There's a New Sheriff in Texas!

Born and raised in Houston since 1991. All I knew about was Cowboys were a Superpower in the NFL and the Houston Oilers were their little brother. That little brother left us in 1996. My dad hated it. Hate would be a strong word for him nowadays, but he couldn't stand it back then. The Oilers Owner at that time was trying to use mostly taxpayer money to get stadium improvements. This wasn't his first time doing it either, the first being followed up with a "threat" to move the team to Florida. This worked for the time being during the early years of the team existence which started in the 1960s. Then, Houston Mayor Lanier, refused to allow him to use tax money for these upgrades and doubled down after the NFL commissioner came down to give his support. All this led to the eventual move of the Oilers to Tennessee where they became the Titans.

All this is important to let you know that Houston hasn't had much success for their football teams even with the 2011-2014 Houston Texans teams who would always seem to head towards the playoffs and have a lot of promise, but just couldn't get over the 2nd round hump. Now, this Houston Texans Franchise started in 2002, and as you would expect and what we have seen from just about all expansion teams is early struggles to get going. We started off with David Carr's brother, Derek at QB, who we will never really know how good he could have been simply because the Franchise was so young and could not get a lot around him. In the franchise's short history, we have been lucky enough to have two Hall of Fame-level players Andre Johnson and recently retired J.J. Watt. We were very lucky to have them, but that's really all we've had to enjoy as Texans fans. We thought we had something with Deshaun Watson. I did, especially, when in his 2nd year I told my father, "If we don't win a Superbowl with Watson I don't think I can ever follow the Texans again." I believed in his talent and his ability... and then he went and received a bunch of sexual assault allegations, which I'm not going to get into because that's not my area. He hasn't looked all that great in Cleveland since he left either.

By far the best thing to come out of the situation with trading Watson to Cleveland for a load of picks is our rookie quarterback C.J. Stroud. My goodness, he looks impressive. Usually, a rookie has a rookie year, meaning he has a hard time reading pro-level defenses, and generally just makes enough mistakes to not have a great record in the first year. Stroud looks like he had a rookie month and that was about it. Not that all his games were bad nor all his games since his first month were great, but the Texans did look a little rough starting the season at 3-5. On top of that they were losing to teams they shouldn't and beating teams you wouldn't expect. It was looking like what you would expect of any team with a rookie head coach and QB. Then they just seemed to take off! Stroud went off in the game against Tampa Bay, leading an incredible game-winning drive! Now, Tampa Bay isn't what it was a few years ago, but they're still a well-coached team, and for a rookie to go in there and do that and look as in control as he did it was impressive. It didn't stop there though, he did it again the next week against and even better defense in the Bengals! The game against Arizona may have seemed worrisome to most people considering he more than doubled his interceptions (2 for the year before that game and leaving with 5 total), but that's not what I saw. What I saw was a young QB who even though he was making things challenging for his defense didn't let it phase him. He kept going out there and kept playing as best he could, and, in the end, he didn't let them down. They came out with a win.

This past week they went up against division leader, The Jacksonville Jaguars. This was a chance for them to tie their record and have the division lead having won both matchups against them. The Texans were down in the 4th quarter, and it was looking like C.J. Stroud was going to lead another game-winning drive. But it wasn't to be. The Jags held us off at the end (with some help throughout the game from the refs). Once more Stroud showed that he's no usual rookie. He's doing incredible work and his stats back it up. He's at 19 touchdowns to 5 interceptions, over 3,000 yards, and 8th in QBR in the league at 62.7. EIGHTH in the entire league in his first year with QBs like Tua, Goff, and Jackson under him. It's really been an impressive season so far and it's exciting to think the Texans might not actually end up like the Lions in 50 years having their first memorable season in decades. Stroud is the real deal and I'm excited to see where he takes us.

Even though a good QB can definitely change the fortunes of a team pretty quickly things work out even better when you add a great head coach to the mix. Demeco Ryans has turned this team completely around! The defense, even without household names, is 17th in the NFL after having been 27th last year. 17th isn't great, but considering where they came from to where they are now it's very impressive. And we have the right guy for the job. Coach Ryans came over from his defensive coordinator position in San Francisco where the 49ers were the #1 defense last year. It's been an amazing combination and it's going to be so nice to see how everything turns out. And if Coach Ryans doesn't win Coach-of-the-Year it would be a crime against him and the Texans. He's already won it the same way Stroud has already won Rookie-of-the-Year.

It's a good day to be a Texans Fan!