With Keydrick Vincent now in Tampa Bay, former Texan Chester Pitts is the most experienced guard still on the market. For seven years, Pitts was a stalwart on Houston’s offensive line, starting the first 112 games in the franchise’s history. However, he suffered a ’09 season-ending knee injury in last September and spent this offseason recovering from microfracture surgery.

Pitts was supposed to work out for NFL teams today but chose to postpone until next week, according to the Star Tribune. Earlier in the offseason, Pitts told Sirius radio that five teams were interested in his services. One of those teams was the Minnesota Vikings, who are somewhat weak at right guard and thin in the second string after the departure of Artis Hicks.

--Andy Benoit

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Richard Justice of the Houston Chronicle has a quick write-up about the Houston Texans’ outlook for 2010. Justice touches on the team’s depth at running back.

Steve Slaton is back to the weight he played at during his rookie season. Arian Foster has made a believer of coaches that were once skeptical he could help. And, finally, rookie Ben Tate is a nice combination of power and speed. The Texans have never had this kind of depth at running back. Kubiak gave up on running the ball at halftime of the fifth game, and the Texans won three in a row and got back to respectable. But he wants to run the ball and is still committed to it. He believes it saves a defense and the quarterback.

Slaton’s weight isn’t the issue, though. The issue is his decisiveness as a runner. Houston’s zone-blocking scheme calls for runners to make one cut and go. Slaton was, for whatever reason, hesitant – and perhaps even timid – in 2009. He spent the offseason recovering from neck surgery. Will that help or hinder his aggressiveness?

The Texans aren’t banking on Slaton – they spent a second-round pick on Auburn’s Ben Tate. And Arian Foster has indeed impressed. Foster doesn’t flash star potential (he’s a bit stiff and methodical), but his downhill running style is a great fit for the scheme.


--Andy Benoit

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Matt Bowen of the National Football Post has a story talking about ACL tears, and he discusses how players like New England WR Wes Welker and Houston TE Owen Daniels will perform this year, the season after injuring their knees.

What’s most interesting about the story is when Bowen – who played seven seasons in the NFL for four teams – talks about his experience in returning from an ACL injury in 2004.

Had the surgery, rehabbed and was back for 2005. But, I would be lying if I sat here and told you everything was great—because it wasn’t. The swelling, the daily maintenance, the pain and the lack of explosion I felt when the knee got tired. And, this was with the best rehab I could get from the Redskins training staff.

Unfortunately, it is natural. It wasn’t until my last season in Buffalo during training camp, the season after that I felt normal. Yes, the tightness was still there—as it is today—but I felt more like an athlete, instead of a player coming off of a major knee injury.

It’s impossible to say how Welker and Daniels will respond to their offseason surgeries. But as Bowen points out: when Welker and Daniels talk about how good their knees feel – and you know they will, because that’s how elite athletes are wired – it might not necessarily be true.

--Josh Katzowitz

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David Carr was supposed to be the long-term franchise player that would lead the expansion Houston Texans to riches. They made him the No. 1 pick in the 2002 Draft, and he rewarded them by helping beat Dallas in the first regular-season game in the club’s history.

But since then, his career has spiraled upward and downward (but mostly downward). He played for some terrible Houston teams – he, of course, had something to do with that, though he also recorded some decent numbers (he led the league with a 68.3 completion percentage in 2006) – and he led the league in sacks in 2002, 2004 and 2005.

The past three seasons, he’s split his time between Carolina and the New York Giants and since leaving Houston, he’s been relegated to QB backup status. According to the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat’s Phil Barber , Carr has accepted that role with the 49ers and has developed a much better mindset.

"Now, it's so much about just football," Carr told Barber. "All that other stuff I worried about when I was younger, how the perception was, how I came across to certain people, even my teammates... If you master your football stuff and you go out there and you play like you're supposed to, everything will take care of itself."

One problem with Houston was that the coaching staff tinkered with his unusual throwing style. That meant he, at times, was thinking more about mechanics than about letting his instincts take over. As most NFL players will tell you, if you’re thinking about your mechanics while on the football field, you’re in trouble.

So, what about the San Francisco coaches? How have they handled Carr’s anything-but-ordinary motion? Barber writes:

In San Francisco, offensive coordinator Jimmy Raye and quarterbacks coach Mike Johnson have tinkered with Carr's footwork and weight transfer. No one has said a thing about his delivery, which again has come as a relief.

"I'm 30 yrs old," Carr said. "It's not gonna change."

His receivers certainly don't care. "I mean, you're kind of told when you first become a receiver to like watch the ball leave the quarterback's hand," Josh Morgan said. "But in true game situations, you can't see the quarterback. You just got to see it when it gets there anyway."

While Alex Smith is the established starting QB for San Francisco, Carr will battle with second-year player Nate Davis for the backup role. Right now, it appears Carr has taken a lead against Davis for the right to be No. 2. Which means, if Smith can’t live up to his own top-pick status – a very real possibility – Carr could receive another chance to become the breakout star he still believes he can be.

--Josh Katzowitz

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