It's Hard Being a Texans Fan

I've been a Houston Texans fan for the majority of my life.


I've seen a carousel of quarterbacks play behind center for us throughout the years along with a number of disappointing finishes in football games. I went through disastrous seasons ('member 2005 & 2013?), promising seasons (2009), and playoff losses ('11, '12, '15, '16). I've had expectations like any other football fan prior to the start of all those seasons only for them to go up in smoke by the year's end. Nevertheless, I understood that to fully realize a champion in your team you must first go through the trials of defeat and suffering.


This patience finally paid off for me in baseball last year when the Astros won the World Series, and with the Texans having a terrible end to their 2017 season thanks to their injuries coinciding that with the emergence of their first-round draft pick named DeShaun Watson, I thought maybe, just maybe, they will turn a corner for the better. Watson kicked ass before he suffered a torn ACL last year, so Texans fans like myself had a positive outlook towards what our offense might look like. We might be seeing an offensive monster in the making. Add that to the acquisition of Tyrann "Honey Badger" Mathieu and a new general manager in Brian Gaine, we thought that a new era was ushering for the Houston Texans.



Well........3 games into our season and things have not looked so well for us.



The first game was lost to the Patriots 27-20 in Foxborough. The second game was lost to the Blaine Gabbert-led Titans by the score of 20-17 in Nashville. And the third game, which just ended today, was lost to the Giants by the score of 27-22.

The first game I understand because we went up against the quintessential football player in Tom Brady. It's hard for a second-year quarterback--or any quarterback for that matter--to beat someone who is essentially a demigod in their house, so I let that pass. Along with a respectable defense that kind of held their own against Brady and his corps of low-radar receivers and the embodiment of the Jersey Shore in Gronk, the mood with the team was hopeful.




The second game, however, was unforgivable. You mean to tell me that the Texans couldn't beat a team with Blaine fucking Gabbert as their starting quarterback?

Blaine Gabbert?

BLAINE? GABBERT!????

A man who openly shat on a field while playing for the Jaguars!? Someone whose last name sounds like a very bad cavity!?

This man was only tasked with not giving up a turnover and you couldn't even take him down. You couldn't get more than 1 sack on him with that defensive line. Oh, and let's not mention the injuries they went through last week. They didn't have Mariota play that game. Hell, some of their key weapons weren't on the field and you still lost.

AND THE FUCKING FAKE PUNT!!!!!!! You mean to tell me you couldn't even cover the one man left alone on the right side of the field before the ball was snapped!? The fuck went on in the defense's mind that play????

And then today was just as laughable. Turnovers in key plays killed us. Lamar Miller, really? You still don't know how to secure the ball after playing in the NFL for 7 FUCKING years!?

And the play-calling. OH MY GOODNESS THE PLAY-CALLING. O'Brien, you have eyes, right? You can see, right? You can tell when a part of your offense is and is not working, right? You're a professional football coach, RIGHT!? The run game was not working, and you still try to hand the ball back? Watson was playing alright when he passes the ball quickly. There were times where he ran drive seamlessly with just his arm and legs. He was on fire. You can't just halt his momentum to play a handoff run down to the middle of the pile simply for the sake of  "mUh EStaBlisHinG the ruNNinG GamE foR bAlAncE". In sports, when someone on your team is hot, you ride it all the way! It's not that hard to understand.

Also, the defense was carrying us once again. I have no problem with that but games are not normally won on one side of the ball. One can't rely on their defense all the time, right? I feel like I saw the same story today that I've been seeing for the past 4 years, where we have been competitive thanks to a great defense despite having an underwhelming offense. It's frustrating for me to not see a lot of touchdowns. Where was the magic from last season before Watson got injured? Where are the option plays?

The worst out of all this, though, is the God damn penalties. Our discipline so far this season has simply been stupid. Key plays in our favor were erased thanks to self-inflicting penalties in all those games (I swear to God if I hear one more false start penalty on the offensive line in the red-zone, I'm going to choke a bitch). As of before the start of the Texans vs Giants game, we were tied for 7th place in most penalties called with 17. Today they had 10 called penalties. My goodness, if they keep this penalty production up, we'll be 1st place by next week.



Look, I get it. This 2018 season is only 3 games in and things may change drastically since now. But looking at the team we are with our questionable play-calling and childish behavior, I don't like our chances in winning a lot of games. Plus, there are only 16 games in a season and they fly by.



Even worse, history is not kind to teams who are 0-3 after 3 games in the regular season. Since 1980, only 5 teams out of more than 160 have made the playoffs after starting their given year 0-3, with the recent one being the 1998 Buffalo Bills. This makes for nearly 2 percent. As such, I believe it will take a miracle for the Texans to turn things around and somehow make the postseason.



Regardless of this, I will not lose hope in the face of such insurmountable odds. I am a fan of the Houston Texans and I will not abandon my team when they're on the negative trajectory of play. Much like what I did with the Astros, I will stick with my football team through thick and thin with the hope that one day we will win the elusive Super Bowl in my lifetime. I will believe in them to the end.




Go Texans.



Well, at least we have J.J. Watt.