That headline almost hurt more to read than to write it. The worst franchise in the NFL. Especially given all the expectations from the past off/pre-season.
Heading into this season, that doesn’t seem to be true. It feels different. I feel like this is the last year the Texans will finish. The national media has them in Super Bowl talks. A line for white out merch wrapped around the stadium. Looks like the Texans have finally arrived.
Then, reality hit. Head coach Demeco Ryans and defensive coordinator Matt Burke made a major scheme change on defense. Offensive coordinator Nick Caley pulled the offense together. No one from Cal and Hannah McNair to the ball boys thought the team needed a good offensive line coach who could take a ragtag group of linemen and coach them into winners.
And here we are, sitting at 2-5, staring down the barrel of another year cementing the “NFL’s worst franchise” tag.
Why are the Houston Texans the worst?
Is this the annual Bill O’Brien/Jack Easterby prank? Is it an owner who would rather play video games than run a successful NFL team? Is it simply that the NFL is rigged and some team has to be the worst, and H-Town holds that team? A series of unfortunate events that follow the franchise around like a delusional Cowboy fan?
All of those are possible contributors, but it’s not about opinion or theory or #Hawtakez or anything like that. It’s just about the success rate.
For a long time, the Oakland/LA Raiders and the Baltimore Orioles were the best franchises in pro sports. Not because of any immeasurable feelings, but because of the success rate. At their height, the Raiders had the highest winning percentage in pro sports history, including 3 Super Bowl championships and 4 AFL/AFC championships.
That’s the stat set, winning games and winning championships.
Stadium-Maps.com
More than 2 decades without a Conference Championship
There are nine teams that have never won an NFL championship (since its inception in 1920), but only two of those franchises have never made it to a Super Bowl final (1970-present). They are the Houston Texans (the newest NFL franchise founded in 2002) and the Jacksonville Jaguars founded just 6 years ago in 1996.
The Jacksonville Jaguarshowever, did appear in a conference championship game whereas the Houston Texans no, so statistically, the Lone Star State outfit is the NFL’s least successful franchise in terms of getting the closest to the Vince Lombardi Trophy.
That’s a bitter pill to swallow. Texans are worse than Glitter Kitties. A paraphrase of that sentence has probably launched its fair share of stadium and bar fights over the past 2.5 decades. But, the numbers don’t lie. When it comes to championship game appearances, the Texans are .000 all time.
When it comes to actual win/loss rate, the Texans are ahead of the Jags, with H-Town sitting at .446 when this season started, while the Kitties are at .432. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers hold the lowest spot at .411, but have 2 Lombardis in their trophy case.
If all of this isn’t depressing enough for you, Texans diehards, then listen to this interview to hear former Texans Steven Nelson break down what he saw from the stands last weekend:
My takeaway from the interview with Nelson:
- Demeco needs a fire under him to turn this defense around in a scheme that utilizes all star power.
- Caserio needs to get an OC that is his own man, not a yes man, not an extension of himself or Ryans, but a true offensive mind that can use this offense well.
- Said OC and Caserio need to hire an offensive line coach who can fix the o-line.
Best of all, there’s still a (very, very small) statistical chance that this team can get its act together and make it to the Super Bowl this year. It won’t be easy, and it has no margin for error, but it can still be done.
The time to move this franchise off the “never made it to a championship game” list is now. The Houston Texans upcoming schedule is winnable, but not unless they use the bye week to make some legit changes.
And if not, it’s time to stop pushing alternate uni merch and start handing out paper bags for fans to wear on game day.
O’Brien is gone. Lovie is gone. Culley is gone. It’s time to leave the defeat to them.