Texans Should Just Stay Away From Larry Johnson

Maybe Texans coach Gary Kubiak was just doing the standard NFL coach non-answer thing. When asked yesterday about his team having interest in just-released Chiefs malcontent RB Larry Johnson, Kubiak hemmed and hawed, called Johnson "a good player" and said, "We'll take a look at him." And this might mean nothing, of course. Might mean Kubiak really can't say whether his team is interested, because maybe he doesn't want him but the owner does or vice-versa or something like that. If they do end up pursuing the guy, it won't help negotiations much if the coach is out front saying, "Yeah, we really want him." So Kubiak said basically what he's supposed to say, and reading too much into it is probably a mistake.

But regardless of what's really going on behind the scenes, and regardless of the muddle they have going on right now with Ryan Moats playing on running downs and Steve Slaton playing on passing downs or whatever they're trying to with their running backs, I think the Texans ought to take a pass on Larry Johnson. I think they have too much good stuff going on there right now to bring in his kinds of issues.


I've seen the Texans in person twice this year, and I've been impressed both times. I was in Cincinnati the day they throttled the Bengals (the only team this year, incidentally, that's beaten the Bengals without the benefit of a last-second, bad-bounce miracle Brandon Stokley touchdown catch). I was in Indianapolis this past Sunday, when they were a controversial goal-line fumble and a last-second missed field goal away from beating the unbeaten Colts for what would have been the biggest win in Texans franchise history. Houston is 5-4 now as it enters its bye week, and while that's not exactly setting the world on fire, there are a lot of reasons to consider them real contenders for a playoff spot in the season's second half. Just the way they are right now.

First, they have superstar-level talent all over the field. Matt Schaub, as fantasy owners the world over will tell you, has blossomed into an elite NFL quarterback -- one that currently leads the league in passing yards and touchdown passes. Andre Johnson is a beast -- a receiver who turns the nearly impossible trick of actually managing to stand out physically and athletically from the rest of the supremely gifted players on an NFL field. Mario Williams and DeMeco Ryans are star-level leaders of a defense so good that the Colts changed their whole offensive game plan on Sunday morning in order to combat the Houston pass rush. If the Colts, who haven't lost since last season and are 14-1 all-time against the Texans, have that much respect for the Texans, something positive is definitely happening in Houston.

The Texans are also, as I was informed yesterday by FanHouse's resident Texans expert, Stephanie Stradley, an incredibly young team, without a single starting player over the age of 30. For that reason, it's easy to look at what happened in Indianapolis on Sunday and dismiss the Texans as sloppy. They had the goal-line fumble, of course. (By the running back who got his job because the other guy fumbled too much. Oh, irony...) And they committed 13 penalties in the game for a total of 103 yards. They were whistled five times for being offsides, including once for offensive offsides, which is a penalty I'm not sure I'd ever heard called before.

But the penalties were not the sign of a young, undisciplined team but rather an aberration. In their first eight games of the year, the Texans were called for an average of just 5.4 penalties per game, and were allowing an average of just 47.1 penalty yards per game. Those are figures that ranked them among the league's least penalized teams.

This team didn't sulk its way out of Lucas Oil Stadium on Sunday. The Texans believed they had played well and had a real chance to beat one of the best teams in the league, and they chose to focus on that aspect of their day.

"When you consider the number of errors and penalties that we had, to be in position to win the game like that, I think that's pretty remarkable," Texans owner Bob McNair said. "I think that speaks to the toughness of this team."

Yeah, they have a good thing going on in Houston right now. Even the running back situation could turn out to be a blessing in disguise. After all, there's no shame these days in using a running back committee. If Ryan Moats is more reliable with the ball in his hands, and Steve Slaton's a better pass catcher and blocker on passing downs, then maybe they've actually improved as a result of this mess. At the very least, they've discovered another useful-to-good offensive weapon in Moats for the rest of the year.

I think the Texans are a legitimate AFC playoff contender right now. I like them better than the Jets and the Chargers, and while I may not like them better than the Ravens, their record is better. They're in the mix, and their own mix looks like a good one. Why add something like Larry Johnson to that? Seems like it'd be asking for trouble.