This was the Houston Texans’ 25th anniversary game. All of the team’s fan favorites were in attendance: Andre Johnson, DeAndre Hopkins, Arian Foster, Billy Miller, Brian Cushing, all were there (or so I was told).
And this was the game they got to see: a perfect, and I do mean perfect, distillation of the Houston Texans’ entire existence: a tremendous disappointment for all the same reasons.
25 years of this.
This was supposed to be the year, right? The year they finally break through the divisional
round into the conference finals and maybe, dare I say without laughing, their first Super Bowl appearance.
25 years of disappointment.
This was THE team to do it. They had a dominant defense. They had a retooled (yet again) offensive line which was supposed to be better, a running game built for this offensive line, and a wide receiver corps that could stand up to anybody’s.
25 years of this game.
The Texans lost yet another heartbreaker, though if you’ve been paying attention at all this season it came as little surprise.
The Texans racked up 13 penalties for 90 yards, some deserved, some very much not (Brad Allen is an idiot). C.J. Stroud lived up to the level of play we’ve come to expect of him, going 21/31 for 347 yards and two touchdowns. Nico Collins proved to be the best part of the offense not named C.J. Stroud by grabbing those two touchdowns.
25 years of waiting till next year.
But a bad offensive line performance and worse play calling by offensive coordinator Nick Caley stunted the Texans’ chances of playing well; of which we saw plenty last year.
What we DID NOT see last year was a miserable effort by the Houston Texans defense to stop the Cowboys from putting the ball wherever the hell they wanted from the start of the third quarter onward.
25 years of Houston Texans football summed up with the usual shortcomings (the defense didn’t show up when it mattered, the offensive line was bad again, they couldn’t run the ball.
It’s been 25 years and so little has changed for this team.
The Texans are now 0-4 on the season and any chance of righting the ship, assuming it can be righted, is now moving into the realm of wishful thinking.
25 years. We’ve watched this for 25 years, folks. And this is what we have to show for it.
They’re frauds. They will continue to be frauds as long as Nick Caley is calling plays. Because while the defense was bad, the offense has been bad under Nick Caley and no meaningful improvement has come from his time as the Texans OC.
25 YEARS. A quarter of a damn century of Texans football and I don’t think I’ve ever been more disappointed in this team.
I still love this team, because I’m stupid and I make bad life decisions, but I’m tired of having to say wait until next year. Aren’t y’all?
Vent to your heart’s content in the comments.
