SOLOMON: IT’S LOOKING LIKE ONE SAD OPENER.
Texans’ opener against Jaguars has all makings of sad day in franchise history
Rooting for one’s favorite team rarely presents a dilemma for fans.
With the options generally being it either wins or loses, we’re not talking about a difficult choice.
But the Texans’ inept operation in recent years has ruined their relationship with many fans.
Exactly 24 hours before kickoff, one could buy a ticket to the season opener against Jacksonville for less than $20.
I’m no marketing genius, but a “Twenty for Twenty” promotion might be in order:
Come see the Texans’ 20th season for only $20 bucks!
This low-priced professional football option isn’t COVIDrelated. Hey, I was at a sold-out seventh-grade volleyball game last week, so I know that if allowed to, fans will pack a place to root for their favorite team even in a global pandemic.
Until the 2020 season, Texans fans were allowed to pack NRG Stadium on game days. Even in bad seasons, every home game was sold out.
We will see more empty seats Sunday than we ever have for a Texans’ opener. While it is easier than ever to buy tickets to the game, it is a challenge to give them away.
This has all the makings of a sad day in franchise history … then a sad season.
Not even die-hard, Battle Red-bleeding fans think the Texans stand a chance at even being mediocre. Predictions are so dire that merely suggesting the team could win five of its 17 games draws ridicule.
Amid all the doom and gloom, David Culley coaches his first game with the Texans on Sunday.
What legacy will he build?
The much-maligned Bill O’Brien is the only coach in team history with a winning record (52-48).
Gary Kubiak lasted the longest, coaching 125 games, before being fired in the middle of a disastrous 2013 season. He finished with a 61-64 mark, falling below .500, thanks to an 11-game losing streak at the end of his tenure.
Believe whatever you want about the organization’s perceived short-term goal of acquiring draft picks to build for future success. For Culley, the future is now.
He turns 66 on Friday. After 15 seasons coaching at the college level, then 27 years as an NFL assistant, with 14 schools and teams, this is Culley’s biggest opportunity and almost certainly his final stop.
His five-year contract would have him coaching the Texans into his 70s. We know that is unlikely.
But movies will be made about Culley, if he figures out a way to win games with this ragtag bunch Texans general manager Nick Caserio put together.
Caserio knew he was entering dangerous PR territory when he answered a question about his expectations for the team with a comment that could be interpreted as winning or losing doesn’t matter.
“I’ll probably put my foot in my mouth for saying this, but it’s not as much outcome-oriented as process-oriented,” Caserio said. “That’s what we’re trying to do and build.”
Caserio didn’t mean that winning wasn’t important. He was making the point that team building is one thing, whereas winning is about how you play.
As the old jokes goes, he is in favor of his team’s execution. That’s on Culley and his staff. “We only think the one way, and the one way is that every time we go out to play, we’re going out to win,” Culley said. “And we feel like the guys we are going out there to play with are good enough to win with. We approach it that way.”
Culley is in the unenviable position of not only taking over a team of mostly newcomers, none of whom are elite, but he can’t play the team’s best player, the one who could most help the Texans win games.
The players he will play believe in him right now. Few others do.
The two sportsbooks I checked with could not immediately find a single bet on Culley being named NFL Coach of the Year, despite the hefty plus-6,600 payoff that is available. Yes, his odds are the worst in the league.
Translation: Bet $100, and if Culley is the coach of the year, you win $6,600.
A man who grew up where Culley grew up — small-town Tennessee in the 1950s and 60s — but has gotten to where he’s gotten, isn’t overly concerned about odds or statistics.
Expectations have never been lower for the Texans, who have more often been also-rans than contenders.
How they got here has been documented. How they get out of this mess has been explored.
What they do here and now is where Culley comes in.
He isn’t focused on years from now when the team might be good again, or on the mess O’Brien made while doing double duty as general manager.
Culley is his own man. The record of his time as leader of the Texans begins Sunday against the Jaguars.
He could surprise you.
Nice guys, good guys, don’t always finish last.