You Owe This Man An Apology

His name is Charlie Casserly and if that name sounds familiar, it's probably because you were making fun of him a few years ago.

Casserly was the general manager of the Houston Texans when he made what was considered one of the all-time draft choice blunders in recent NFL history. He passed on Heisman Trophy winning superback Reggie Bush and Texas legend Vince Young in order to take some dude named Mario Williams with the first pick of the NFL draft.

Casserly told us that Williams, a 6'6" athletic defensive end, was a better fit for the NFL and would be more helpful to Texans in the long run since the team had to play Peyton Manning twice a year. He might as well have been talking to an angry mob.

Houston fans booed the pick. Writers used the pick as an example of idiot franchises picking a guy who was big and fast over players that could actually play the game of football. Did Casserly not see Bush launch himself into the endzone from five yards out? Did he not watch Young will his Texas team to an upset win over Bush's USC team in the championship game? C'mon, Charlie!

The fallout after the draft actually drove Casserly to leave the Texans organization a month later. Maybe he deserved to go for some terrible decisions, but not for his most widely criticized one.

After you vet the careers of Williams, Bush, and Young, you see that Casserly was dead on about that draft. Bush is a platoon back in New Orleans who is garunteed to miss several games a year due to injury and to make the papers about a small pile of infractions he was a part of while at USC.

Young, meanwhile, insists that he will be in the NFL Hall of Fame at some point. It's nice to know he still believes in himself, but I'm pretty sure you have to start at quarterback for your team before the Hall of Fame will consider you. He's stuck on the bench.

Williams? He made the Pro-Bowl last year while starting all 16 games. He has double digit sacks over the past two seasons and if Houston ever got a secondary, he'd probably be part of a pretty good defense.

Casserly works for the NFL Network these days and though he doesn't talk about the draft publicly, he must smile every time he sees his man Williams notch another sack as the Houston faithful cheer. He told you so.