Misery has plenty of company inHouston’s NFL history
The parallels among this season’s Texans, their 2013 team and the 1994 Oilers are interesting and alarming.
One season after they finished 10-6 and won the AFC South title for the fourth time in five years, the Texans are 2-7 going into Sunday’s game against New England, a team they defeated in 2019.
One season after the Texans finished 12-4 in 2012 and won a second consecutive division title, they started 2-7 and didn’t win another game.
One season after the Oilers finished 12-4 in 1993 and won another AFC Central title, they were saddled with a 2-14 record.
Let’s take a jog down memory lane and see how two of Houston’s most exasperating teams compared to this season’s Texans, who can’t beat anybody other than Jacksonville.
To be fair, the Texans have played a brutal schedule. The seven teams that beat them have a combined record of 46-17. Kansas City, Pittsburgh and Green Bay lead their divisions.
Looking back at 2013, coach Gary Kubiak was fired and replaced by defensive coordinator Wade Phillips, who was interim coach for the last three games.
In 1994, coach Jack Pardee was fired 10 games into the season
and replaced by defensive coordinator Jeff Fisher, also on an interim basis.
This season, coach Bill O’Brien was fired after four games and replaced by associate head coach Romeo Crennel, interim coach over the last 12 games.
The 2013 Texans started 2-0, lost to Baltimore and had an overtime meltdown against Seat
tle, leading to quarterback Matt Schaub’s throwing too many pick-sixes and, ultimately, giving the Texans the first pick in the 2014 draft.
General manager Rick Smith used that draft choice on outside linebacker Jadeveon Clowney.
Thanks to the Jets and Jaguars, it doesn’t look like the Texans are going to get the first pick again, and it wouldn’t matter anyway, because it belongs to Miami.
That would be the red-hot Dolphins, who have a five-game winning streak, a 6-3 record and a chance to overtake Buffalo for first place in the AFC East. Imagine Dolphins coach Brian Flores dethroning his former team, the Patriots, and his former boss, Bill Belichick, as division champions.
After Kubiak was fired with three games left in the 2013 season, he went on to win a Super Bowl with Denver. His last Texans team closed the season with a team-record 14-game losing streak, including nine one-score defeats.
This season, the Texans have lost four one-score games, including Sunday’s 10-7 defeat at Cleveland.
In the seasons that preceded the Texans’ monumental collapses, not only did they win the division, but they also won a playoff game at home before being eliminated in divisionalround games on the road — against the Patriots in 2012 and the Chiefs in 2019. At least the 2012 Texans didn’t choke a 24point playoff lead like they did last season at Kansas City.
Speaking of playoff chokes, last season wasn’t the first time Houston football fans experienced overwhelming despair.
The Oilers blew a 35-3 lead in the 1992 wild-card game at Buffalo, where they lost 41-38 in overtime
— still the biggest choke job in NFL history. They recovered in 1993 to finish 12-4 and win another AFC Central title.
Like the 2013 Texans, the 1994 Oilers plummeted from 12-4 to 2-14 — the biggest one-season plunge in league history at the time.
Then the Texans did the same thing in 2013, and this year’s team is threatening to produce similar results.
In comparing the 1994 Oilers, the 2013 Texans and this season’s team, there’s one big difference: quarterback. Deshaun Watson has been playing exceptionally well and figures to get even better.
Looking back, it’s difficult to understand how the 2013 team could have produced the worst record in the NFL.
Check out this offense: Schaub, running back Arian Foster, receivers Andre Johnson and DeAndre Hopkins, tight end Owen Daniels and an offensive line of tackles Duane Brown and Derek Newton, guards Wade Smith and Brandon Brooks and center Chris Myers.
That’s a mind-boggler to think how that much talent got so few results that season.
The 2013 defense wasn’t too shabby, either. It included end J.J. Watt, outside linebacker Whitney Mercilus, outside linebacker Brooks Reed, inside linebacker Brian Cushing and cornerbacks Johnathan Joseph, Kareem Jackson and A.J. Bouye. Safety Ed Reed was on the team until he was released during the season.
Watt, Mercilus and snapper Jon Weeks are still around. They won’t admit it publicly, of course, but they know that 2013 team had much more talent than this season’s team.
For what it’s worth to all those fans who still agonize over O’Brien’s trading Hopkins to Arizona, that wasn’t an unprecedented bad decision by a Houston football team.
One reason the Oilers were so pathetic in 1994 was they had traded quarterback Warren Moon to Minnesota. Moon’s 10th and final season in Houston was 1993, when the Oilers were, among teams I’ve seen, the best one that didn’t make the Super Bowl.
Moon was traded to the Vikings because owner Bud Adams was worried his contract would create problems for the new salary cap. Concern about the cap is the same reason fans heard from the Texans after the Hopkins trade.
After leaving Houston, Moon led the Vikings to the playoffs and extended his career another seven seasons before being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.
If Hopkins continues to excel with the Cardinals and makes more extraordinary catches like his Hail Mary touchdown that beat Buffalo on Sunday, he might someday join Moon in the Hall of Fame.
Something the Texans haven’t done, at least not yet, is make a habit of trading players who get enshrined in Canton, Ohio. The Oilers did that with quarterback George Blanda, safety Ken Houston and receivers Charlie Joiner and Steve Largent, to name four.
Perhaps the Texans will win another game or two, and comparisons to the 1994 Oilers and 2013 Texans will be moot.
FYI: In his first full season as the Oilers’ coach, Fisher led them to a 7-9 record. O’Brien’s first team finished 9-7.
If owner Cal McNair hires the right general manager and coach, maybe the Texans will be able to make a quick turnaround like their Houston predecessors and not have to undergo a complete overhaul.