly know how much he was offered (even though Pancakes said it was $23 million), but I just don't see the logic in overpaying or even offering market value for this guy. Yah, he's a warrior, but if media reports are accurate, he's a greedy warrior who has overstated his value immensely. I don't mind seeing him go. In fact, if he plays his heart out and returns to shut-down corner form, I would love to see Rick Smith tag him again after this season and then trade him for a 2nd round pick.

Chester Pitts is taking up over $6 mil in cap space this season, and rightfully so. He has been a mainstay on the offensive line and I have all the confidence in the world that he will earn every penny of that money. But the question is, does Rick Smith offer him an extension? I guess it depends on how our new C/G Antione Caldwell pans out. If he can make a name for himself in training camp and the preseason and maybe take over one of the starting jobs during the season, then I can see Chester becoming another salary cap casualty. Again, we have to think about resigning Mario and anticipating Andre's request for a new contract (he's the best in the league but isn't going to be paid as such in years to come). 

K-Dub is a fantastic #2 receiver who has really earned a chance to show his potential under Gary Kubiak. This is a guy that, by all accounts, is insane about his conditioning and recovery and works as hard, if not harder, than anyone on the team. Even though we are deep at WR I feel like this is a guy that Rick Smith needs to pursue very hard in negotiations. Again, I don't feel like a ridiculous offer is valid, but he deserves to be paid as well as the top #2 WR's in the league. I look at players as replaceable or not replaceable, and K-Dub would be tough to replace. He knows his role and he allows the best WR on the planet to shine.

Slaton may very well be the toughest decision that RS has in the coming years. The guy is phenomenal and has exceeded any expectation that even the most optimistic fan could place upon him. He's even gained 10 lbs this offseason and is working harder than ever. In particular, I love the fact that he just "hands the ball back to the ref, act like [i've] been there before" when he scores a TD. You know this guy is gonna want to get paid big time during or after this season. Is he worth it considering the fact that Mario's contract is coming due? I think so. I think if super Steve is willing to take reasonable money then we cannot let him go. Even though this system lends itself to late drafts picks becoming stars, I think that this guy is special and that he should be in a Texan's uniform for years to come. I think Maurice Jones-Drew money is appropriate.

Just to start some converstation, if I were Andre Johnson, after this year (maybe even during the year) I would make a big push for a new contract. RS got this guy for relatively cheap and he doesn't have many good years left so it would make sense for the absolute best WR in the NFL to get some guaranteed money. If you thought things were interesting right now, I have a feeling thing are gonna get even more interesting during and especially after the season.

He's a 21 year old physical phenomenon with a huge heart and an amazing career once he leaves football. The man spent a few weeks in his home country of Nigeria with charitable organizations for the second year in a row. Even better, he took fellow NFL players with him each year and has, by all accounts, done a great deal of good in a country that needs it more than most. Believe me, I spent 3 months in Nigeria and in that short amount of time even I was able to see the need in that country. It is among the poorest countries in the world, and to have millionaires from the USA actually take an interest in the welfare of its people is an absolute good. 

All that aside, I get the feeling that Amobi's heart is not completely in the game of football, and therefore not completely with the Houston Texans. Now, it's only his third year (and he's barely old enough to legally order a beer), so he still technically has a year or two to prove that he is more than a first round bust. My problem with Amobi is that the Texans fired their defensive line coach because of him and he directly was probably one of the top five reasons why our defensive coordinator was fired (believe me, i'm not shedding any tears over either of them). Now I've seen the reports during the offseason that he was at Reliant stadium working out for most of the offseason, and those reports pleased me very much. However, he then left for his home country right before the offseason workouts and you can bet your bottom dollar that he wasn't even thinking about football while he was there. 

Amobi comes back and starts the workouts and after two weeks he's feeling some "soreness" in his knee!?! Was this a direct result of him not working out while he was out doing charity work? I gotta tell you though, the fact that he's sore right after he got back from a foreign country isn't the part that bothers me the most, it's the fact the he reported it to the media. So he reported that he went to a doctor and he/she told him that there was nothing to worry about, but he still feels as if it's necessary to leak this piece of information to everyone while he's out accepting some award in a suit and tie. This really gets me. I can guarantee you that Kubiak did not want Amobi to talk to the media about this non-situation. 

Look, the team doctor (someone who knows more about knees than I ever will) told him there's nothing to worry about and, presumably, advised him that an MRI would be unnecessary at the moment. Unnecessary??? When you have unlimited resources and a doctor (who is probably among the best in the business) rules that a test is unnecessary then it's probably nothing. So if this is a non-issue why is the defensive player whose improvement is absolutely crucial to the success of his team talking to the media? 

I hope Amobi doesn't have any damage to his knee and I REALLY hope that under William Wallace Kollar he becomes the kind of player that warranted the 10th overall pick in the draft. I absolutely love this team, but I really have to wonder if Amobi Okoye loves this game and this team when he seems to be more interested in his charity work and "injuries".

This post by DocTexan showed good analysis and deserved the bump to the front page.  Nice job Doc, keep up the good work - TransientTexan.

I'm actually gonna argue that this is a very positive thing. John McClain reports that Dunta and (gasp!) Demeco are not going to report for the voluntary workouts because they're upset about their contracts. 

At first glance, this looks just awful for our beloved Texans. Two of their best players and leaders on defense are going to "take a stand" and skip out on the weightlifting and sprints portion of the offseason workout because they are upset about their contract situations. Oh God!!!! That's it, our season is over right? No (in my opinion); this is a positive for this year.

Look, I get how upset Demeco is, the guy is an absolute warrior and there has been no word on the specifics of the contract that was offered to him and that he turned down. He DEFINITELY deserves more than the $1.4 million he's gonna be paid this year. There's absolutely no question about that in my opinion. But the bottom line is that  Rick Smith offered him a long-term contract of unknown amount and by turning it down he was prepared to play another year with an extremely underpaid tender. 

Dunta is another story. Rick Smith offered him a contract that (again) in my opinion was as much or more than than I would have placed his worth at considering he was coming off a horrendous injury. Dunta had the opportunity to be among the highest paid cornerbacks in the NFL with $23 million guaranteed, so he really does not receive my sympathy as per Demeco. If your ego is too big to accept a more than fair deal, don't complain when you're guaranteed ~$10 million, you're just not gonna get many points with me or any true Texan fan (I'm only speaking for myself, but I really believe I'm being as objective as possible here, please correct me if I'm wrong). 

As to why I believe all of this is a great thing for the 2009 Texans. I firmly believe that if we EVER had a chance to make the playoffs, THIS is the year. First and foremost, we have so many key players playing for their next contract. Among them are Dunta, Demeco, OD, Kevin Walter, and (sigh) Travis Johnson. Now I am firmly entrenched in my opinion that nothing motivates football players to perform at their highest possible level than the thought of money. All of these guys need to perform NOW, or they will not receive the compensation that they believe (right or wrong) they deserve. They have one season to show Rick Smith and the rest of the NFL that they are worthy of the extremely big dollar contracts, and it is for this reason that I believe that Texans fans will see the absolute best effort out of these players.

Second, if we have a good draft we will have never had this much talent on the team. Consider it, we have the chance to plug just about every hole on this team with this draft, a position we have never found ourselves in. If Smith and Kubiak do this draft right (and I have all the faith in the world that they will) then for the first time in our history we will have at least 1 decent/good player at every position. That is more than enough to get a team into the playoffs with good coaching and a little luck. 

To conclude, I could honestly care less about how "upset" Dunta is, but I can really feel for Demeco and OD. My prediction? Dunta will play his heart out and someone will overpay for him after we make the playoffs. Demeco, OD, and Kevin Walter will get the contracts that they deserve during or after this season. Either way, I must reiterate, THIS is the season to get to the playoffs. I really feel that if it doesn't happen this season (and I hope I don't jinx it by even bringing it up), Kubes will be gone and it will be a number of years more until this great city can taste football glory.

While I'm usually a fan of John McClain, the guy has not done any writing or reporting about the Texans in about a week. Since writing a story about Matthews becoming an assistant coach, all he's done is write a story about TO signing with the Bills, and it was the headline story on chron.com for almost a week! I don't know if this burns anybody else but I go to the chronicle to read about the Texans, not stare at TO's ugly mug for a week straight. A couple of stories thanks to Alan Burge over at the examiner:

Earl Cochran had his RFA tender withdrawn on March 5th

http://www.examiner.com/x-778-Houston-Texans-Examiner~y2009m3d10-Texans-withdraw-qualifying-offer-to-Cochran

Matt Schiotz is hired as strength and conditioning assitant

http://www.examiner.com/x-778-Houston-Texans-Examiner~y2009m3d10-Schiotz-hired-as-strength-and-conditioning-assistant

Now, I'm no Texans beat writer getting paid lots of money to keep fans up to date on Texans news, but this seems like, well...news...the kind that might actually be important to Texan fans. I mean for God's sakes we made a huge acquisition with Antonio Smith and a less huge one with Orlovsky, you'd think McClain would maybe try getting an interview with one of them. Or how about another mock draft, maybe some sort of update or even speculation about who the Texans are looking at in the draft or anything about pending contract extensions. Hell, Eric Winston just got married, and I for one would rather read a one-liner story about that than have to stare at TO everyday or a random assortment of NFL news written by the associated press. And if anyone was at McClain's chat today, he was more of a dick than usual and gave absolutely no useful information. I mean, he had to answer the same stupid questions 100 times, but still, even the good questions were answered with either a yes or a no. He actually deflected one question about potential free agents that the Texans might bring in by implying that the Titans might have someone reading the chat and would possibly bring the same guy in just because they saw it on his chat. Wow............

And yah, I'm in football withdrawal, but there are free agents, the upcoming draft, pro days, interviews, expectations, coaching changes, contracts, and lots of other things to write about especially when you have more access to the Texans than any of us regular schmoes. 

Sorry for the rant everyone just to bring two links worth of news, but this team coverage has been really getting to me.