Super Mario will be #1 pick in Saturday's Draft

[Chubbyhubby]

I just saw on ESPN that Super Mario will be picked #1 by Texans. A deal was struck a few minutes ago!

[Kiwon]

Texans to draft Mario Williams
Houston signs North Carolina State defensive end to $22 million deal


By JOHN McCLAIN
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

NEW YORK -- In a stunning move that will reverberate through the first round of Saturday's NFL draft, the Texans have signed North Carolina State defensive end Mario Williams to a contract, meaning he'll be the first player selected.

By signing Williams to a contract that will guarantee him almost $22 million this year, the Texans turned their back on Southern California running back Reggie Bush as well as University of Texas quarterback Vince Young.

Williams' agent, Ben Dogra, didn't become seriously involved in negotiations until Wednesday night when he was convinced the Texans weren't using his client as leverage against Bush.

Dogra, who also represents Longhorns' cornerback Michael Huff, exchanged proposals with vice president of administration Dan Ferens, the chief negotiator, as the clocked ticked down to this weekend's draft.

Williams, 6-7, 295, had an exceptional performance at the Indianapolis scouting combine, running the 40-yard dash in 4.70, bench pressing 225 pounds 35 times and having a vertical leap of 40 inches.

Although the Texans said the controversy involving Bush and his parents' living arrangements in San Diego had nothing to do with their decision, they intensified negotiations with Dogra on Thursday and worked all day Friday to complete the deal.

[RashanGary]

The Saints do not want Reggie Bush. This could get interesting.

[Scott Campbell]

POSTED 9:03 p.m. EDT, April 28, 2006

MARIO IS A TEXAN

Wow. What a week.

In the five days since Charles Robinson of Yahoo! Sports and Jason Cole of the Miami Herald put a name to the rumor that we floated on April 15 regarding a first-round prospect and a house owned by a member of an Indian tribe, Reggie Bush has gone from being the clear-cut No. 1 overall pick in the draft to, at best, No. 2.

Instead, the No. 1 overall pick is defensive end Mario Williams, a defensive end from a basketball school that suddenly can't find a basketball coach.

And although it's still not clear whether the events of the past 120 hours contributed to the Texans' decision to pass on Bush, something prompted the team to embrace the guy who originally was nothing more than a source of leverage for Bush's contract.

In the end, it could be that Bush's financial demands killed the deal. But even if the snowballing story that started with a San Diego house and grew into a crossfire of claims of extortion and fraud had no impact on the thinking of Houston owner Bob McNair, it's very possible that agent Joel Segal felt compelled to play hardball in order to avoid subsequent whispers from rival agents that he went light at the bargaining table in order to get a deal done.

We've heard that it was indeed McNair who personally authorized the efforts to sign Williams, even as the football guys in the organization continued to press for Bush.

Bottom line -- Bush will be No. 2 at best, and given the difference in pay from the first spot to the second, it looks like karma has found a way to ensure that the Bush family paid the rent.

And then some.

[Kiwon]

I'm not sure that I get the big connection between what Bush did on the field and unethical behavior on the part of his family. If he had some intimate knowledge then obviously he carries some sort of guilt, but even still what impact will that have on his performance as a pro?

If his financial demands are not too outrageous then I wouldn't hestitate to sign him.

[billy_oliver880]

Wow this will make tommorrow VERY interesting...whos going to drop!?

[Homer Jay]

If the Texans signed Williams for 22.5 mil guaranteed mony, and couldn't agree to terms with Bush, how much will Bush want? I doubt that his agent would let him take less just because he was picked 2nd instead of 1st.

I'd still stay at 5, pick Hawk and watch a very good defense take the field in September.

[RashanGary]

This is an example of what happens when an athlete refuses to budge. Bush will have to take less.

[ND72]

tomorrow just became insanely exciting. i'm going to be the one to say this...if we can trade up for Reggie...you do it, but in NO WAY do i want them to morgage our future. for instance, i don't think we can afford to give up draft picks.

[Partial]

Bush(#1 on big board)
Stallworth(solid number 2)

Hawk(#2 on big board)
Waler (solid number 1)

I am not sold on this. I am not sure he is worth it with all the extra money it'd cost. I am playing this through in my mind.

Reggie Bush and Hali
- or -
Hawk, Joseph, and Hodge/Jackson

Tough, tough call.

[Homer Jay]

I'd bet his guaranteed money is as much as Mario got.

[HarveyWallbangers]

Two DEs have been selected #1 overall in the last 20 years of the draft. They were Courtney Brown and Steve Emtmann. Two colossal busts. Funny! Not saying that will happen with Williams, but I thought that was funny.

[No Mo Moss]

Snubbing Bush a Texas-size blunder

By Len Pasquarelli
ESPN.com
Archive


In every NFL draft, actually with virtually every selection in every round of any draft, beauty is in the eyes of a team's allegedly elite contingent of talent beholders.

Unfortunately, for many franchises, those beholders are frequently blind men.

Ladies and gentlemen, your Houston Texans, an outfit that might do better were Mr. Magoo executing its lottery selections. Hand out the darts, folks, and take cover. Even quarterback David Carr, throwing from his back, which is where he has been for most of his four seasons in Houston, has better aim than his bosses.

Bad enough the loyal fans of Houston have had to suffer through the stigma of four straight losing campaigns, an average of just 4½ victories per year and a team that managed just half as many wins in its fourth season as it did in its expansion year of 2002. Now the fans are saddled with a team suffering from astigmatism.

There's a reason that only one expansion team that has entered the league since 1976, the Bucs, won fewer games in its first four seasons than the Texans have earned, and we saw why on Friday night when Houston bypassed tailback Reggie Bush with the top pick in the draft and opted for defensive end Mario Williams instead.

Some teams try to exercise foresight with such threshold football decisions. Houston, on the other hand, apparently makes them blindfolded.

By the way, the Bucs, despite winning only 17 games from 1976 to '79, advanced to the NFC Championship Game in their fourth season. The Texans, with a lot more advantages than those woebegone Bucs ever had in terms of additional draft choices and deals cut with cap-heavy franchises anxious to dump veterans with bloated contracts, won two games in their fourth year.

Two games.

None of this is to suggest that Super Mario will turn into Blooper Mario. Comparisons of Williams to Reggie White, Julius Peppers and Richard Seymour may be hyperbole, but the former North Carolina State star figures to be a terrific player. In time. Certainly he isn't a dominating defender yet, not when he had sacks in just 16 of his 36 appearances for the Wolfpack.

Ten of his 14½ sacks in 2005 came in just three games and against lesser opponents. Half of his six sacks in 2004 came in one outing, although, granted, the opponent was Florida State. But you ask yourself: What was this guy doing the rest of the time? Maybe the Texans, who haven't had many answers for anything else in their first four seasons, actually have one for that query.

Yeah, right.

When you are as a team as bad as the Texans have been, you need to make solid football decisions, and eschewing a playmaker like Bush, who will have an immediate impact on the league, in favor of a guy still in his gestation period is a dubious call at best. And make no mistake, this was a football decision.

Sure, we would all be naïve to suggest the recent off-field publicity generated by Bush's family didn't play some role in the Texans' final decision. But even for a straight arrow like Houston owner Bob McNair, it was likely just a small element.

As for the so-called "signability" factor -- the notion that Williams was the easier player with whom to reach an agreement -- well, that was no factor at all. The Texans have no idea what it would have taken to sign Bush, because they simply quit dealing with him.

On Thursday at 2 p.m., when agent Joel Segal hung up the phone following a second brief discussion with Texans chief negotiator Dan Ferens, the expectations of the Bush camp were that talks would resume Friday at some point. Great expectations, though, morphed into no explanations when the Texans suddenly went underground. After 2 p.m. Thursday, the next conversation between the Texans and Segal came 10 minutes after the team had issued a press release announcing the Williams deal.

Feel free to fill in your own bush line, notice the small "b," at this point.

Fact is, the $26.5 million in guarantees that Williams received is better than the best deal the Texans ever offered Bush. Published reports that the two sides were on the verge of an accord, that there had been a monumental breakthrough in a marathon Tuesday night bargaining session and that the Texans had cleverly leveraged Bush into a corner by also talking with Williams' agent? Pure fiction.

So throw out the "signability" element.

Plain and simple, on Friday morning, the Texans brass decided that Williams was their guy. Actually, the criticism of the Texans would be even harsher had they made their decision based solely on the dollars. Instead they exercised bad sense. When you're this bad a team, money shouldn't count, and the only issue should be getting the best player.

It says here that the Texans didn't.

The irony of the Williams decision is that such picks based on potential generally come from the personnel people in a franchise and not the coaching staff. Coaches, after all, get fired and they want guys who can deliver quickly for them, so they can avoid the queue at the unemployment line. The guess here is that the call on Williams came in large part from first-year head coach Gary Kubiak, who has certainly been ceded some of general manager Charley Casserly's authority and who has far more clout than his predecessor, Dom Capers, ever did.

It was Casserly, entering the final year of his contract and rumored in many circles to be moving on after this draft, who worked with someone looking over his shoulder at the end of last season, when McNair imported Dan Reeves as a consultant. In a twist here, it's the personnel guy and not the coach who might be the short-timer. And since Kubiak isn't going anywhere for a while, maybe he exercised a choice for the long-term.

If the Texans keep making these kinds of questionable personnel decisions, it's going to take a long term, er, time, to ever transform the franchise into a winner.

One assistant coach on the Houston staff, a guy we've known and trusted for a very long time, made this poor attempt at spin on Friday night: By choosing Williams, the Texans actually helped Carr, because an upgraded defense will eventually benefit the bedraggled quarterback. Uh-huh.

Fact: In 2002, the Texans' debut season, the team featured the league's 16th-rated defense, a level Houston hasn't reached since then. And Carr, who usually gets the best view of the Reliant Stadium roof when the retractable dome is closed, was sacked 76 times. So much for helping the poor guy out. Giving him a playmaker the ilk of Bush -- now that would have been a gesture of aid.

So, whither Bush now? The New Orleans Saints, who own the second overall choice and who have Bush atop their draft board, have privately said they will sprint to the podium to choose the USC star when they are on the clock. They might want to think about walking instead. Run too fast to turn in Bush's name and New Orleans officials might miss some of the many phone calls they will now elicit from teams wanting to move up into the second slot to take a player the Texans didn't want.

Yo, Saints guys, that's probably the New York Jets, who own a pair of first-round picks and have sufficient ammunition to land Bush, calling right now.

And whither the Texans at this point? Well, nothing against Williams, but it's going to take blind loyalty for a fan base already smarting from the franchise's snub of popular hometown star Vince Young to understand Friday evening's decision.


Sounds like he really likes the pick huh!

[HarveyWallbangers]

So, whither Bush now? The New Orleans Saints, who own the second overall choice and who have Bush atop their draft board, have privately said they will sprint to the podium to choose the USC star when they are on the clock. They might want to think about walking instead. Run too fast to turn in Bush's name and New Orleans officials might miss some of the many phone calls they will now elicit from teams wanting to move up into the second slot to take a player the Texans didn't want.

Yo, Saints guys, that's probably the New York Jets, who own a pair of first-round picks and have sufficient ammunition to land Bush, calling right now.

I'm hoping the Saints take Bush. They would just about guarantee both Hawk and Davis would be available to the Packers.

[Rastak]

So, whither Bush now? The New Orleans Saints, who own the second overall choice and who have Bush atop their draft board, have privately said they will sprint to the podium to choose the USC star when they are on the clock. They might want to think about walking instead. Run too fast to turn in Bush's name and New Orleans officials might miss some of the many phone calls they will now elicit from teams wanting to move up into the second slot to take a player the Texans didn't want.

Yo, Saints guys, that's probably the New York Jets, who own a pair of first-round picks and have sufficient ammunition to land Bush, calling right now.

I'm hoping the Saints take Bush. They would just about guarantee both Hawk and Davis would be available to the Packers.


Maybe the 49ers trade down and grab him.....

[MJZiggy]

One assistant coach on the Houston staff, a guy we've known and trusted for a very long time, made this poor attempt at spin on Friday night: By choosing Williams, the Texans actually helped Carr, because an upgraded defense will eventually benefit the bedraggled quarterback. Uh-huh.

Wonder who this quote king was...

[imscott72]

tomorrow just became insanely exciting. i'm going to be the one to say this...if we can trade up for Reggie...you do it, but in NO WAY do i want them to morgage our future. for instance, i don't think we can afford to give up draft picks.

Wow that lucky victory against the Lions at Lambeau last year looms even larger now. If the refs call a safety on Gado like they should have, we lose, go 3-13 and possibly pick 2nd or 3rd? Crazy how things turn out sometimes...

[imscott72]

Anybody check out the Texans message boards? I bet they're humming with enthusiam!! :mrgreen:

[billy_oliver880]

http://www.houstontexans.com/fan_zone/messageboards/showthread.php?t=21961

Some are really upset and some are really excited.

[ND72]

wow no kidding about both posts.

[MJZiggy]

I looked earlier today. Some hadn't moved past denial, others were Bush-bashing, still others remain loyal to Young.

[swede]

Wow. I go away for a few hours and the world turns upside down.

You know Bush's family may be crazier than JWalk's family. I absolutely love the Texans doing this, and I think they made the right deal.

Would you take Reggie White or Barry Sanders?

Would you take Julius Peppers or Shaun Alexander?

I'd have taken Mario over Bush anyway. If he falls to us than trade out of the pick, baby!

12 hours and 50 minutes... :lol:

[RashanGary]

Thats exactly what I said Swede.

I said Reggie or Sayers but it is the same concept.

[HarveyWallbangers]

I'd say the comparison should be:

Reggie White or Jim Brown (best DE vs. best RB in history)?
Julius Peppers or LaDainian Tomlinson (best DE vs. best RB in the game today)?

I loved Reggie, but I'd take Brown over Reggie, and I'd take LT over Julius Peppers.

[packrulz]

I think they're nuts, past drafts have shown that RB's have been much more productive than DE's drafted that high. They obviously drafted him out of need, good luck Mike Sherman.