We are living in uncertain times my friends. No, I'm not talking about Coronavirus – I'm talking about being a sports-dad during these trying times for Houston sports. With one young son and another soon to arrive, I am now faced with decisions on how to be a good steward of their sports fandom.
My son will turn two next month, and he already loves sports. Outside of Mama and Dadda his first word was "ball". He wants to play with his tee ball set all the time, and during the season he would sit and watch football (even the XFL) yelling "catch" and "tackle" at the TV. Even when playing with his cousins he yells tackle and then goes in for a full wrap-up and pull down tackle (very good form). What he hasn't figured out yet though is what being a fan means, but I know that is coming soon.
Over the past couple of months with the Astros cheating scandal I have at times wondered if it makes me a bad parent to encourage him to root for them. I have come the conclusion that it does not. By the time he is old enough to understand what happened the scandal will be many years in the past, and frankly the team composition will likely be very different. I would not want to miss out on opportunities to take him to games, or just sit on the couch on summer nights watching baseball because people got all bent out of shape about sign stealing. While I certainly won't tell him he has to be an Astros fan, I won't discourage it either. Speaking of discouraging things - this brings me to my main sports-dad area of concern.
What is a dad to do about the Texans? For a while I have thought about whether I encourage my son to be a Texans fan – I was on the fence about it until this week. Instead of having him grow up and letting his fandom fall where it may, I have now unequivocally have decided to actively discourage him from being a Texans fan. As his father I feel it is my duty while he is still young and malleable to steer him away from a path that will undoubtedly bring a lifetime of disappointment.
I myself have become much less invested in the team over the past couple of years despite still loving football. Texans games are no longer appointment viewing for me and their blunders have become comedic rather than painful (I couldn't help but laugh when they blew the 24 point lead to Kansas City). Despite those personal feelings, I always hoped my son would love watching football like I do, and figured he would probably root for the Texans if for no other reason than they were the local team. The actions of this week though have made it clear the organization does not deserve my son as a fan, and they sure as hell do not deserve my money as the parent of a fan. As a father I hope to spend many future Sundays watching football with both of my boys , and we will be doing so as fans of a team not named the Texans.
So how successful was the recently concluded Houston Texans’ season? Their record was the same 10-7 mark posted a year ago, they won a home playoff game as a year ago, and then were eliminated in the Divisional round as a year ago. Coming off three seasons in which the Texans won a total of 11 games, the 2023 campaign went down as an unquestionably tremendous success. Holding steady in 2024? Let’s go with middling success. While more than a few subscribe to the notion that if you’re not going forward you’re going backward, that’s too cut and dried to categorize the 2024 Texans.
Winning a horrible AFC South simply is not an achievement to brag on. That said, the Texans were leaps and bounds better than the horrible. It’s not very long ago that they were the horrible. The South is the only AFC division the Texans would have come close to winning, but while watered down with regard to impressiveness, it’s not as if winning it is meaningless. Eight times now in their 23 seasons of existence the Texans have won the division. Taking nothing else into consideration, that is quite good. With divisions comprised of four teams, if everything was equal over a lengthy period of time (quality of management, coaching, luck, and whatever else) pure math says each team should win its division once every four years. The Texans eight titles in 23 seasons is better than once every three years. Since the current divisional format was adopted when the Texans began playing in 2002, the Colts have won the South nine times, the Titans four times, the Jaguars just twice. The Texans have won their division crowns in pairs: 2011/2012, 2015/2016, 2018/2019, 2023/2024. They will be clear favorites to make it back-to-back-to-back division championships for the first time.
And now to the flip side of the coin. The Texans are an utter failure at achieving anything beyond winning a Wild Card round game on their home field. Eight playoff appearances, a 6-2 record all at home vs. a Wild Card, 0-6 in the Division round, hence zero spots in the AFC Championship game. The Texans have not come close to winning in any of those six defeats. Their best go of it was their first ever postseason, the 2011 season. The Texans were at Baltimore, and twice in the last three minutes of the fourth quarter took possession trailing 20-13. The first of those possessions featured consecutive T.J. Yates (!) completions to Andre Johnson that got them near midfield. Yates’s next throw was also intended for Johnson. It was a deep ball intercepted by Ed Reed (that would not be the last time Ed Reed was involved in a poor outcome for the Texans but that’s a wholly different topic). The Texans then forced a Ravens’ three and out and took over after the punt at their own 48-yard-line with 45 seconds left. Yates threw four straight incompletions and that was that. Thirteen years later the Texans have come no closer to the NFL’s semifinals. Using the same simple math that dictates a team should win its division every four years, with sixteen teams competing for two spots in the Conference Championship game, over the long haul a franchise should average an appearance once every eight years. The Texans are still sitting on zero. The Cleveland Browns (2.0 edition) are the only other AFC franchise to never get within one victory of the Super Bowl.
Other than the seven point loss to the Ravens, Saturday’s defeat in Kansas City is the only other non-double digit Texans’ playoff loss, and that was a nine point game only because the Chiefs took a safety in the final seconds. Their other six playoff losses have come by an average of 19.83 points. That drives home the fact that the Texans have yet to ever be true Super Bowl contenders.
Waiting for Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, and Lamar Jackson to decline isn’t much of a plan. Will C.J. Stroud evolve into a quarterback worthy of belonging in at least the same paragraph as those three, if not the same sentence? Will Nick Caserio atone for his arrogant and erroneous declaration that it was a “lazy narrative” to point to the Texans’ offensive line play as, well, offensive? Those are two of the bigger questions to which the answers will shape the Texans’ ceiling for 2025 and beyond. The nucleus of a potentially elite defense is there with Will Anderson, Danielle Hunter (for one more season at least), Derek Stingley, Kamari Lassiter, and Calen Bullock. It’s not supremely difficult to get pretty good in the NFL. Greatness is a much higher hurdle to clear. The Texans are pretty good. Pretty good may be good enough to win another cute little division championship banner. Can they deliver great?
Still three weeks to go until the doors open at spring training, but the Astros are always in season for our discussion. New Stone Cold ‘Stros podcasts drop each Monday, with intense negotiations in progress to add a Thursday episode. Click here to watch!