Reliant Stadium
November 17, 2013
Raiders 28 – Texans 23
Football “ain’t” baseball. No kidding?
Here are the basic differences in the two sports at the top professional levels:
1) The MLB regular season plays out over 162 games. The NFL regular season is 16 games long.
2) Each NFL game is the equivalent in importance to about 10 MLB games.
3) By the time an NFL team plays 4 games, it has completed 25% of the whole regular season.
4) If an NFL team loses 8 games in a row, it has accomplished the equivalent of something that’s never happened in MLB – an 80 game losing streak.
5) If an MLB team loses 8 games in a row, fans wonder if the team will get to 10 – and then they wonder how many other times the team may do another double-digit losing streak in the same season.
6) Most MLB managers usually do not get fired for simply losing 8 games in a row.
7) Most NFL coaches who lose 8 games in a row on the heels of compiling a near .500 win percentage record over 6 years probably should be – fired, that is.
8) The Houston Astros are a baseball team that is now losing for the sake of re-building a club that is stocked with winning players in their prime.
9) The Houston Texans are a football team that is now losing because they have held onto an inadequate veteran quarterback and a shortage of talent depth for a too conservative offensive scheme that could only work with a QB like Case Keenum, some loosening of the reins on the QB’s freedom to audible change based on his particular abilities, the presence of a serious running game, and greater depth in all positions, but especially in the areas of adequate pass protection.
10) In baseball rebuilding, you don’t fire guys like Astros GM Jeff Luhnow or manager Bo Porter anytime soon, if ever. In baseball, it’s time for Mr. McNair to consider firing Texans Coach Gary Kubiak and also to take a real hard look at Texans GM Rick Smith. I had not slid all the way into the Texans leadership questions until yesterday, when I was there to witness Kubiak replace new QB Keenum with everybody’s face of the failed past, Matt Schaub.
Schaub was greeted with a waterfall of boos. Then he promptly went out and demonstrated exactly why they were deserved. In three shots from the red zone over the last quarter plus change part of the game, all Schaub could do from three trips closed to the goal was set up two field goals and an argument with the great Andre Johnson on where the latter should have been on a failed fourth down pass in the last gasping minute of the game.
Kubiak later explained that he put Schaub in because he didn’t think it was fair to ask of rookie Keenum what he was about to ask of the more experienced Schaub for the sake of winning.
Forget that B.S. – Keenum is the guy who hit Graham on a remarkable 42 yard TD pass in the first half that Schaub never could have pulled off. – And Keenum is the guy who has hit Andre Johnson for his only 5 TDs of 2013 season over the previous two games after the great one got “nuthin, but nuthin” from Schaub over all of the earlier season.
Kubiak said he put Schaub in the game for the sake of winning.
Oh really? – Win what? Had the Texans won, they would have risen to 3-7 with no playoff chances. So they lost – and dropped to 2-8 – with no playoff chances.
Yesterday, and the rest of the season, is the time to find out all the team can learn about Case Keenum. You can’t learn without playing. It is not the time to put in a guy who has no face in the club’s future for the sake of winning a meaningless game that Case Keenum had a better chance of chasing.
As for as I’m concerned, it’s time for the Texans to back up the truck on Gary Kubiak – and start over.
As for the Reliant Stadium experience from the boondocks section seats, I can now scratch that one off my bucket list. My first live Texans game included paying $75 each for three “just outside the Pearly Gates” seats on the aisle from one end zone row and a four block walk in the mid-day heat from a $20 parking lot. I must have risen 50 times in the game to let people in and out on beer and bathroom runs. Then I basically watched the game on the big screen – and not the much harder to see live action.
Shoot! – I can watch the game in HD at home without ever once being asked to get up so somebody can walk past me.
November 17. 2013: Two former presidents under one one roof still couldn’t save the Texans.
C’mon baseball season! – You’ve already been gone too long!
Tags: Fire Kubiak, Houston Texans
The Pecan Park Eagle 
November 18, 2013 at 6:38 pm |
Don’t forget George Carlin’s hilarious comparison of Baseball and Football.
November 18, 2013 at 6:40 pm |
To be honest, there was a side of me wanting them to lose. Thinking draft position entirely. We have many holes, but a great pass rusher such as DE Clowney out of South Carolina would be a great addition. We would need to be a top 3 -4 pick to get him.
November 18, 2013 at 6:41 pm |
I couldn’t agree more about everything you’ve just said. I’ve only attended one Texans game (in which the home team suffered a beatdown at the hands of the Ravens in 2008), and I had the exact same experience. My brother and I did notice one thing that amused us, though: At one point, the Texans cheerleaders were dancing in the endzone toward which the Texans were driving from only about 30 yards away – it appeared that the cheerleaders weren’t too concerned that they would have to move out the way quickly for a Texans player who was trying to score.
November 18, 2013 at 7:53 pm |
I should have mentioned that the cheerleaders had their backs to the action on the field as they were dancing for the full impact of my story to be felt. As I said, there seemed to be no thought that the Texans might actually score a touchdown that day.
November 18, 2013 at 7:32 pm |
Several years ago, Tom Boswell of the Washington Post published a very nice column along these lines.
November 18, 2013 at 9:35 pm |
I think we all know why Schaub was put into the game. Gary Kubiak has already shown us that it’s bad for his health to have too much excitement in a game caused by actual offensive results. Maybe we shouldn’t be too harsh on [the other] Coach K for trying to protect his own health.
This move by Kubiak was kind of the last straw for me as well. I might not be so upset if Schaub had been great the past few years, but I think he’s been in decline for the last couple of years before this one. He had an arm injury that wound up getting him to become the Texan posterboy for the Methodist Hospital. They may want to reconsider that campaign at this point.
PS – I notice in the photo that the junior G. Bush is waving to the people to his right, 🙂