Choke City proves it once again

Jesus. That was just fucking awful. I commented to my roommate that, with about five minutes left in the game and up seventeen points, the Texans were probably not going to lose this one. But they found a way, goddamn it, because that's their job.

I think everything that needs to be said about the game has been said. Rosenfels almost got a spectacular win, but then he cost us the game. Three consecutive turnovers. Fuck. So instead, I'd like to write about some of the comments I've seen. Most of these will be from the Chronicle website, primarily because that site brings out the idiot brigade.

Everyone wants to blame Sage, but he is the reason they were up. His deciveness with the offense and command of the huddle. He is to blame for not covering up the football, but the coaching should get a serious look for this collapse.

No, Sage was not responsible for the lead. That was play calling, Slaton, Daniels, and Andre Johnson, with a healthy dose of a resurgent defense. Go back and look at Sage's TD pass to AJ. That was almost a pick, and if Johnson weren't such a monster, it would have been going the other way. He threw into triple or quadruple coverage several times. Those were awful decisions, and he was only saved by the Colts' failure and the receivers' brilliance. Carr could have taken us to that point.

And he is definitely responsible for every bit of that collapse. HE tried the ridiculous leap-over-the-defense-for-the-1st-down play. HE couldn't protect the football. HE threw the interception to end the game.

With that said, the DC should still be fired. Our defensive playcalling sucks.

UUUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHHHH! What a heartbreaker! Why wouldn't Kubiak pull Sage after the second turnover!? I could see his deer-in-the-headlights look on a low-definition TV!

Because (1) Schaub had a bad case of the shits, and (2) Owen Daniels is our third back-up. To be fair, though, I think Owen Daniels as QB would be pretty cool for a few plays. Just snap the ball to him and play him like a FB.

First:
All of you saying you are through with the Texans - PLEASE live up to your word and get the heck out!! You're are not needed or wanted in the fan base.

Listen, man. It's understandable to hate this fucking team right now. It's been almost seven years of losing (or not-winning!) football. We have yet to get a playoff appearance. Yet to post a winning season. Yet to do anything.

And I really don't blame Houstonians and the rest of Southeast Texas if they don't want to watch this team lose week after week. It fucking sucks. And we see the two teams we hate most - Dallas and the Titans - planning for playoff appearances. Meanwhile, we pray for a winning season.

So I understand if someone doesn't want to keep watching and hoping. That's fine. And if we start doing well, I hope they come back. I don't want them to leave permanently. At this point, it's not as if anyone watching is a bandwagon fan. It's not like they're the Astros or Rockets - teams that have failed to do anything after years of awesomeness. They're the fucking Texans. They wouldn't be jumping off the bandwagon, because there is no bandwagon to speak of.

The Texans Oilered it. This is not how you grow or maintain a fan [base].

Go Texans! Beat dallas!

See, that's the appropriate response. They choked. That's why we're Choke City (I particularly like the "Oilered it" comment). I mean, it sucked to watch them blow this. It was a real kick in the gut. But I couldn't help but chuckle at the damn thing. It was fucking comical. They just totally fucked up, and that's what we've come to expect. It would be weird (pleasant, but weird) if they didn't blow it.

So I'll still watch next week. I'll watch them until I die or they move. They're Houston's team, and so they're my team. I want them to kick ass next week, but I'm willing to wait until they do. It's getting harder year by year, though.

EDIT:

This collapse has inspired a new title card. Unfortunately, I can't find a photo of Rosenfels' Jim Brown style move, so I'll just use this photo of his later fumble.

So, was this a worse collapse than The Comeback? Probably. Granted, the Buffalo incident came with a hall-of-fame QB at the helm and the playoffs on the line, but that was also the result of Buffalo just playing like beasts.

While Rosenfels imitated Moon's fumble, Rosenfels absolutely choked on this one. No credit can really be given to the Colts offense. This one is squarely of Rosenfels.

Not a good weekend...

...for either my home town or my adopted city. First, Houston is hit with a true monster of a storm. Then, its baseball team puts up 18 innings of 1-hit ball. A good portion of its multi-million dollar football stadium's roof is torn asunder, meaning that the Texans will face an even more brutal schedule. Much of Houston is without power.

The Saints lost (don't really care, but Reggie Bush put up a 2.8 yds/carry game, which is always hi-fucking-larious). The Green Wave got its second "almost-but-not-quite" upset of the season.

The lone good point: Matt Forte put up 4.0 yds/carry with the Bears on Sunday. Awesome. One of my friends has him on his fantasy team, so good for him. As he pointed out, Forte has all the markers of a great running back. He's got great speed. He's physically powerful. He's got good vision and intelligence. And he can catch, to boot. The only reason he was a surprise in the 2nd round of the draft was because he came from Tulane and not LSU, USC, Texas, OSU etc.

On the bright side for me: we got almost 100 people to sign up for the debate society. If even a third of that shows up, we're doing good. It looks like we're going to have a great year.

I'd like to talk a little more about Coop.

As I posted over at the Crawfish Boxes, Coop has really improved over the last year. He's no longer doing the "small-ball" shit that was helping to lose games in April. He still doesn't just sit back and wait for our hitters to score, and I think he still orders stupid shit like the hit-and-run play WAY too often, but he's managed well.

More importantly, he's kept the bullpen in good shape. He's been handed a pretty good bullpen, and he usually distributes the work fairly evenly. He gets Wesley experience and puts the ball in the hands of Sampson, Hawkins or Brocail if we're in a jam. He keeps the pitchers well rested. That's great.

And he sticks up for his charges. He knows when the Astros are getting fucked. There's nothing wrong if a manager gets thrown out of the game, and he's willing to go to line for his guys (hell, he chewed out the commissioner!).

That's all you need from a manager. You don't need (or really want) guys like LaRussa or Torre. You just want a guy who can manage the bullpen, keep everyone in line, and who will argue the bad calls so his players don't have to.

Eat shit Cubsfans

I rarely scream at televisions. Particularly when I'm in a dorm. Tonight was an exception.

So I'm majorly pissed. Bud Selig made the Astros play a thousand fucking miles away from home after their home city is fucked over by the forces of nature.

I want to make something very clear right now. Fuck whatever it is that's in charge of baseball luck. I don't care if it's fate, or karma, or God himself. This is horseshit. And I'm fucking tired of it.

The city of fucking "Baaaaaaaaaaaastaaaaaan" gets to fucking market it's "loveable loser" bullshit for fucking forever. Chicago does the same shit. What the fuck kind of sympathy does Houston get? Fucking nothing. We've had two fucking national championships since the AFL merged with the NFL. If we want to go through the list of bullshit luck, we can (and we will).

1) Phi Slamma Jamma
Greatest college team ever gets fucked over by fate. Fuck fate.

2) Moon-Era Oilers
Greatest Oilers ever get fucking unlucky in the playoffs. Fuck luck. And Buffalo. And Dallas. Also lead to Adams moving the fucking team. Fuck him.

3) 1998 Astros
Been through this. Fuck it.

4) 2004 Astros
4 guaranteed HOF players on the roster: Bags, Bidge, Rocket, Kent. Four awesome (possible HOF, provided everything goes right) other players: Beltran, Lidge, Berkman, Oswalt. All get screwed in the playoffs. Fuck Jim Edmonds.

5) 1986 Astros
Goddamnit.

6) Rockets, since 1995.
Don't get me fucking started.

7) Texans
David fucking Carr. The entire offensive line. Fuck this.

8) Bud Adams
If I ever see his Jabba-the-Hut ass on the street, I'll kick it.

arrrgh

Being a Houston fan is tough. We see Dallas fans and their stupid fucking Cowboys win all the fucking time. We see the Mavericks start to fucking make it, and all those assholes in Dallas start becoming basketball fans. If the Rangers start to be good, you can be sure that all those fuckers will suddenly be baseball fans, too. Bunch of fair-weather fucks.

I've got sympathy for precisely three cities in the US: New Orleans, Buffalo, and Cleveland. Fuck everyone else.

Houston rocks, and we deserve better fucking results. We get screwed over by luck all the goddamn time. It doesn't help when the people in charge join in on the fun.

First, Ike kicks the city of Houston in the nuts. Power is out. Galveston is torn to fucking shreds. I imagine a good portion of Galveston bay, Brazoria county, and anything along the Bayous and channel is fucked to hell.

Then, baseball does us no fucking favors.

Fuck it. The Astros will kick ass tomorrow. Then the Rockets are going to feed the rest of the country a big pile of dog shit.

Further proof that those fucking Yankees up north don't know what the fuck they're doing

From Mister Mittens:

Despite Mittens recent stunningly superb performance in the preseason, it stood to reason that he was not in the immediate plans for anything that involved the Giants and playing time. Wrong, folks. Dead, dead wrong.

According to the Star-Ledger Giants blog, Woodson and backup Anthony Wright didn’t make the final cut, which means that … wait, what? David Carr is the only other quarterback on the roster after Eli Manning? Really? Wow, that’s a lot of faith in the Giants offensive line and Elisha’s ability to take a hit.

Now, I think David Carr might be a better QB than his time with the Texans might lead you to believe. But he's also much, much worse than his basic stats would tell you. I believe that calling him one of the worst QB's in the history of professional football would not be too far from the truth.

So why would the Giants decide that Carr would back up Manning? I was aware that Carr was going to be on the Giants' roster, but I thought only as the third option. But, checking the Giants depth chart now, Mittens is indeed right behind Manning. And they have no option after that.

And it's really not the Giants' offensive line that can do this. Really, it relies upon Buress' skills as a receiver. Just as Carr was always going to go to Johnson, he will now automatically go to Buress. And no offensive line can hold back a defense forever. Eventually, Carr will be pressured, and he will not be able to throw the ball off.

The bigger question, besides "What the hell are the Giants thinking?" is "Why does Carr have a job at all in the NFL?"

Tough choice today; Deconstructing the Wizard

So I leave for Tulane tomorrow. Not all that keen on going back to school, but whatever. I've got to finish getting the debate society ready. I really need to just hand the tournament and campus debate stuff off to my officers. I can just be a figurehead.

My roommate's name is Zhong Jian Jiang. I think he might be Chinese. I had hoped for a single this year, but having to live in the same room with someone isn't too bad.

Roy gets a start against Santana today, in what will be the last series this season against the Mets. The Texans take on the Cowboys tonight, too. So I'm left with something of a dilemma. The Astros game starts at 6, and while Roy and Santana are quick workers, I doubt the game will be over in an hour. At the same time, the Texans game starts at 7. Preseason football is meaningless, but the prospect of seeing the Texans destroy the Cowboys is always tempting, especially since we don't play them in regular season this year. I'd rank beating the Cowboys to being only slightly less than beating the Titans on the "Cathartic Sports Experiences" list. Third is beating the Braves and Cardinals in the playoffs. Fourth is beating the motherfucking Jazz.

So, unless the Astros game is a blowout (in which case I'll probably still watch in hand-wringing anxiety over the state of our ace pitcher), I'll have to flip between channels. And the problem with that is that baseball is a game best watched over a long period - quick glimpses of it don't give the appropriate "feel" for the game. But football isn't something you can just ignore for a few minutes. The entire course of the game can change on one bad pass. It's a tough decision, hence the title for the post.

I also watched the Bears-49ers game last night. Tulane alum Matt Forte (really a surprise to everyone that he was taken in the 2nd round) started the night at RB for Chicago. He got 44 yards in 11 carries, better than Reggie Bush. And he caught one reception for seven yards. Pretty good for his second professional game. I only ever met the guy once, and he seemed like a pretty down-to-earth type. Pretty smart guy, too. So I (and the rest of Tulane, I'm sure) am glad that he's getting a chance at the professional level. Hopefully it works out for him.


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The Crawfish Boxes once again has a pretty good statistical article. This time, DyingQuail looks at the difference between Roy's DIPS and his ERA. He comes up with a fairly disturbing revelation: Roy is pitching even worse that his ERA would indicate.

As I point out in the comments section, I think that most of his problems can be attributed to his completely wacky HR/FB ratio. I also pointed out that much of the variation in his HR/9 stat could be normal noise. If you look at any pitcher's HR/9 rate, you'll find a great deal of deviation from year to year.

Roy has had an improvement this year: an increase in his K/BB ratio. DyingQuail attributes this to the absence of Adam Everett - Roy is no longer pitching to contact with Tejada behind him instead of Everett. This is certainly an interesting theory.

Roy has said, in recent interviews, that he finally feels healthy again. If that's the case, then everything should be fine next year. In the meantime, however, I'd say that it's best just to shut the Wizard down for the season and have him start whatever rehab he needs. If he needs surgery, the Roy should have it done immediately. If he just needs rest and time, then he can have an extra month to do so.

As the guys at Baseball Prospectus have pointed out time and again, Roy is a statistical outlier. That's why he's the Wizard - he's a small guy who throws hard with great finesse and can seemingly get himself out of the worst situations on a routine basis. He's also a lot like John Smoltz - he's cool with pushing himself well past where he should stop. That he told Coop that he needed to be taken out of that game in Dallas should have been an alarm bell for management and the trainers.

Roy will rebound. He's had an off season. But even the best pitchers have those. The key is just to pack it up for the season and try again next year.

Who Dat Say They Gon' - oh wait

Watched the first two innings of the Astros game. That blew. Wigginton continued to say "Fuck you!" to all the whiny douchebags calling in to sports radio and complaining about the Wheeler trade. He go two doubles and a triple (!). Pretty good for a chubby guy. After Carlos' injury, Wiggs is the second-best hitter in the lineup. Why Coop doesn't bat him clean up I don't know. He's making it clear that he's the best third baseman the Astros have had since Ken Caminiti was traded and Morgan Ensberg turned out to be a fluke. Though he's certainly not as good on defense as either. Backe got the ball, played for 5.2 innings and gave up 11 runs, all earned. Geary, Brocail, and Hawkins came in and finished up the game without giving up another run.

Kazuo was placed on the DL. This isn't too big of a deal, given that the Stros are out of the race, but injuries have been Matsui's problem since he came over from Japan. JR House was called up from Round Rock, getting a pinch-hit RBI groundout in the 9th inning. House was in the Astros organization for a season a couple of years ago, and he was briefly called up then for a few games. He's played in AAA Round Rock for the season, as both a catcher and first baseman. He's got an 853 OPS there, which is pretty good. But he's also 29, so he's probably condemned to swinging between AAA and the MLB for the remaining few years of his career.

But the Texans handed a loss to the Saints. I'm glad that the NFL and the respective clubs have decided to nurture the burgeoning rivalry between the two teams. Though it's more of an all-in-fun thing than that between the BE-SF and the Texans.

Reggie Bush continued to show that he's a bust. He actually played today, which makes me think that maybe the Saints organization isn't happy with him, telling him that he's no guarantee to play during the year if his performance doesn't improve. He responded with a total of 7 carries for an average of 3.4 yards. No touchdowns on rushing. He caught one 12 yard pass (though he dropped another) for a touchdown. He was tackled once by Williams, which was pretty cool.

One of the sideline reporters asked Mario about the Bush-Williams "rivalry," and he responded with the typical non-interest in such talk. He's right - the discussion of who was the better draft pick was over TWO SEASONS AGO! Hell, in 2007, the only argument one could make was Young vs. Williams, and that's shown to have been in Houston's favor, as well.

I saw PTI's discussion of Reggie Bush yesterday, and they were both saying that his first season was good, but that he went through a sophomore slump. This is bullshit. He only had two more touchdowns his first season, but he was averaging fewer yds/carry, too. He received better, but he still wasn't the RB everyone thought he would be.

Back to the Texans. The defense looked alright, otherwise. Nothing particularly awful (Pass rushing wasn't great. Two sacks were recorded, though), but nothing totally awesome.

Matt Schaub came out and threw perfect passes. Anyone would look good after years of Mr. Mittens throwing in Houston, but Schaub is proving to be an excellent QB. He had a beautiful short passing game - perfect laser shots into his receivers. Excellent. Sage was Sage, and the two Texans QBs look good. Our passing game is going to be great.

But the most pleasantly surprising thing tonight was the running game. Maybe Slaton was just better than anyone expected, but I think a lot of credit goes to the zone blocking scheme. The announcers talked about how Slaton wouldn't be good to use to set up a passing game, but that's not the Texans' game, anyways. During the season, Schaub will come out and throw a few passes, and then we'll use the running game a little, not the other way around.

Jacoby Jones wasn't too good, fumbling THREE TIMES! FUCKING HELL GODDAMMIT! But the defense was able to save the day every time he did it. He fumbled on the first punt return, resulting in a turnover. Not pretty.

So the Texans are looking good. The Astros definitely aren't. Biggio's jersey retirement is tomorrow, though. So we'll get to fondly remember the good days, circa 1996-2005, when the Astros rocked the National League but routinely got pounded in the postseason because God hates this fucking town. Maybe Bagwell will show up in the shirt he wore last year. Good times. Randy Johnson and Roy will be pitching, which should be nice to see, even if the Good Guys collapse.

Dickie J is Houston's Worst Reporter

Don't get me wrong, I like the Longhorns as much as the next non-Aggie Texan. If I have to choose an NCAA Div-1A team that doesn't get its ass kicked by the local community college, I'll take UT (though Tech is pretty cool now. I like the Air Raid offense. Reminds me of vintage Warren Moon). Sorry, Tulane, but we should never have left the SEC. Sure, we'd continue to get pounded by larger, more retarded schools, but we'd make out with boatloads of cash each year. That's why Vandy does it, year in and year out.

Anyways, back to why Justice is a tool. He takes his love of all things Longhorn too far. I get that he's an alum, and I guess that goes a long way (I don't know. Neither of my parents took their colleges that fucking seriously, and dear old Dad went a military academy). But his latest piece of shit about Vince Young and the Longhorns sets a new standard in bullshit.

For those not aware of it, the University of Texas is amending its rules on retiring numbers. Previously, only those who actually graduated from UT could have their numbers retired. This left out guys like Vince Young and Roger Clemens.

If I were a UT alum, I would think this was an embarrassment. It's insulting enough that Vince Young was barely literate, yet allowed to compete in the NCAA. Now the University is going to pretend that he finished his schooling there.

What's really galling about Justice's fellatio of Young and UT is his statement "It's a place of ideas, a place of thought, a place where people learn to be the best they can be," - referring, of course, to the UT Austin campus.

But that's just it - Young had none of those qualities. He didn't even graduate. He didn't become the best he could be at anything but scrambling and passing.

On principle, I don't have a problem with Young going to "school" for three years to hone his skills as a quarterback. The NCAA is a scam that robs young athletes of the money they make for the schools they attend, and on some level I think it's okay for schools like UT, LSU, and USC to admit sub-par students.

But pretending that Young was anything but a hired athlete is bullshit. That's why UT shouldn't retire his jersey, just as they shouldn't retire Clemens'. They were both spectacular college athletes, but neither were there for the "college" part of the equation.

And when will Justice finally come out and admit he was wrong about Mario Williams? He spent all of 2006 and 2007 complaining about our star DE, and now he pretends as if he's always been behind Williams. Hell, Bill Simons admitted that he was wrong, and he doesn't even write for a Houston paper.

In fairness, virtually no one was right about Mario Williams. Only Casserly (who would lose his job shortly after the 06 draft) got it right. No Houston sportswriter thought Williams was the right choice. Only a tiny minority of fans believed that drafting Williams was a good choice. I admit that I wasn't among them.

But two years later, neither Young nor Bush has lived up to expectations. Young might develop into a good QB in a few years, but Bush has shown himself to be a complete and total bust. He averages 3.7 yds/carry. That's ridiculously bad.

But Justice will never admit a mistake. He never acknowledges a change in opinion or gives a reason for why his would change - he simply states a new, mindbogglingly stupid opinion every day.

Fuck Dick Justice and the Chronicle.