17 TO FORGET

JAN. 14: END OF THE LINE

In his final Texans game Brock Osweiler threw three interceptions — all came in the second half, too — after the Texans had put up an admirable fight early in a 34-16 divisonal-round loss at New England. Good bye and good riddance.

MAY 9: OT CRUSHER

With control of the series at stake, the Rockets lost 110-107 in overtime to the Spurs in Game 5, who played without injured star Kawhi Leonard during the extra session. We hardly remember this game because the next one was so horrible.

MAY 11: FAILURE TO LAUNCH

We’ll probably never know for certain exactly what was wrong with James Harden that night, but somebody else had taken over his body in the Game 6 disaster against the Spurs. Two field-goals made? A minus-28 plus-minus? A 39-point loss at home to a team missing two of its best players? The mind still boggles.

JULY 17: END OF AN ERA

The consummate Houston outsider when he arrived, Leslie Alexander proved to be an exceptional owner for 24 seasons who was most generous to his adopted community. Until Tilman Fertitta stepped in as the “(2.2) Billion-Dollar Buyer,” it was a little unsettling to contemplate the Rockets’ future without Alexander.

JULY 18: STAR GOES DOWN

Astros shortstop Carlos Correa is sidelined with a torn ligament in his left thumb, keeping him out for nearly six weeks. That’s a scary injury for a man who swings a baseball bat for a living. Fortunately, he recovered fine.

SEPT. 10: CAPTAIN HOOK STRIKES

Another mystery? What was Bill O’Brien thinking when he made the decision to go with Tom Savage instead of Deshaun Watson coming out of the preseason? Savage’s time as the Texans’ No. 1 quarterback lasted all of 30 minutes after he was sacked six times in a horrific opener against the Jaguars.

SEPT. 24: BITTEN BY G.O.A.T

And what was O’Brien thinking when, by opting to kick a short field goal instead of trying to pick up a first down on fourthand-1 with the Texans leading 30-28 in the final three minutes, he gave Tom Brady the chance to do what Tom Brady does best? That questionable late decisionmaking and a porous defense allowed the Patriots to rally for a 36-33 win.

OCT. 8: DOUBLE WHAMMY

Whitney Mercilus went down first with a torn pectoral muscle on the seventh play against the Chiefs. J.J. Watt followed him onto IR seven plays later when he suffered a tibial plateau fracture. That series set the tone for the rest of the season.

OCT. 14: LOSIN’ ON TULSA TIME

In a 42-17 eyesore, Cougars turnovers practically gave Tulsa 21 points. And the Golden Hurricane had gone into the game coming off four consecutive losses, most recently 62-28 to Tulane.

OCT. 17: BRONX FAIL

The eighth-inning collapse in Game 4 of the ALCS marked the beginning of the end for Ken Giles, who got charged with the four runs the Yankees scored after they had pulled to within two. New York’s 6-4 win evened the series.

OCT. 18: SEASON ON THE BRINK

In a 5-0 loss in Game 5 at Yankee Stadium, the best offensive team in baseball couldn’t have surrendered more meekly, managing just four hits, and Dallas Keuchel’s mastery of the Yankees came to an ill-timed end. The Astros appeared to be choking, as we’d seen before from a couple of their previous best teams.

OCT. 27: WATCH WHAT YOU SAY

After Texans owner Bob McNair’s “inmates running the prison” comment became public, he said he didn’t mean it in the awful way it sounded, even insisting he wasn’t directing his ire at the players, but his timing couldn’t have been worse, given the tensions between the NFL’s mostly white establishment and its predominantly African-American work

force in racially charged times. OCT. 28: IMPLOSION

Yep, him again. Ken Giles’ ninth-inning debacle in Game 4 of the World Series capped a horrid preseason for him. In seven appearances, he gave up 12 hits and 10 earned-runs in 7 2/3 innings. Seventeen of the 40 batters he faced got on base. Time to move on.

OCT. 29: NOT AGAIN

Yep, him again. After Deshaun Watson dazzled for three-plus quarters in Seattle, Bill O’Brien inexplicably sent Lamar Miller up the gut three consecutive times following the two-minute warning when a little creativity might have given the Texans the first down that would have sealed a huge upset victory. Instead, Russell Wilson, like Brady before him, was given just enough time to pull out the 41-38 win.

NOV. 2: GUT PUNCH

At some point, perhaps we’ll get the real story as to what happened when Deshaun Watson suffered his season-ending ACL tear in practice. Speculation persists that something happened in Seattle, but Watson seemed to be walking normally when he came to his postgame news conference. Given the way the information leaked out that Thursday afternoon, the Texans already knew there was a problem Wednesday, which means he was actually hurt before the Astros won Game 7. Imagine how we’d have been feeling with two gut punches in a 24-hour period.

NOV. 21: UNFRIENDLY CONFINES

So much for the home-field advantage. After falling 2-0 in the first leg of the Western Conference final, a 3-0 loss in Seattle followed and that was that for the Dynamo.

DEC. 17: ROCK BOTTOM

Nothing much to say about the Texans’ 45-7 loss to Jacksonville, the biggest blowout in team history. It was a debacle.