Go ahead and ask any of the Houston Texans players about the offseason moves the organization has been making. They'll tell you about how optimistic they are at the start of offseason workouts and how much they're looking forward to making another playoff run in the 2012 season.
The most common sound bite you'll get, more or less, is this one: "It's a business." A quote almost reminiscent of the NFL lockout conversation, and the Texans players are singing the same song.
Matt Schaub had this to say Monday at the team's first workout:
"It's the harsh reality of this business when you lose some players, whether in free agency or trades, but it is part of the business. We have a spectacular core-nucleus of guys taking our back and looking forward to climbing the ladder and taking the next step."
But there's panic in Houston. The Texans fell short to a Baltimore Ravens team in the playoffs last season they could have defeated under different circumstances. What's interesting, though, is how the panic is focused more on what the Texans failed to do in the offseason, instead of what they proved about their actual system last season.
It would be a bigger concern that Joel Dreesen signed with the Denver Broncos had I not seen Houston win games without the likes of Schaub, Arian Foster, Andre Johnson, Mario Williams and DeMeco Ryans in different stretches of the 2011 season.
Letting Eric Winston go didn't make a lot of sense but as Owen Daniels put it...
"... that's just the nature of the beast. That's the way things go. New players come in."
The only questions that seem to matter are whether or not the team can rely on Schaub to stay healthy. And to be fair, that goes for Andre and Arian as well. Then you have to wonder what the Texans' schedule is going to look like, knowing they play some of the league's better squads unlike last season.
We saw how the front office went about taking care of its business, but more importantly, how will this familiar-face depleted group of players take care of theirs?
Read more about the Texans at the Battle Red Blog and SB Nation's NFL page.