I wrote this sidebar in response to a comment to Vega's post at DGDB&D at http://www.atexansblog.com/2009/04/28/i-never-second-guess-the-draught/#comments.  I figured why not share all my (dubiously) glorious brilliance with the good folks at BRB, too? 

Why is everyone convinced we need a big back? Because of the problems in the red zone. Let’s not forget that all we care about is improving the red zone offense — regardless of whether we use a big RB or not. We just all assumed that Smithiak would do it by improving the running back. Instead, Smithiak looks to have done it by upgrading the blocking.

We’re going to have James Casey, Chris Brown, Vonta Leach, or a random UFA RB — from Denver or not — carrying the pigskin and powering through behind the best run-blocking-TE-in-the-draft Anthony Hill. And don’t forget that no one’s going to be pushing Chris Myers back into our running backs’ knees any more, thanks to our new center, Antoine Caldwell. The new players should also bring better blocking to the red zone passing game… which will then further improve our red zone running game.

Looks like a Smithiak drafting success to me. I still don’t see why we should have spent a late draft pick to pick up a RB, especially in light of Chris’ analysis of the move for two TEs(http://www.houstondiehards.com/?p=4900#comments). But I understand where y’all are coming from. In my opinion, though, this draft day shows that the people in the FO deserve to be there. We were all — including me — calling for getting a big RB, the easy, one-piece answer to fixing our red zone woes. Smithiak and Co. took the harder path, and it looks to me like the multi-player bet will pay off far far better than a late flyer on a big back.