ESPN's AFC South Blogger Paul Kuharsky has a lot of connections, and as such, he sometimes manages to snag an interview. However, because teams are afraid of revealing how they think, sometimes executives will comment off the record. It's a perfect way to still get your message to the media without actually revealing anything. Who do I know that doesn't like to say things on the record? Hmmmm. Anyway, Kuharsky got a scoop with (executive who may or may not be Rick Smith) and the following quote was uttered:
↵↵↵Better than what you've got is not a good guiding principle. It still isn't what you want.
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It takes a twisted sort of logic to apply this quote to a football team.
↵Look, I'm all for stashing upside players on the roster. I understand why teams do it, I understand that some players aren't NFL-ready right off the bat. I also understand that teams look for certain types of players first, and shape their teams based on that.
↵On the other hand, the goal of football teams is to win football games. And to act with indifference on improving a need position even the slightest bit could be catastrophic in a league where you only need to win nine or ten games to make the playoffs. For the Texans in particular, not improving nose tackle or safety has cost them big-time for many, many years. Texans fans don't even know what the Texans actually want at those positions, because nobody has ever told them. They just know that those positions aren't considered important to upgrade by the front office, and thus the front office never does upgrade them.
↵Then they see the Texans lose more games than the talent on hand shows that they should, and they're not surprised. Obviously we can't be too sure who uttered this quote, but it certainly applies to what the Texans have been doing the last few years. I can see why the front office official went off the record with that comment--if my GM made it, I'd slam him good.
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