Anyone with a good set of eyes, or the correct prescription on their corrective lenses, saw a Texans defensive backfield on Sunday that is taking on water. For the Chron however, things are all systems go.
Long time readers of the Chronicle will not be surprised by this. Despite the fact that the Three Stooges (McClain, Harvey and Solomon) enjoy access to the team (or maybe because of it) they fail to add any decent criticism other than the occasional "pathetic" or "awful" or "worst I've ever seen" blather on Twitter. Most Sports coverage on the Chron then is limited to Rah! Rah! stuff and typically fails to address substantive issues if they put the local folks in a negative light. Because of this we're fed the party line that "Ed Reed is the savior we've been waiting for" and somehow his presence is going to increase the man coverage ability of a fading Jonathan Joseph.
It's easy to take a look at the Texans defensive backfield and make the assumption that the weakness is the safety position. Too easy because that doesn't really tell the whole story.
1. Corner is a concern. - As stated previously, Joseph's cover ability has fallen off since his first year. Last year the excuse was injuries, this year the excuse is "it's just pre-season". Amazingly, the best cover corner that I see on the Texans' roster right now is Kareem Jackson. Once you get past the starting two however things start to degenerate fairly quickly. Brice McCain is a servicable back-up, but Brandon Harris has been sub-par. I can't see any scenario where Roc Carmichael makes the team. A.J. Bouye is just a guy. Maybe Joseph picks up his game. If not?
2. Safety. - Take away Daniel Manning, and what you're left with is a pile of below average. I realize that Ed Reed is going to be viewed as the second coming but, so far, we've yet to see him in anything other than street clothes. D.J. Swearinger can't unseat Shiloh Keo as the first string starter in Reed's absence. Think about that.
3. Linebacker - On paper, the starting 4 of Mercilus, Mays, Cushing and Reed is pretty sound, and Braman, Dobbins, Sharpton and Jefferson are fairly solid back-ups. You just hope that injuries don't plague this unit because the margin for error is pretty slim.
4. D-Line. - Watt, Watt, Watt. That's the key. If he's healthy the D-line is solid. Mitchell is servicable at the NT position and Antonio Smith is good when he's not having a mental melt-down. The problem is Smith is usually good for one or two of those per game. Why the Texans spent money on him is beyond me. They should have cut him and picked up someone in the $2-3 Million range in free agency.
In most cases the defense should be OK barring injury, but the same can be said for most defenses in the NFL. If the injury bug bites any team it's going to hurt. For the secondary however it's a very real possibility that the defensive backfield isn't going to be very good regardless of health. The Texans have not distinguished themselves when it comes to identifying good corner or safety talent. They got in a mess during the off-season and ended up buying damaged goods in the form of Ed Reed. Now they're stuck with it, for better or for worse.
