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| Photo by Marco Torres |
| Texans fans are bored |
Coming out of the half, my Twitter feed had just as many seemingly bored Texan fans ready to take a nap in the second half as there were fans excited about, you know, being up 17-0 in a road division game.
In the golf movie Tin Cup, there's a scene where Roy McAvoy (Kevin Costner) rags on the steady, but boring play of his archival David Sims (played by an out-of-Miami Vice-hibernation Don Johnson), telling him in his own special way how boring pars are. Sims' reply: "I'll take eighteen of them, all day long."
That's kind of how I feel about the Texans. Have their first two games, two 20-point final margin virtual non-events against a couple of crappy teams from Florida, been kind of boring? Yes. But they're wins, and wins with very little stress don't come often in this league.
Put this way -- do you second-half nappers really miss the nonstop string of heartbreak endings from 2009 and 2010? Really?
Um no, I don't. I'll take boring snoozer wins, as David Sims said, "Eighteen of them, all day long." Actually, we want nineteen of them, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Onto four winners and four losers form yesterday....
WINNERS
4. The Bulls on Parade
We had heard a bunch of noise before the season about Blaine Gabbert's supposed improvement during the offseason. After Sunday's mess -- 7 of 19, 53 yards for the game -- about the only thing I can say unequivocally improved was Gabbert's haircut. No more flowing locks out of the back of his helmet. Same old soft, confused disaster of a quarterback, but at least he doesn't look like a Vidal Sassoon model.
Credit the defense, who held Gabbert and the Jags to negative four yards passing in the first half. NEGATIVE for yards. And a lot of that is due to the presence of....
3. J.J. Watt
As the Texans' game wound down on Sunday afternoon, I tweeted the following:
And to be truthful, I only put "it feels like" in there to be cautious, but the fact of the matter is that Mario Williams made zero plays that truly mattered for the Texans in his six years here, partially because the team played in very few games that mattered and partially because Mario spent a majority of games in his Texans career on the side of a milk carton.
Conversely, look at J.J. Watt's game log just over his last four games (the two playoff games, when he should have already hit the dreaded "rookie wall" by the way, and the first two games of this season):
* 1/7/12 vs Cincinnati (W, 31-10): One sack, one pass knocked down, and a pick six to close out the first half (perhaps the most important play in franchise history)
* 1/15/12 at Baltimore (L, 20-13): 12 tackles, 2 1/2 sacks, and one tackle for loss. His best game of the season was his last game of the season.
* 9/9/12 vs Miami (W, 30-10): Three tackles, 1 1/2 sacks, three passes knocked down (two of which turned into interceptions)
* 9/16/12 at Jacksonville (W, 27-7): Five tackles, 1 1/2 sacks, two passes knocked down, one fumble recovery, and one new gimmick -- the Dikembe Mutombo finger wag! Love it!
For the Texans, the scary thing about Mario Williams' $96 million contract and $50 million guaranteed is that J.J. Watt is well on his way to actually deserving that kind of money. Mario may get eaten alive by Duane Brown when they face off later this season, but Mario may still get his revenge on the Texans, appropriately by doing nothing but being highly overpaid.
And actually, this would be a GREAT problem for the Texans to have.
Reliant Stadium
1 Reliant Park, Houston, TX
Category: General
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