Sources Report Houston Texans Matt Schaub Out for Season

The news down in Houston is that the Texans quarterback Matt Schaub suffered a lisfranc injury in Sunday’s game and is out for the rest of the season.

Houston Texans Brian Cushing keeps his ROY Award after revote

Houston Texans linebacker, Brian Cushing, has remained the NFL’s defensive rookie of the year after a revote by the AP. The revote gave Cushing 18 votes by 50 sports writers and broadcasters who cover the league. The first time around he had 39.

Cushing was busted for using something called (HCG). Human chorionic gonadotropin is a banned substance, but it is not a steroid. According to www.steroid.com, “HCG is not a steroid, but a naturally occurring peptide hormone, produced by the embryo in the early stages of pregnancy…” Meaning it’s original purpose is for women. But it has a different effect on men. Cushing is smart and has probably been juicing his whole life. Trust me, Cushing knows exactly what he is putting in his body and this stuff helped.

HCG helps bring back naturally produced testosterone. When a steroid user stops using, their body stops making testosterone naturally. So in turn you lose your gains very quickly. Well HCG brings ‘em right back!

Even with the positive test I still agree that Cushing was the best defensive rookie in the league and should have kept the award. As we know by now the steroid era is far from over, in all sports. What are we going to do, go back and strip Shawne Merriman of all his accolades because of his positive test in 2006? The guys who make these decisions sometimes get caught and when they do their entire career will be questioned forever.

Cushing has been suspended by the NFL for the first 4 games of the season without pay.

Guest writer Andy Burrell is an up and coming sports personality that played football for TCU and will be covering football at both the college and NFL level for us here at studyofsports.com.  Check out his site below.

www.andyburrell.com

November Is The Truly Scary Month For The Texans

Fortunately, this Halloween finds the Texans all dressed up as winners with a 4-3 record, and Sunday’s performance will go a long way toward finding out if they can at last finish the season as winners, without the need for costumes.  For only the second time in their eight seasons, Houston boasts a 4-3 record heading into the eighth week.  However, given their history in past Novembers, they have lots of reasons to fear a letdown.

 The only previous time the Texans worked their way to a 4-3 record was in 2004.  They followed that with three straight losses.  Houston has posted a winning record in November only once, and that was in 2007 when they went 2-1 with a bye week mixed in.  As a matter of fact, in the previous seven seasons, the Texans have managed to lose 3 or more games in November in five of those years.  That history, combined with the remaining 2009 schedule, makes this Sunday’s game a pivotal and perhaps vital point in the season.

 A November 1^st victory against the Buffalo Bills would get the Texans off on the right foot in a month that has traditionally been very spooky for them.  A victory this Sunday would mark the first time the team has ever risen to 5-3, and although they have been two games over .500 before (in 2007 when they won their first two games), they have never done so this late in a season.  A win this weekend means a rare three-game win streak, and a better shot at the elusive winning season, one with a chance at a play-off berth.

 A loss this Sunday to a struggling Buffalo team would mean an increase in the steep incline of the hill they already have to climb to get into the playoffs, compliments of their three early-season losses.  A loss would leave them smelling the foul stench of Novembers past, with two games against the 6-0 Indianapolis Colts scheduled in November, and no rational person would expect Houston to beat Indy twice in any year, let alone in a year in which thus far the Colts seem to be at their best.  Yes, Houston does get a bye week and a chance to play the winless Titans at home in November.  But, I, for one, still do not believe that the Titans are as bad as their record indicates, and they will surely be looking to repay Houston for their earlier loss at home this year.

 What’s more, a loss on November 1^st  means the Texans will have to finish the rest of the schedule with a 5-3 record or better, something else they have only done once in their history, if they are finally to pull off a winning season.  Losing to the Bills would also very likely mean a long shot at any playoff hopes, which some will argue already is the case.  Currently though, the Texans are truly in decent position for a playoff run with nine of the 16 teams in the AFC having worse records than theirs.  Only three teams in the AFC have scored more points than the Texans to this point in the year. 

 The Texans have already beaten Cincinnati, the AFC North leader at 5-2, and despite two upcoming games against Indy in November, Houston has a pretty favorable schedule with home games against the Titans and Seahawks and road games against the Jaguars, Rams, and Dolphins.  They do have to finish the season with a home game against New England, which with the way things are going will be a meaningful game for both teams.  A win over the Bills this week and a 5-3 finish to the year would leave them 10-6.  A loss this Sunday would make it necessary to go 6-2 in their last eight games just to reach ten wins.

 Any Texans’ fan who watched the opening game against the Jets and several of the subsequent games in the early 2009 season had to be feeling the many horrors of Houston seasons past, although much of this year’s woes were surprisingly from the defense.  In the first 18 quarters of play, they gave up a total of 113 points, for a 6.3 per quarter average.  They were soundly beaten by the Jets and run over by the Jaguars, uncharacteristically losing home games at an alarming rate.  Up until the Arizona game on October 11^th, they had at least been able to score on offense despite a serious lack of a running game, but the defense remained alarmingly porous.

 Then came the tale of two halves.  They got blanked a painfully resounding 21-0 in the first half against the Cardinals.  They were definitely down, and many fans thought they were surely out, just like so many futile seasons before.  Ah, but something astounding happened in the locker room that day, something which would prove that this team was not like the teams of the past.  The defense and the offense came out of that half-time together, on the same page, refusing to give up.  Sure, they went on to a 28-21 loss, but the offense put up 21 points in that half alone and the defense didn’t allow a single score in the half, against last year’s NFC Champions.  (For those of you who don’t remember, the additional seven points by Arizona came from a Matt Schaub interception returned for a TD.)

 Since then, the Texans have put together back-to-back victories over the likes of Cincinnati and San Francisco.  Remember the 6.3 points per quarter the Texans had been giving up?  Well, over the ten quarters since the opening of the second half in Arizona, they have been giving up only 3.8 per quarter while the offense over the last six games has scored an average of 6.7 points per quarter or a nice 26.7 per game—that is definitely a winning combination.  Although they started off the year looking like ghosts of Halloweens past, the image of the present is far more comforting and assuring.  Here’s hoping the haunting past was left behind in that Arizona locker room and the glimpses of the future will hold a victory over the 3-4 Bills this weekend, en route to at least a 10-6 season.