FanHouse

ugh-

The answer to your question is no.

My question to you is that do the columnists in Cleveland call the fans "losers?" Given the Browns fans I know, I can't imagine that would go over so well.

As I said, I didn't want to write this. I'd prefer to write about something actually relevant to the season - but it is news. It's a story picked up by a bunch of folks because the Chronicle writes so few germaine articles about the Texans in the offseason.

But your point is well taken. Ugh indeed. Thanks for commenting.
-Steph

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cseafous-

In my mind, there are three things an expansion team needs to be successful:

1. Good decision making by coaches/staff. (this has been talked about a lot).
2. Favorable expansion team terms and timing (how can the team get the best players the quickest without having to overpay)
3. Blind luck. (or bad luck in the Texans case such as Boselli passes the expansion physical but Roaf doesn't and can't be drafted in 2002 and then goes on to make multiple probowls).

Solomon says he was "surprised" that the team struggled by I'm not. The team has a great owner, facility in a football loving town, but those factors aren't as big of an impact on immediate winning for an expansion team compared to whether you had the right football people in place to make decisions, and whether the league hamstrung your team during its creation by the rules of the expansion and regular draft.

The Jags and the Panthers were created during an era where teams hadn't figured out the cap. So those teams could cherry pick the best free agents with all their money.

In 2002, teams knew how to keep their best players and used the expansion draft to dump players who weren't playing up to their salary. The Jags were in horrible cap shape until the Texans bailed them out in 2002 by taking some of their high salary contracts.

So the 2002 Texans were created through the draft and through players that their teams didn't think they were worth the salary. And the NFL didn't want to give them favorable terms in the college draft because they were still sore about how quickly the Jags and Panthers were able to succeed.

Really, you could write forever on this subject. I don't think there is a good case study on how to build an expansion team from scratch in the modern NFL.

Thanks for reading and commenting,
Steph

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Pacifist Viking-

Wow, that's some garbage. I think with most markets, the teams do not have people on staff who both really know football and know how to write. So if your background is more writing than football, potstirring is much more easy than actually analyzing what is happening.

There's a long history of sportswriters as potstirrers, but with the internets and 24/7 sports channels and radio stations, you just see more of it. You would think more content would be better content, but you really have to look for it.

Thanks for the link and your comments,
-Steph

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Rusty-

Even David Carr and his closest friends on the team believed that his best option and the team's best option were for him to get a fresh start. It was the best thing for everyone, and even Carr knew that. You should wish him well and hope for the best and not hold on to the idea of Carr as a Texan--he had already lost his good will with most of the fanbase.

A lot of people have a rough time with their first job, but most people don't demonstrate their mistakes in front of a stadium full of people. The fanbase was just tired of seeing his continuing education, and Kubiak had seen enough.

By the way, the term is "loser." I think a "looser" is maybe someone who loosens things or maybe someone who is loose with their morals. Just guessing.

Thanks for reading,
Steph

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Rusty-

I don't know why you are angry with me. I don't have a problem with David Carr at all. Like all quarterbacks, he has things he does well and things he doesn't do as well.

I've discussed Carr to Texans fans because it is hard to discuss what is different about 2007 without the context of last year's quarterback. And I have to say, reasonable Panther fans who want to know why the Texans gave up on Carr also read some of this stuff. (I know when the Texans get a player from another team, I like knowing what the other team's knowledgable fans think about that player).

I don't know what Carr's future is going to bring, and I wish him all the happiness in the world. But as someone who has watched every professional snap he has played, I have to tell the truth as I see it. He's a player who was put in a situation that was nearly impossible to succeed in. The Texans did him no favors, but Carr also made mistakes, mistakes that are not uncommon for people in their first real jobs.

The Texans did him a favor by not holding him hostage like the Dolphins did Culpepper, and everyone has moved on. Carr thinks this is for the best and so do the Texans. Nobody knows what the rest of Carr's career is going to be like--you, me or Carr for that matter.

I think it is funny. Over the years I've been accused of being a Carr lover and a Carr hater and all sorts of stuff. I don't think that way. I think that success in the NFL is a combination of skill, situation and luck. You have to have the skills to play the game. An athlete has to have a good fit with the team, scheme and coaching. And they have to have some luck go their way too. There are so few athletes that are so gifted that they can excel no matter what their situation.

As for me getting a real job, I have one already and it is best one in the world. Writing here is just a fun hobby.

There's no reason to get hateful about stuff. There's plenty of hate out there in the world without spreading it around. And from what I know about the kind of guy that David Carr is, he probably feels the same way, and would probably wouldn't want you to get ugly while trying to defend him.

I do not have a monopoly on the truth nor pretend to. Blogs are about creating a dialogue. So, let's just have a conversation.

Thanks for reading,
Steph

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amused-

Interesting points you make, though I could do without the jealousy snap. I have no interest in being a sportswriter. They work extremely long hours and have editors telling them what to do. They work on short deadlines and travel a lot for pay that is not commensurate to the amount of work that they do. And they get people like me complaining about just about anything they write.

Being a fan is a lot more fun. You get to drink beer at sporting events and don't have to take notes or write about it by deadline. I am quite happy with my current employment and having time for a life and hobbies such as this one. Those who choose the life of a sportswriter do it because they have a passion for it, and that is not something I would care to do.

I do terribly wish that I could read more informative material about the Texans. The Houston Chronicle is going to be the only paper that writes anything about them. I have a high respect for what newspapers can do when they chose to inform and enlighten their readers. I love newspapers, and I chose to read mine in paper form. It also means I have high standards for them.

I didn't miss the point of the article as my reading comprehension skills are just fine, thank you. On the eve of training camp, when most papers are talking about what to look for in training camp etc, he wrote an article stating certain obvious facts about how much the Texans have lost.

What point does he make? He says the Texans have lost a bunch and the country considers them big losers. Maybe some day they won't suck so bad. Alert the media. Oh wait he is the media.

You can't say that the MSM doesn't have biases but bloggers do because all writers being human beings have biases. Writers make choices as to what facts they keep in and what they keep out. Writers make choices regarding tone and the timing of what they write. Opinion columns share opinions. News columns share facts but even sharing facts can reveal biases. Hence all the blather about whether the news media is liberal or not.

If anything, some could argue that the biggest difference between the MSM and bloggers is that bloggers don't have to pretend that they don't cheer or are unbiased. It's more honest. Media might not cheer in the press box, but they root for things and stories in their hearts because they are humans.

Oooh, the Texans have lost a lot and are considered laughingstocks in the league. REALLY? I'd never heard that before. But even if you think that is newsworthy, there are a million different ways you can write that, and throughout the piece, Solomon makes writing decisions that states certain facts and uses his pointy stick to push Texan fans hotbuttons throughout.

You say the point of the piece is that we should be surprised by these losses due to having a good owner, facility and fans. But that is just a toss off afterthought to the piece, not explained at all, and not terribly germaine to the issue of why some post merger expansion teams have slow success and some don't. Check out my comment in #6.

There is no point of the column or anything particularly newsworthy in it. Recently Solomon wrote about the candidates for the #2 WR position and I almost fainted because it was the first offseason analysis piece of a non-QB position that I can recall. That piece had a point. It wasn't all sunshine and lollypops, and was educational to a lot of fans and those who are trying to figure out if there is going to be a legit #2 across from Andre Johnson. The Chronicle should do more of that.

My piece is less about Solomon and more about the sorry state of Texans news and analysis as found in the Houston Chronicle. For example, someone on a message board asked how Charles Spencer is doing, and someone responded:

"Unfortunately, I haven't seen any news. However, I did read in the Chronic that the Texans have the worst organization in the history of sports, Texans fans are losers and I have read at least 18 different editorials explaining why the Texans made a mistake taking Mario. With training camp around the corner, I expect we will get another article about not taking Vince, but it is doubtful that we get any actual news about the team, any of the current players on the roster or the upcoming season."

Using your pointy stick to make a real point is good journalism, and good blogging for that matter. Using your pointy stick just to potstir is not so good. You say it gets people talking, but most of the talking is not about what was said but how it was said.

In other words, I do not disagree with the premise of the article "yuppers the Texans have lost a ton." I just don't think it is terribly newsworthy, and just looks like 500+ words of chain pulling. If I want to read that, I would go to a rival message board.

And I don't pretend that FanHouse or any other blog is any better than sensationalized attention getting. FanHouse has some interesting, informative things on it, and some that are sensationalized talking pieces. Some stuff great and some not so. But we are silly bloggers with few rules. We have infinite space to write whatever we want to and really don't have an obligation to entertain and inform a particular community.

Thanks for your comments. I hope it encourages more of a dialogue on the subject of the nature of sports writing. It's something that I've thought a lot about because I adore great sportswriting, and as a blogger have wondered what my role in the semi-psuedo-sportswriting world is. I have no journalistic rules really, so how do you write?

-Steph

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