Battle Red - Houston Texans CCM [Madden 13]

[RussellBird]

Settings
Quarter Length: 15 Minutes
Clock Runoff: 10 Seconds
Difficulty: All-Maden
Sliders: KBLover All-Madden v.2
Info: Simulated first season and picked a team out of the bottom five in the league.

A Step Backwards

Houston, Texas - The Texans are not playing around.

After a 10-6 season and their first ever appearance in the playoffs, Houston has seemingly fallen from the mountain. The future was bright after 2011. Despite the injuries to a few star players, the Texans soared past their opponents and found their way into the playoffs. No one thought that the Texans weren't going to be back in the playoffs, as the AFC South is a relatively weak division. With the defense that Houston had assembled, teams were surely going to fall before the mighty Texans. A new era had dawned, and nothing was going to stand in their way for glory and honor. Except for themselves.

Nothing should have hinted that the Texans were in trouble: they managed to win nearly every preseason game. Most games were blowouts, and the found themselves only losing to a talented 49'ers squad. The first two games of the season would be marked in the win section. Out of the two games, the closest was a 21 point throttling of the Miami Dolphins. In week 3, their first loss came against the Broncos. In the rest of the season, they would continue to look mediocre. Only five more wins would follow after their promising start. As the season began to wind down, it was apparent that something had to be done. After narrowly losing to the Colts to fall to a 7-9 record, Gary Kubiak found himself with a job, as general manager Rick Smith was soon fired.

Over the next week, the Texans entertained a few options. Plenty of candidates applied, but none were immediately chosen. One man slipped under the rader. Russell Bird, a man who had been a head coach at a small private college and a talented quarterback while there, was quickly interviewed by Houston management. No one thought that he was going to be hired. Plenty of other good candidates still lurked about. It was until Friday that news finally came out about the signing.

@mortreportEA - Been speculation for some time, but it's official: R. Bird will be the next general manager of the Texans.

As no one truly knows who GM Bird is, his method of running teams will likely not been seen until his movements during free agency. Matt Schaub, after a dispute with Gary Kubiak, announced his intent to test the waters. It is unknown if Matt Schaub will stay with the Texans or leave due to a management change.

The Texans will have the thirteenth pick in the draft.

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Playoffs

Wildcard

AFC
NYJ 27 - TEN 37
PIT 28 - NYJ 31

NFC
ARI 32 - GB 28
ATL 44 - DAL 35

Divisional
AFC
IND 26 - DEN 15
BAL 21 - NE 40

NFC
ATL 13 - SF 29
ARI 17 - NO 34

Conference
AFC
IND 10 - NE 30
NFC
NO 31 - SF 9

Super Bowl
NE 30 - NO 27

Retirements
New Orleans QB Drew Brees
Baltimore FS Ed Reed
Washington LB London Fletcher
Baltimore LB Ray Lewis
Chicago HB Thomas Jones
San Francisco WR Terrell Owens
Indianapolis WR Reggie Wayne
Carolina WR Steve Smith

[RussellBird]

Start of the Yates Era?

Houston, Texas - After five years, Matt Schaub is out of Houston. Earlier in the season, much of the media reported that Schaub would not be returning with Kubiak at the helm. An 18 touchdown and 16 interception season certainly didn't help his team any, but Schaub continued to play the blame game with Kubiak. Ultimately, Schaub would not get his wish, as Kubiak remained head coach of the Houston Texans. Without bringing in a new coach, Schaub didn't seem to want to even come back to Houston. It was noted that the former Texan quarterback wouldn't even attend meeting with new manager Russell Bird. As much as the Texans wanted him back, the Dolphins managed to sign the quarterback in order to bring harmony to the disaster that is their quarterback core.

Despite Schaub leaving, the Texans did not actively pursue any quarterback during the free agency. Some rumors circulated that Vince Young and Tavaris Jackson had received workouts from the team. Yet, by the end of free agency, both players continued on without being signed by any reams. In fact, Houston really didn't make much noise during the entirety of it. Their biggest, and only, signing was free safety LaRon Landry to help the already astonishing defense fill in the, seemingly, finial gap. There is one huge question that must be answered before the draft.

Who will Houston's quarterback be next year?

In 2011, T.J. Yates started for an injured Matt Schaub. Out of his five games, he managed nearly 1,000 yards with three interceptions and touchdowns. Not exactly the greatest of numbers, but the team still managed to make it into the playoffs. With the lack of movement towards signing a quarterback, it's speculated that Yates will be the starting quarterback for Houston next year. This years patch of rookie quarterbacks will likely not be anywhere near last year's amazing year. No Andrew Luck's or RGIII's. Boise State's Jody Kelly is projected to go the highest with the first pick, and the only quarterback selected in the first round. Without a chance to get him, the Texans have had their eye on one quarterback. San Francisco quarterback Alex Smith seems to be the only interesting possibility At the moment, Houston sits at pick 13. They seem more than likely to trade for Alex Smith and another pick, as there seems to be no one else they want to draft with that pick.

Signings
FS LaRon Landry

[Gronk4M13]

Following, Texans are a good team for CCM. I like your set up so far.

[RussellBird]

After turning off the game last night, it appeared that nothing saved. I'll just resim the season and type up how the new season turned out. No matter how the Texans play, I'll still be them. It basically will just change who'll be coaching them next year: Kubiak or Bird.

[RussellBird]

Welcome to Houston!

Houston, Texas - With the NFL draft having one of the worst QB classes in recent memory, many quarterback needy teams did not see their biggest 2013 concerns fixed. One of these teams was the Houston Texans. With the 13th pick in the draft, the Texans would not trade away their pick for Alex Smith. Namely due to neither team even bothering to contact each other for a trade. Therefore, Jaron Ford, widely believed to be a second rounder, was selected to help Andre Johnson at the wide receiver position. The rest of the draft was a bit of a snooze. The Texans traded away a few of their picks for future picks in the next draft. With the draft over, T.J. Yates seemed primed to take over as starting quarterback for the Texans.

Only a few days before preseason football kicked off, though, and the Texans would finally have their starter. Before the draft, it was speculated that Alex Smith would be heading to Houston. After taking a backseat to Colin Kaepernick last year, the man remained silent to the media but requested a trade to another team. California native Alex Smith would be granted his request with a trade to a good Houston Texans squad. The 49'ers would receive 2014 and 2015's third round draft picks from the Texans in exchange for Smith. Both Kubiak and Bird see him as an extremely underrated player who could take the organization far. Many were left scratching their heads after he was benched in favor of Kaepernick, though those crtics went away after another NFC conference championship game were he played well.

Alex Smith was not the only major move that Houston made a few days before the preseason began. Randy Moss has officially signed a contract for one year worth $1.7 million to join the Texans. It was widely believed that he would retire after playing with the 49'ers last year. Alas, he went into free agency expected a new team to pick him up. With the Texans actively pursuing Greg Jennings, who would eventually sign with the Detroit Lions, they completely ignored the fact that longtime veteran Randy Moss was sitting without any offers. After Greg Jennings signed up to play alongside Calvin Johnson, the Lions would later acquire Roy Williams and star Virginia Tech receiver Freddie Yates, the Texans saw a need to pick up another receiver to give Alex Smith more options. Therefore, they quickly made the move to get Randy Moss who will likely retire after this year.

The Texans will stay in state as they travel to Dallas to take on the Cowboys in week one of the preseason.

Houston Texans 2013 Draft
Pick	Player	College	Pos	Ht	Wt
13	Jaron Ford	Oklahoma	WR	6'0	192
108	Reshard Griffin	Michigan State	DT	6'4	291
142	Colton Carter	Houston	QB	6'6	240
187	Verley McLendon	Memphis	K	5'11	186
251	Mark Merrigan	Arizona State	RG	6'4	312

Houston Texans Depth Chart - 2013/14
Regular Offense
	STARTER	2ND	3RD	4TH
WR	Andre Johnson	Kevin Walter	R - Jaron Ford	DeVier Posey
TE	Owen Daniels	Garrett Graham
LT	Duane Brown	Nick Mondek
LG	Wade Smith	Cody White
C	Chris Meyers
RG	Ben Jones	Brandon Brooks
RT	Derek Newton	Ryan Harris
WR	Randy Moss	Lestar Jean	Keshawn Martin
QB	Alex Smith	T.J. Yates	R - Colton Carter
FB	Ahmard Hall
HB	Arian Foster	Ben Tate
Base 3-4 Defense
	STARTER	2ND	3RD	4TH
LDE	J.J Watt	Ra'Shon Harris
NT	R - Reshard Griffin	Earl Mitchell
RDE	Antonio Smith	Jared Crick
LOLB	Connor Barwin	Whitney Mercilus
LILB	Brian Cushing	Barrett Rudd
RILB	Bradie James
ROLB	Whitney Mercilus	Connor Barwin
CB	Johnathan Joseph	Stanford Routt	Roc Carmichael
SS	Danieal Manning	Quintin Demps
FS	LaRon Landry	Shiloh Keo
CB	Kareem Jackson	Brandon Harris
Special Teams
	STARTER	2ND	3RD	4TH
K	R - Verley McLendon
P	Donnie Jones
H	T.J. Yates
PR	R - Jaron Ford	Danieal Manning
KR	R - Jaron Ford	Keshawn Martin
LS	Chris Meyers

Hall of Fame News

- Legendary Duo to Canton
Ray Lewis and Ed Reed among those for 2013 hall of fame
- Canton Passes By
Reggie Wayne, London Fletcher, Steve Smith, and T.O will have to wait another year.
- Gonzalez First Year Hall of Famer
Tony Gonzalez voted into hall of fame in first year of eligibility.

[RussellBird]

Undefeated, Huge Signings!

Houston, Texas - Simply amazing. That's one way to describe the Texans's preseason. The legs of Arian Foster and dominate defense carried the Texans to an undefeated preseason. We aren't even in the first week of play, and they look to be season ready. While this is definitely cause for celebration, don't forget that only 31% of teams that go undefeated in preseason end up having a winning season. Only the Patriots, who the Texans beat, and Ravens won the Super Bowl after finishing the preseason without a notch in the loss column. Still, the Texans look like an amazing team. Despite some worries about Alex Smith's arm and injuries, they don't look like a team who's success will fade away after an amazing start to the season. Arian Foster and J.J. Watt are looking to make a deep playoff run and, perhaps, the first Super Bowl in franchise history.

Not only did the Texans celebrate being undefeated, they also were extremely ecstatic due to two major signings after their week three victory. Minnesota's Percy Harvin had been cut due to confrontations with Coach Leslie Fraizer. Recently, Harvin had expressed concern with the way the Vikings organization was heading and publicly demanded a trade. The Vikings seemingly paid no attention to his demands and kept him as a member of their team. Everything came to a standstill at a practice, as a shouting match between Harvin and Fraizer broke out. Instead of firing Fraizer, Harvin was shown the door. After being cut, the Texans quickly signed him to a one year deal worth $2.30 million. Even more shocking, the Vikings let go of him after a 1,202 yard season. By far, 2012 was his best season.

The biggest signing, though, comes in the form of a defensive tackle from Cincinnati. Geno Atkins, like Percy Harvin, was coming off the best year of his career. A 50 tackle, 8 sack performance in 2012 showed the Bengals that he meant business. Everyone knew that Geno was likely to be a big part of the team for a long time. That was why it came as a surprise to everyone that Geno found himself without a job. At the moment, Geno is only 25 and has a large numer of years ahead of him. The Bengals just seemed to no longer have any interset in him. Though, some reports have stated it was due to contract issues. The Bengals wanted more money in the future to sign bigger players, and they knew Geno would be asking for a huge paycheck soon. Now, the third year man out of Georgia sits as the starter of one of the best defenses in all of professional football. The Houston line consist of J.J. Watt, Geno Atkins, and Antonio Smith. Likely the most feared defensive line in the history of the NFL. They will surely be a defense that will cause many teams trouble.

Houston's season will kick off with a road visit to Tennessee to take on the Titans.

NFL Week One Injuries
Pos	Player	Injury Note
RT	Andre Smith [CIN]	Fractured Shoulder Blade [21 weeks]
LT	Joe Thomas [CLE]	Broken Collarbone [4 weeks]
LB	Dwight Freeney [IND]	Broken Ankle [28 weeks]
LT	Jake Long [MIA]	Hip Fracture [26 weeks]
DE	Cameron Wake [MIA]	Upper Arm Fracture [3 weeks]

[Gronk4M13]

Following, good trade for Smith and good signings in Harvin and Atkins.

[RussellBird]

Quote: Originally Posted by Gronk4M13

Following, good trade for Smith and good signings in Harvin and Atkins.

Thanks! Was a little shocked to see Atkins and Harvin sitting in free agency, especially with the numbers they put up last season. They're definitely going to be important to the team.