It’s almost more painful to read that headline than it was to write it. The worst franchise in the NFL. Especially given all the hope from this past off/pre-season.
Leading up to this season, it seemed like that might not be true. It felt different. It felt like this was finally the year the Texans would break through. National media had them in Super Bowl conversations. A line for white out merch wrapped around the stadium. It really seemed like the Texans had finally arrived.
Then, reality struck.
Head coach Demeco Ryans and defensive coordinator Matt Burke made a fundamental scheme change to the defense. Offensive coordinator Nick Caley regressed the offense. No one from Cal & Hannah McNair down to the ball boys thought the team needed a great offensive line coach who could take a ragtag bunch of linemen and teach them to be winners.
And here we are, sitting at 2-5, staring down the barrel of another year cementing the “worst NFL franchise” tag.
Why are the Houston Texans the worst?
Is it year after year of Bill O’Brien/Jack Easterby nonsense? Is it an owner who would rather play video games than run a successful NFL team? Is it simply that the NFL is rigged and some team needs to be the worst, and H-Town houses that team? A series of unfortunate events that follow the franchise around like a delusional Cowboy fan?
All of those are possible contributors, but this isn’t about opinion or theory or #Hawtakez or anything of the sort. It’s simply about success rate.
For a very long time, the Oakland/LA Raiders and the Baltimore Orioles were the best franchises in pro sports. Not because of any immeasurable sentiment, but due to success rate. At their height, the Raiders had the highest win percentage in pro sports history, including 3 Super Bowl championships and 4 AFL/AFC championships.
That’s the stat set, winning games and winning championships.
Over 2 decades without a Conference Championship
There are nine teams to have never won an NFL championship (since its inception in 1920), but only two of those franchises have never even made it to a Super Bowl final (1970-present). They are the Houston Texans (the NFL’s newest franchise established in 2002) and the Jacksonville Jaguars established just 6 years earlier in 1996.
The Jacksonville Jaguars, however, have appeared in a conference championship game whereas the Houston Texans have not, so statistically, the Lone Star State outfit is the least successful NFL franchise in terms of getting closest to the Vince Lombardi Trophy.
That’s a bitter pill to swallow. The Texans are worse than the Glitter Kitties. A paraphrase of that sentence has probably launched it’s fair share of stadium and bar fights over the last 2.5 decades. But, numbers don’t lie. When it comes to championship game appearances, the Texans are .000 all time.
When it comes to actual win/loss rate, the Texans are ahead of the Jags, with H-Town sitting at .446 when this season started, while the Kitties are .432. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers hold the lowest spot at .411, but have 2 Lombardis in their trophy case.
If all this isn’t depressing enough for you, the Texans diehard, then give this interview a listen to hear former Texans Steven Nelson break down what he saw from the stands last weekend:
My takeaway from the interview with Nelson:
- Demeco needs a fire lit under him to get this defense back into a scheme that utilizes all the star power.
- Caserio needs to hire an OC who is his own man, not a yes man, not an extension of himself or Ryans, but a true offensive mind who can utilize this offense properly.
- Said OC and Caserio need to hire an offensive line coach who can whip the o-line into shape.
Best of all, there’s still a (very, very small) statistical chance this team can pull its act together and get to the Super Bowl this year. It won’t be easy, and it has zero margin for error, but it can still be done.
The time to move this franchise off the “never made it to a championship game” list is now. The upcoming Houston Texans schedule is winnable, but not unless they use the bye week to make some legit changes.
And if not, it’s time to stop pushing alternate uni merch and start giving away paper bags for fans to wear on game day.
O’Brien is gone. Lovie is gone. Culley is gone. Time to leave the losing behind with them.
#GoTexans
