25 Years Of The Houston Texans

[ShinobiMusashi]

The baby expansion team of the NFL has turned 25 years old this season. They are off to a bad 0-4 start and seem to be going nowhere after what looked like a promising last 3 years. The team held a celebration at halftime of today's game honoring some of the greats from the past, Gary Kubiak, Andre Johnson, Arian Foster, and Billy Miller the TE that caught the very first TD in franchise history.

What are your thoughts on this franchise and their spot in the NFL lore for the last quarter century? Thoughts on how the team came into existence? Thoughts on how the team was built in the beginning, David Carr, the name, colors, logo? And interested in what posters would consider the most memorable moment/moments in the team's first 25 years?

[7DnBrnc53]

1. I miss the Houston Oilers. Their 1991-93 choke-a-thon led to the Texans

2. The franchise got off on the wrong foot by taking David Carr #1 overall. He wasn't a good enough QB to be the #1 pick in the draft. Also, you don't take a QB #1 overall if you are expansion (unless he is John Elway or Peyton Manning). Carr ended up taking a beating. Should have drafted Julius Peppers.

[Jay Z]

0-7 at the division level. I think all of those games are on the road too.

They have just never had that big season where it came together for them or they went on a run on the road in the playoffs. They get up to 10-6 or 10-7 and that's the ceiling.

[ShinobiMusashi]

1. I miss the Houston Oilers. Their 1991-93 choke-a-thon led to the Texans

2. The franchise got off on the wrong foot by taking David Carr #1 overall. He wasn't a good enough QB to be the #1 pick in the draft. Also, you don't take a QB #1 overall if you are expansion (unless he is John Elway or Peyton Manning). Carr ended up taking a beating. Should have drafted Julius Peppers.

I've spent a lot of time over the last 25 years thinking about this. The Peppers pick is definitely an alternate route I've considered. With drafting him at #1 in 2002 I think smart money would have been to take Jeff Blake in the expansion draft and to draft David Garrard later in the 02 draft for the quarterbacks. The conclusion I came to was that any way you shuffled the deck the best possible outcome you were going to get was the team making the Wild Card playoffs in 2004 with a strong Dom Capers defense taking them to 9-7, then they are 1 and done with a blowout loss. And that any way you sliced it the franchise was back to square one restarting over in 2005. The expansion draft basically doomed the team to a 3 year cycle and to have to basically start back over in 05 as if that was their first year all over again. Then looking through the drafts and free agency those years 02-09 it was just not a good time for an expansion team to try to build something from scratch(compared to what Jacksonville and Carolina, or even Cleveland had at their disposal in 95-02).

I think a big blow to the franchise that always gets overlooked or forgotten was the career ending injury to Dominick Davis in 2005. He burst onto the scene in 2003 and had a great season in 2004. He had some great games in 2005 before going down to an injury that he never came back from. I think he kind of flew under the radar when he was thriving those years and nobody remembers him. I honestly think he was even better than Arian Foster and was on track to being Texans franchise RB. Had he not got injured that changes the whole dynamic of the franchise in 06-07-08 Kubiak's first 3 years.

[ShinobiMusashi]

Another forgotten/overlooked element that doomed the franchise from the start. Willie Roaf was originally put up on the expansion draft by New Orleans. He was coming off of an injury in 2001 and failed a physical and was pulled from the expansion draft. The Texans end up taking Toni Boselli instead, who never plays a down because of injuries. Meanwhile Roaf ends up being healthy as an ox ends up in Kansas City playing at All pro level to anchor one of the best o-lines in the NFL 02 to 05. Roaf covering Carr's blindside those years changes the whole trajectory of the franchise I believe.

Also while we are pondering the what if's of Houston taking Julius Peppers with the first pick, I've also always wondered how David Carr's career would have played out had he been taken by another team? I have always defended him as having real potential, he gets piled on these days but living through those seasons I have a lot of good memories where he did have some great moments where he looked like a future solid QB. Maybe never going to be All Pro or Super Bowl winner but he did have the skills I believe to be solid starter in the NFL for 8-9 years and some playoff wins with a more established team.

[ShinobiMusashi]

0-7 at the division level. I think all of those games are on the road too.

They have just never had that big season where it came together for them or they went on a run on the road in the playoffs. They get up to 10-6 or 10-7 and that's the ceiling.

2012 they got off to an 11-1 start before the wheels fell off after the embarrassing loss to NE in primetime basically exposed them as a pretender. They needed to just win 1 more of their final 2 games to secure the first round bye and homefield in divisional and blew both games including one game to the Manning-less Colts that were really bad. So they end up hosting the Bengals in the Wild Card round again. Schaub did his best to try to throw the game away but Foster and the defense got the win. They were easily beaten in New England the next week. Schaub was toast by the end of that year, his collapse should be studied and examined because it was really something. Kubiak sticking with him in 2013 was his downfall, they went 2-14. I always thought Kubiak and Wade Phillips deserved another season in 2014 to turn it back around instead they got dumped for Bill O'Brien and Texans fans had to watch Kubes and Wade hoist the Lombardi in 2015 with the Broncos. Cruel stuff. The franchise has been plagued by one bad decision after another from the top leadership.

[7DnBrnc53]

I think a big blow to the franchise that always gets overlooked or forgotten was the career ending injury to Dominick Davis in 2005. He burst onto the scene in 2003 and had a great season in 2004. He had some great games in 2005 before going down to an injury that he never came back from. I think he kind of flew under the radar when he was thriving those years and nobody remembers him. I honestly think he was even better than Arian Foster and was on track to being Texans franchise RB. Had he not got injured that changes the whole dynamic of the franchise in 06-07-08 Kubiak's first 3 years.

OK. Yeah, I remember him. He did a good job.

As for Foster, I don't think he ran too fast coming out of college (I think a 4.8 or something like that). He ended up going undrafted. He sort-of reminds me of Alfred Morris. He was the RB that played for the Redskins in the 2010's. When he came out in 2012, his 40 time was similar, but both backs went into that Shanny-Kube WCO.

[Reaser]

Arguably the most notable thing about the Texans, nationally, was that they always got scheduled for the early Saturday Wild Card time slot. Was a running joke and the easiest correct prediction to make when predicting the playoff schedule. That streak was broken last season when they were in the Monday Night game but they still have never played in a Sunday Wild Card game.

[Gary Najman]

I had the fortune to attend the Patriots-Texans game in 2019 in Houston and it was one of the greatest environment in any football game I have ever attended. It was Tom Brady's last season in New England and Deshaun Watson had a great game.


https://www.pro-football-reference.com/ ... 010htx.htm

[ShinobiMusashi]

I would imagine that as far as nationwide fanbase outside of local markets the Texans have to be at or near the bottom as one of the least popular teams in the country? I live in East Texas up about 4 hour away from Houston(about 2 hours east of Dallas so Cowboys country). When I moved here from Houston in 2003 there were no Texans fans here. You NEVER seen any bumper stickers or anybody wearing Texans merch here(interestingly enough a trip I took to San Antonio in November 2002 I seen more Texans merch than Cowboys).

Now that has changed a lot. The fanbase has really grown a lot up here, I think a lot of folks are tired of Jerry Jones bs out this way and looking for a new team. A lot of folks in this region are bandwagonner NFL fans. The Saints seemed to have a big fanbase when they were good with Drew Brees, then it was Chiefs-mania when Mahomes took over(that has cooled down a LOT since the Taylor Swift stuff and the growing feeling that the referees were helping them win). I've seen a considerable increase in Texans fans in this region over the last 3 years.

These were the highs of the franchise first 25 years, mostly forgotten about, or moral victories only appreciated by the fans that live and die with the team over those years.

2002

The first ever game, the win over the Cowboys on ESPN SNF. I rewatch this game every few years, most recently just a month or so ago before this season started(I have it on VHS tape and my 26 year old VCR still kicks ass). The game itself wasn't all that great, it had some cool moments, but the thing that makes this game stand out and makes it noteworthy game in NFL lore overall to me is the crowd and atmosphere in that stadium. It was really something else. This was like a Wrestlemania crowd or a big rock concert type of crowd rather than an NFL game crowd. The costumes, the signs, the look and feel of the brand new stadium, there was a certain electricity that was palpable in this game. This also has to be the best debut ever for any expansion team of any sport? Or at least up near the top?

Later in the season the Texans upset the Pittsburgh Steelers in what has to be one of the most bizarre NFL games in history. The offense could barely gain a single yard, but they somehow won a blowout on the road in Pittsburgh with the defense scoring on turnovers. I finally found the full game online and downloaded it back in 2021 from the Steelers fan-site. Definitely a crazy must-see-to-believe NFL game.

2003

Forgotten from this season is the Texans opening day upset win on the road over the Miami Dolphins. The Dolphins had a top 3 defense in the NFL in 2003. Jason Taylor was the NFL sack leader from the previous season. The Dolphins defense was loaded with future HOF'ers and they were picked by a few pundits to win the AFC that season. Somehow one of the worst offensive lines of that era kept David Carr from being touched and he goes on to have a great game against an elite defense. Houston pulls off the upset and this basically to me looking back ruined the Dolphins entire season right at the start. They clearly underestimated the Texans for this game and paid the price. They end up missing the playoffs at 10-6 if I remember right. This was also notable for Texans history because it was Andre Johnson's NFL debut(and he had a great game with a few key catches that led to the win). Even within the Texans fanbase I feel like this game has been too forgotten and should be celebrated more.

To me one of the best games of this season that deserves more attention was Houston taking the New England Patriots DEEP into OT with Tony Banks at QB in the same stadium that the Pats would go on to win the Super Bowl a month or so later. This was a not even 2 year old team yet and they had one of the best teams in NFL history on the ropes in this game. I watched it live and it's one of my favorite games of the early days, one of the first Texans games where I can remember adrenaline going and up on the edge of my seat yelling at the TV, it felt like they were about to pull off a HUGE upset. There were some awesome moments in this game for the Texans. New England was able to win it in OT with like 1 or 2 minutes left on the clock so it was almost a tie. To me this was like an NFL version of Chuck Wepner vs Muhammad Ali.

2004

The first wins over the Titans both on the road and at home in Houston were a huge deal to me at the time, even bigger deal than the debut win over Dallas. Both games seemed to be forgotten or not held in the same reverence.

2006

The Texans first ever win over the Colts on Christmas Eve. This was the Colts Super Bowl season and they were healthy and playing to win this game for homefield advantage in the playoffs. Gary Kubiak out coaches Tony Dungy and takes him down with David Carr and Ron Dayne has to be one of his finest head coaching performances. I would say this was the best team the franchise ever defeated.

2011

The win over the Bengals to win first ever division title and get to the playoffs for the first time just imagine what that felt like for a fan of the team like me that had been along for the ride since day 1. Then the playoff game rematch they trod out Bum Phillips as honorary team captain before the game to one of the biggest crowd pops in franchise history. If I had to pick the best single moment in Texans 25 years that would be my #1. I just can't for the life of me imagine Bum getting that type of crowd reaction at a Titans game in Tennessee.

2019

The playoff win over Buffalo I would say was the best overall game in franchise history. A great game with something on the line that we won over a legit team. The sack by JJ Watt that turned the tide of the momentum in our favor is always going to be one of my favorite plays of his career. Hopkins also had some huge catches to carry the team to the win and Watson was spectacular as well.

2023

The win over the Titans in Tennessee with them wearing Oilers gear and the stadium decked out in Oilers regalia was storybook win for the team. Reading about the Titans owner throwing a fit over losing it the way she did and firing the coach over it made it even better. This was too good to be true, and like closure for me to let go of the Oilers and move on and let Tennessee have that snakebit bullshit. The Texans are my team.