(Sportsbooks) - To be clear, the
Houston Texans' 2009 season was not a washout. If anything, it was a watershed.
With their 34-27 win over the New England Patriots on Sunday, Gary Kubiak's squad finished the year at 9-7 - the first winning season in the eight-year history of the club - though tie-breakers kept the organization from making its first postseason appearance. Like they did during last year's 8-8 campaign, the Texans finished strong, winning their final four contests after a 5-7 record through the season's first three quarters had Kubiak routinely fielding questions about his job security.
Kubiak is fielding those questions no longer, as team owner Bob McNair told the Houston Chronicle on Sunday that the head coach would be back for a fifth season.
"Gary's my coach," McNair told the paper. "I know there was speculation that he might not be [back], but he will be. He'll definitely be back. I don't see any reason why he wouldn't be."
McNair cited the difficult circumstances Kubiak worked under as a major reason for his stay of execution. The Texans suffered untimely season-ending injuries to tight end Owen Daniels and running back Steve Slaton, had other injury maladies along the offensive line, and experienced a revolving door at running back, due in part to Slaton's fumbling issues.
"Look at the conditions he coached under, especially all the injuries," McNair told the Chronicle. "I like Gary for a lot of reasons. He's got a great offensive mind. He has a great sense of how to push players and when to back off. He also doesn't play favorites. He treats players the same, and they respect him for it."
In addition to coaching continuity, the Texans' winning season allowed the organization to boast stability at several on-field positions. Quarterback Matt Schaub stayed healthy enough to make all 16 starts for the first time in his career, and his availability paid off to the tune of an NFL-best 4,770 passing yards and 29 touchdowns to just 15 interceptions.
Schaub didn't regress at all after Daniels was lost for the year on Nov. 1st, with the quarterback posting five 300-yard games in eight contests following the tight end's knee injury, as Andre Johnson (101 receptions, 9 TD) stepped up to become just the second player in NFL history to post back-to-back 1,500- yard campaigns (Marvin Harrison).
Perhaps more important were the strides made on defense. Even during a season in which Pro Bowl defensive end Mario Williams notched a disappointing eight sacks, Houston improved to 13th in NFL total defense, including 11th against the run, as linebacker Brian Cushing and safety Bernard Pollard emerged as first-rate NFL starters.
Cushing, who was named the league's Defensive Rookie of the Year in a landslide on Tuesday, finished with 134 tackles, five sacks, and four interceptions. Pollard, who was claimed off the scrap heap when the Kansas City Chiefs surprisingly discarded him before the regular season, helped prop up an otherwise shaky secondary with 101 tackles, four interceptions, and three fumble recoveries on the year.
In all, the Texans had a season that was undoubtedly the most positive in the club's brief franchise annals, one that could be a launching point to truly big things if Kubiak and company can have a little better luck with injuries in 2010.
"I'm disappointed that we didn't get in the playoffs," said Kubiak on Monday. "I wish we were here talking about who we were playing on Saturday or Sunday. Do I think we got better? Yeah, we got better. We took another step forward I think. This league is tough and it's very difficult to win. I've said this many times and I think we can win any week right now, and that's very encouraging."
COLTS: Probably a good thing, for the Indianapolis Colts' sake, that they weren't going for 16-0 on Sunday. With a blizzard having descended upon Ralph Wilson Stadium on Sunday, and occasional white-out conditions that made the game difficult to view even through CBS' state-of-the-art cameras, it would have been difficult for the Colts to play "their game" and beat the Buffalo Bills in Week 17.
Maybe Peyton Manning and company could have done better than a 30-7 loss had the team's key starters been allowed to make more than a cameo, but you never know.
What you do know is that the Colts don't have a great many stars lurking on their second-team. Backup quarterback Curtis Painter was beyond awful yet again, completing 4-of-17 passes for 39 yards with two turnovers (one fumble, one INT). Running back Mike Hart, in his first extended action as a pro, carried 10 times for 28 yards and an early touchdown while working behind a makeshift offensive line. The backup defense gave up three touchdown passes to Buffalo quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick, and allowed Bills rusher Fred Jackson to run wild for a whopping 212 yards on 33 carries.
Obviously, there is no use in judging the Colts over their final six quarters of the season, though those who believe in the notion of momentum would have to admit that Indy will have a minimal supply of it when they face the Bengals, Jets, or Ravens in the AFC Divisional Round at Lucas Oil Stadium next weekend.
Though it's tough to determine how well Jim Caldwell's squad would match up with Cincinnati, who the team hasn't faced in a meaningful situation this season, there should be a healthy amount of respect in the Indianapolis locker room for both the Jets and Ravens. New York handed Indy its first loss two weeks ago, in a game that was close even before Manning and the starters were pulled. Five weeks earlier, Baltimore mounted a serious upset attempt in a game that the Colts survived, 17-15, at M&T Bank Stadium.
"What we try to do this week is familiarize ourselves with all the possibilities," Caldwell said on Monday. "Two of them we've played already this season. We played the Bengals the last preseason game, so we do have some familiarity with them and what they do.
"In terms of our practice, we'll go out and really concentrate on ourselves and get ourselves in a little bit better position to make sure that we are functioning properly in all areas. We'll have a lot of offense versus our defense in practice, with the plan to get better and sharper."
JAGUARS: The fourth quarter was an unmitigated failure for the Jacksonville Jaguars. Not the fourth quarter of the team's Week 17 finale, a 23-17 loss at the Cleveland Browns, though that wasn't particularly beautiful either.
No, Jack Del Rio's real failure was in the fourth quarter of the season, which saw the Jags lose all four of their games after reaching a promising 7-5 mark with a 23-18 knockout of the division rival Houston Texans on Dec. 6th. That would be the final positive moment of '09 for the Jags, which plummeted from a prime piece of AFC real estate to a second straight last-place finish in the AFC South with consecutive losses to the Dolphins (14-10), Colts (35-31), Patriots (35-7) and Browns.
Truly, it would be easy to argue that a very young Jags team was a house of cards all along. A little closer look at some of those seven wins, which included narrow home victories over the hapless Rams (23-20), Chiefs (24-21), and Bills (18-15), weren't necessarily suggestive of a team on the cusp of greatness. Neither were a few of the losses, like those uncompetitive defeats at the hands of the Seahawks (41-0), 49ers (20-3) and Patriots.
The offense was inconsistent at best, with Maurice Jones-Drew (1765 scrimmage yards, 16 TD) often having to carry a unit that never knew quite what it would get from David Garrard (3,597 yards. 15 TD, 10 INT, 42 sacks absorbed) or his generally unthreatening group of receivers.
The defense also struggled when it mattered, ranking in the bottom half of the league in most major categories, including a last-place showing in sacks (14), and ranking as one of just three NFL teams that failed to score a touchdown on defense or special teams (Raiders, Redskins).
Still, Del Rio - who it appears will be back for an eighth season in 2010 despite a 2-9 record in December and January over the past two campaigns - was accentuating the positive when he met with the media on Monday.
"We're a young team that fought its way into contention," said Del Rio. "Another strong offseason and we ought to knock the door down."
"With the experience we have, with the success that we had last year drafting, [should we] put together another strong offseason and work like that, I think we ought to expect to be in that postseason tournament."
TITANS: When they finished 8-8 back in 2006, the Tennessee Titans learned the hard way that starting the season 0-5 makes qualifying for the postseason extremely difficult. As if to reinforce that fact, the Titans started 0-6 in 2009, again made a furious attempt to reach the postseason, and again fell short with an 8-8 mark.
Though 8-8 should be considered a failure, one season after Jeff Fisher's club finished with the NFL's best regular season mark at 13-3, there were many positives to be gleaned from the middling campaign, not the least of which was the team's ability to become part of the playoff picture heading into a disappointing Christmas night loss to the Chargers.
The rebound from 0-6 to (at that time) 7-7 occurred for several reasons, not the least of which was the way the team performed in the backfield. Specifically, Chris Johnson's electrifying 2,000-yard campaign offers proof positive that the Titans will continue to be a running team until further notice. Johnson, who got over 2,000 with a 134-yard effort in Sunday's 17-13 win at the Seattle Seahawks, will begin 2010 looking to extend a streak of 11 consecutive 100-yard games, just three behind the NFL record of 14, set by Barry Sanders.
Johnson's performance made life much easier for quarterback Vince Young, who abruptly turned around a career that looked to be on very shaky ground. The former No. 3 overall draft choice looked like a different player when he took over for the ineffective Kerry Collins in Week 8, going 8-2 and displaying accuracy and decision-making abilities that had previously been absent from his repertoire. In wrapping up the season on Monday, Fisher acknowledged that Young would be the team's unquestioned starter entering '10.
"I think the 8-2 speaks for itself," said Fisher. "He's 26-13 as a [regular season] starter now. I think he came back this year after the bye and got under center as a different quarterback, different person. For the most part his play was consistent. His preparation was excellent and it carried over. We've discussed him throughout the process, the consistency, the fact that he's in the second year with [offensive coordinator] Mike [Heimerdinger] and then another offseason with Mike, those things are only going to help him improve."
With the offensive direction seemingly secure, Fisher will have to concentrate most of his energy on a defense that displayed inconsistency in 2009. The pass rush was weak for most of the season, and the linebacking group and secondary both deficient at times.
"We're going to address the defense," said Fisher. "Defensively, we certainly have to look at it. We finished the year with minus a number of starters. Some of those will return, some of those I can't tell you right now. We have some positions that we're going to address. We'll get involved in it and do the best we can."
