Hype over release of schedule proves the NFL still rules.
Long live the 9-7 Texans.
The 9-7 Texans are nevermore.
Twitter exploded Wednesday morning with breaking news surrounding the Week 1 schedule of a 2021 NFL season that is still four months away.
The NBA is about to enter the playoffs. MLB is almost 40 games into a six-month regular season marathon.
Yawn. Blah. Who cares?
It’s Jerry Jones’ Cowboys at Tom Brady’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers, with the reigning Super Bowl champions hosting a healed Dak Prescott as the sport that dominates everything starts dominating everything again on Thursday, Sept. 9.
Three days later: Pittsburgh at Buffalo! Seattle at Indianapolis! Cleveland at Kansas City! Green Bay at New Orleans!
And, of course, Trevor Lawrence, Urban Meyer (Tim Tebow?) and the reigning AFC South basement-dwelling Jacksonville Jaguars at your Texans on Sept. 12 inside NRG Stadium. Bing, bang, boom. If Jags-Texans in Week 1 doesn’t send your pulse into overdrive, you might want to make sure you still have a heartbeat.
You could also get a ticket for $56 on the secondary market Wednesday morning, which was the lowest available price for any Week 1 game. Miami at New England on the same day was more than $1,000. Just imagine the price if Brady were still a Patriot.
I don’t want to get too crazy in mid-May. But let’s just say there’s a 50 percent chance that Tyrod Taylor, David Culley and Nick Caserio could start their 2021 rebuild with an encouraging 1-0 record. There's also a decent chance the Texans start 2-1, since Sam Darnold's Carolina Panthers are at
Does it all fall apart after that? A big ol’ to be determined. But this is already an undisputed fact: Week 7 at Arizona is the on-paper schedule highlight, with ex-Texans J.J. Watt and DeAndre Hopkins facing the franchise that drafted them as united Cardinals.
As easy as it is to make fun of the hype, hoopla and hysteria that annually surrounds the NFL schedule release — ESPN bragged that it was devoting three prime-time specials to the announcement; the NFL intentionally unveiled a slow tease, releasing Week 1’s games Wednesday morning, then rolling out the full schedule the same evening on multiple platforms — the reality is that it’s just a schedule (and we already knew the opponents). And the move to 17 games, instead of the normal 16, screws up a lot of things.
The multibillion-dollar monster that is the NFL will make a lot more money. You’ll get more wall-to-wall football stuffed into your face.
Win-win, right?
But now all the career and all-time records are going to get screwy. Last season’s stats won’t match up with 2021’s inflated numbers. Someone might throw for 6,000 yards. And, horror of horrors, the Texans can never go 9-7 again.
That 9-7 record was dependable, darn it.
Like clockwork, when the watch was working and the pendulum was perfectly swinging.
One step forward. One step backward. One sideways.
Just winning the AFC South wasn’t enough. The bar was not 9-7. But in many ways, it really was.
The initial three years of the Bill O’Brien era were devoted to promising/ frustrating 9-7 seasons. Heck, that barely better than average set of numbers became a recurring theme that set up two 4-12 campaigns and led to an 11-5 peak for O’Brien’s Texans in 2018.
Last season, an 0-4 start ended it all, a horrible 4-12 followed, and returning to the lofty heights of 9-7 felt like a summer dream.
Since they entered the NFL in 2002, the Texans went 9-7 four times. They also went 4-12 three times and 2-14 twice. All those records are impossible now, thanks to this weird 17-game thing.
What’s the new 9-7 on Kirby Drive: 9-8? Or 10-7? Or 8-9?
See?
It all looks odd when it doesn’t add up even. And 16 was such a sweet, simple number for all 32 NFL teams.
You have to go all the way back to 1977 to find a pro football season that wasn’t set for 16 games. That’s ancient history in these times.
Ryan Fitzpatrick, Brian Hoyer, Ryan Mallett and Brock Osweiler all felt right when 9-7 was possible. Now, Texans fans are insisting that an NFL record 0-17 season is within sight with Taylor theoretically set as Culley’s starting quarterback and lingering uncertainty surrounding Deshaun Watson’s football future.
The best thing about low expectations: overcoming and beating them.
Thanks to the NFL’s latest money grab and the addition of a needless 17th game, the Texans can’t go 9-7 again.
But right now, 9-7-1 feels like a heck of a season for the 2021 Texans.