The Houston Texans have several key players with unsettled contractual situations. One of them, tight end Owen Daniels, has offered a suggested strategy for keeping them all around.
Win.
Daniels shared his observation with Sporting News Radio’s The Monty Show.
“I’ve tried to not let it be a distraction,” Daniels said of his own status as a restricted free agent in 2009 and, most likely, in 2010, “and I think I’ve proven I won’t let it be a distraction. I think if we can be a winning team, then a lot of people will be happy to stick around and continue play for this team and continue to play for our owner, our G.M., and our coach.
“It’ll make things a lot easier for those guys to want to keep guys like myself, [linebacker] DeMeco [Ryans], [receiver] Kevin Walters, [cornerback] Dunta Robinson, all those guys around. It’ll be easier for us to want to keep that winning formula. So I think if we can win games it’ll take care of itself.”
So will they win enough games to finally get to the playoffs, in the franchise’s eighth year of existence?
“Well, yeah, I think that’s what we expect out of ourselves,” Daniels said. ”Coming off back-to-back 8-8 seasons, it’s normal for people to expect more, it’s normal for our team to expect more from ourselves. . . . We can’t go backwards. We’ve hit that 8-8 mark and we can’t go back to that losing record. We’re going to do what we can, but we’ve got to stay on track and be consistent, but the playoffs are definitely where we’re looking, but we’re still going to be calm about it and take it one game at a time.”
The approach has resulted in a 4-3 record, and with a win at Buffalo on Sunday the Texans will be two games over .500 since Week Two of the 2007 season.
“with a win at Buffalo on Sunday the Texans will be two games over .500 since Week Two of the 2007 season.”
So that means they’ve been 1 game over .500 for more than two years. Interesting.