More bad news for die-hard NFL fans: The players are being told to save a quarter of their salaries from the next two seasons in anticipation of not making any money in 2011. That's right, the NFL Players Association is openly preparing for a football-less Fall in 2011.
Now, it's pretty easy to say the players should be saving their money anyway. After all, most players are retired before their mid-30s and should have at least half their life remaining. Sure, you can find work in your mid-30s and make a sound living, but if you consider how much money these players make, they really shouldn't ever have to work again. Furthermore, this plan is not necessarily a sure thing the players will be locked out; it could simply be a case of the association reminding its members to be careful.
This happens to refute linebacker DeMeco Ryans' recent contention that the Texans don't reward their own players. Ryans and the Texans are working on a long term deal, and Ryans is a little grumpy that TE Owen Daniels, CB Dunta Robinson and he don't have them worked out yet. Maybe they are next in line? After a kicker?
One question is whether Brown's accurate performance of the last two years is going to continue. As FootballGuys.com notes, Brown has improved in scoring performance every year as a Texan, especially so since his scoring opportunities improved after Gary Kubiak took over head coaching duties.
If you channel surf any, I'm sure you have seen at least promos for the ABC show, Wipeout. The website for the show describes it as the "world's largest extreme obstacle course designed to provide the most spills, face plants and wipeouts ever seen on television."
Ellen DeGeneres recently invited her two favorite NFL offensive linemen, Ephraim Salaam (Detroit) and Chester Pitts (Houston) to go through the Wipeout obstacle course for her show. Imagine what she would have asked them to do if she didn't like them. (Painful hilarity ensues after the jump)
Vikings DE Jared Allen is sort of claiming that his two low hits that injured Texans quarterback Matt Schaub's MCL weren't cheap shots. A Houston camera man captured him talking to Schaub after the game:
You all right? I didn't mean to hit you. I didn't mean to hit your knee like that. I came back (inaudible) falling forward. I was slipping, and I was like (expletive). If it makes you feel better, (Chester) Pitts separated my shoulder.
Talking about it later he explained:
I was actually slipping. I was just going to try to wrap his legs up.
Of course, Allen "slipped" into Schaub's knee twice. Going helmet first, not using his arms both times. If you haven't seen it, check out the above video. Under the rules, defensive players are supposed to affirmatively avoid hitting quarterbacks low unless the QB is running.
The Bengals, Lions, Texans and Rams are the NFL's winless teams. They are a combined 0-17 and all seem to be staring down another bad season. One team has already lost its GM while another has fired its coach.
But what if we brought the four teams together and picked off the best guys to form a new team? Maybe they could win a game or two this season. So here we go.
QB-Carson Palmer (Cin), Marc Bulger (StL). RB-Steven Jackson (StL), Steve Slaton (Hou), Rudi Johnson (Det) FB-Vonta Leach (Hou) WR-Andre Johnson (Hou), T.J. Houshmandzadeh (Cin), Roy Williams (Det), Calvin Johnson (Det) TE-Owen Daniels (Hou), Randy McMichael (StL) OT-Orlando Pace (StL), Stacy Andrews (Cin), Alex Barron (StL), Eric Winston (Hou) OG-Bobbie Williams (Cin), Jacob Bell (StL), Chester Pitts (Hou) C-Dominic Raiola (Det), Chris Myers (Hou)
I caught up with Houston left tackle Ephraim Salaam at the Texans Draft Luncheon on Tuesday. He was there to accept the Mickey Herskowitz Award for being the most media friendly Texan. The video above is his message to Texan fans, and what he said to the crowd when he accepted his award. (The "Mark" and "Gary" referred to in the video are Texans TE Mark Bruener and coach Gary Kubiak)
Think you know about zone blocking schemes (ZBS)? This YouTube put together by Houston sports talk radio host / Houston Chronicle blogger Lance Zierlein and former Texans linebacker Kailee Wong is a great primer showing you what zone blocking is supposed to look like.
They also discuss some of the attributes you are looking for when acquiring the athletic players you need to run a ZBS. Though there are few teams in the NFL that still run primarily zone blocking, just about every team in the league runs some of it as a part of their offensive packages.
If you would like to learn more about ZBS as it relates the Houston Texans, check out more after the jump.
The NFL contest to choose the "NFL Super Ad" resulted in a 60 second commercial starring Texans offensive linemen, Ephraim Salaam and Chester PItts (YouTube above). I'm guessing we will be seeing a lot of it on NFL Network because I think they have only about 5 commercials in the rotation over there. (So, how many of you can recite the America's Game commercial word for word?)
The Houston Texans have a write up about making the video, and also a longish video showing behind the scenes of "Mr Oboe." The most interesting thing about the video to me is that it is yet another demonstration of how Hollywood will never let the truth get in the way of telling a story. A lot of the behind the scenes video is PItts complaining that Salaam is exaggerating how things actually happened. Oh, and Pitts isn't really playing the oboe in the spot as he claims that the oboe that they used for the shoot was out of tune.
As far as ads go, it was interesting and made the point they wanted to make with the video--humanizing the NFL players behind the helmets.
In November, Houston Texans offensive tackle Chester Pitts was arrested and charged with felony evading for leaving the scene after being pulled over for making an illegal turn. Here's what FanHouse's Stephanie Stradley wrote at the time:
I am guessing there is more than this than is currently being reported. At 5 pm (likely after practice), why would Pitts flee the scene instead of just waiting for his ticket? There has to be more to this story then a guy wanting to avoid paying a small fine.
Putting my lawyer hat on for a moment, "felony evading arrest" sounds like something that is really bad, but just means under the law that you intentionally left the scene after an officer detains you. It becomes a felony in Texas if it happens with a car. It will be interesting to see what Pitts version of these events are because often these cases happen when a driver doesn't realize that they are being detained.
The driver thinks they were being just being warned, the officer goes off to deal with something else, and the driver just goes on his soon to be unmerry way. Then the officer then scrambles to his car to stop him and then driver pulls over when they notice the sirens.
That appears to be the correct interpretation of what happened, as a grand jury declined to indict Pitts on Thursday. Pitts will now not face any charges. His lawyer called it "a very good day."
Yesterday, I was fortunate to sit behind the Texans bench, and I thought I might be able to give you a few game day observations and photos you won't find anywhere else (from mostly a Texans' perspective given my vantage point).
Quarterbacks
The game was a battle of the backup quarterbacks with Sage Rosenfels for the Texans and Luke McCown for the Bucs getting the starts due to injuries to the starters.
It is no surprise to Texans fans that Sage Rosenfels can move the ball, even against some good defenses. His aggressiveness sometimes gets him in trouble, but the Bucs weren't able to capitalize enough on the sacks and fumbles. This picture below shows the medical staff attending to Rosenfels chin after one of the sacks.
The Texans signed kicker 
The Bengals, Lions, Texans and Rams are the NFL's winless teams. They are a combined 0-17 and all seem to be staring down another bad season. One team has already lost its GM while another has fired its coach.
In November, Houston Texans offensive tackle 
Here's the recap from the 
