2011 NFL Mock Draft: The Houston Texans Select...

With the eleventh pick of the 2011 CSC Community Mock Draft, the Houston Texans (represented by the wise Jon Banks) select...

Robert Quinn, DE/OLB, North Carolina

Let me start out by saying, this dude is a beast. This is a top five talent who should have already been drafted, yet will fall on draft day simply because the NCAA is hypocritical. The Texans need a day one defensive impact player and Quinn would be the best one to take.

As most people know, the Texans defense, specifically the secondary, sucked. And not just sucked, but was one of the worst defenses in modern NFL history. But if the secondary sucked, why draft a lineman?

Well I’m glad I asked. There were a few reasons why the secondary was utter Ja*** Dav** in 2010.

First off: poor safety play. Free safety Eugene Wilson is barely qualified to be a backup. He had poor speed, stone hands, no range, took poor angles, and couldn’t tackle. Yet he still played in 14 games and started 13 of them! We will come back to this point later. The other safety, Bernard Pollard, is a run stuffing, lay the wood, blitzing safety with mediocre to poor coverage skills (sound familiar?). With these two as the last line of defense, is it surprising that the Texans gave up 56 plays of twenty yards or more and 18 plays of forty yards or more?

The second reason the secondary was so poor was a lack of experience. The starting corner for the Texans? Glover Quin, who was in his sophomore season last year. The other starting corner for the Texans? Kareem Jackson, the Texans first round pick in 2010. The nickel corner? Brice McCain, another second year guy. Tell me, do you really want to add more inexperience to an already inexperienced group? The only corner the Texans should be taking in this draft is Patrick Peterson, since he is the only corner who can come in and make an impact on day one.

The final reason the secondary sucked was recently fired defensive coordinator Frank "PB&J" Bush, who took a basic Cover 2 zone scheme...and simplified it.

Basically, he took this:

via www.footballtimes.org

And turned it into this:

via www.haagen-dazs.com

And again if you recall, a free safety who was incredibly poor, started 13 games. Let me remind the readers that in Week 8, the Texans were 4-2 and going up against the Colts for the chance to take a big, early lead in the division. As well Pollard, a poor coverage safety, was being asked to cover the entire left half of the field. A better coordinator would have used Pollard strengths of playing on the line like Gregg Williams has done with Roman Harper.

So to summarize all that gobbledygook, the Texans defense sucked because of a bad coach, bad safeties and inexperienced corners. In order to fix the secondary, they need a new defensive coach (check), experience in the secondary (kinda check) and new veteran players to come in and help out (new CBA needed).

So drafting a secondary player in the first round is not in the Texans best interest. They need players to come in and solve their problems on day one, because the fan base has gotten angry with all the promises and the lack of results.

Why is offense off the table?

Pts/Game	Total Points	Comp	Att	Pct	Att/Game	Yards	Average	Yards/Game	TD	INT	1st Downs	1st Down %	LNG	20+	40+	Sack	Rate
26.7	427	354	547	64.7	34.2	4280	8.2	267.5	33	13	211	38.6	73T	56	18	30	100.5

Do you know how many quarterback's in the league would kill for those stats? And the Texans defense collectively gave up those stats on the other side of the ball.

Where does Quinn fit in the Texans defense?

This is probably the best question to ask. Currently the roster looks something like this:

LE: Antonio Smith

NT: Someone mediocre (Has occupied a roster spot since 2002)

RE: Mario Williams

SOLB: ???

SILB: Brian Cushing

WILB: DeMeco Ryans

WOLB: Connor Barwin

CB1: Glover Quin

CB2: Kareem Jackson

FS: No one (An improvement over Eugene Wilson)

SS: No one (The run defense will fall without Pollard, yet strangely the passing defense went up)

Now the Texans have two choices: make Quinn an OLB (however he has little to no coverage skills as he was a 4-3 defensive end in college) or put him in as a LE (however the Texans just signed DE Antonio Smith to a huge free agent contract; it is hard to just eat that money up). But the best solution for the Texans would be to try out Quinn at SOLB and LE and see where he best plays. And go from there.

There are only two other choices for the Texans to make at No. 11 overall that would do them any good considering they need improvements now: draft Patrick Peterson, who isn't dropping that far, or take Julio Jones. Otherwise, the Texans may be better off trading down with a team and picking up more picks later to fill all their holes (TWSS).

Pick	Team	Selection	Team Representative	Approval Rating
1	Carolina Panthers	QB Cam Newton - Auburn	DatFan	35%
2	Denver Broncos	DT Marcell Dareus - Alabama	Jeff.l.b	71%
3	Buffalo Bills	QB Blaine Gabbert - Missouri	SpreeGoogs	52%
4	Cincinnati Bengals	DE Da'Quan Bowers - Clemson	coldpizza	73%
5	Arizona Cardinals	CB Patrick Peterson - LSU	GRIZZ	61%
6	Cleveland Browns	DE Cameron Jordan - Cal	theprogrammerman	11%
7	San Francisco 49ers	LB Von Miller - Texas A&M	who dat patate	68%
8	Tennessee Titans	WR A.J. Green - Georgia	shipgoalie05	48%
9	Dallas Cowboys	CB Prince Amukamara - Nebraska	saints fan in cowboyland!	67%
10	Washington Redskins	WR Julio Jones - Alabama	VAsaintsfan
11	Houston Texans	DE/OLB Robert Quinn - UNC	Jon Banks