TOUGH TO SWALLOW
FOR HOUSTON FOOTBALL FANS WHO’VE SUFFERED FOR FOUR DECADES, THIS YEAR’S UNLIKELY NFL FINAL FOUR REPRESENTS MORE SALT IN THE WOUND
This year’s NFL final four will be a hard one for long-suffering Houston fans to stomach.
There are cruel jokes and then there is the NFL’s 2018 “Final Four.” It’s clear, beyond any reasonable doubt, the football gods hate Houston and I don’t know why.
For starters, they have improbably turned us into Patriots fans. There’s no earthly way H-Town can root for the Jaguars, our shared AFC South blood notwithstanding, come Sunday afternoon because misery loves company. Should Jacksonville upset the Patriots (the odds, to be sure, favor pigs sprouting wings first), the number of cities in NFL-land that never have had the opportunity to cheer for their team in a Super Bowl will shrink by a fourth, leaving only Houston, Cleveland and Detroit on the outside looking in.
And old-timers in those Rust Belt cities at least have foggy memories of when the Browns and the Lions ranked as NFL royalty, back in the fifties and the sixties. Houston’s teams haven’t even advanced to a conference championship game since 1979, the longest drought — by a margin of
nine years — among the NFL’s current municipalities. That includes Los Angeles, which didn’t have a team at all for more than two decades, from 1995 through 2015.
Texans’ pain, others’ gains
Also, think about this for a moment. Only last week did the Texans give a four-year contract extension to Bill O’Brien, the man oft-described as a “quarterback whisperer” yet also the man who twice jettisoned a former University of Houston quarterback, TexansRams discard turned Vikings superhero Case Keenum. Keenum, as you know, is now 60 minutes and a couple of illtime Nick Foles foul-ups from being the first quarterback ever to lead a team onto its own field in the Super Bowl. Really? Although it’s slightly less personal with the Eagles, their renaissance has been significantly aided and abetted by Brandon Brooks, a promising young guard the Texans deemed unworthy of freeagency largess two springs ago who has blossomed into a Pro Bowl-worthy block of granite for the Eagles. In Houston post-Brooks, O’Brien’s offensive line is arguably the league’s worst.
The Texans’ secondary is bottom-rung, too, so this is probably a good time to bring up the name A.J. Bouye. The former undrafted cornerback, as solid a defender as there exists in any NFL secondary, helped the Texans win back-to-back AFC South titles in seasons when Jacksonville went 5-11 and 3-13. As with Brooks, the Texans declined to show him the money, so a Jaguar he became. Buoyed by Bouye, a defense that staggered in 31st and 25th in points allowed in 2015 and 2016 climbed to second in 2017.
All because of him? Of course not. In part because of him? Well, duh. With Bouye working opposite Jalen Ramsey, the Jaguars didn’t allow a quarterback not named Ben Roethlisberger or Russell Wilson throw for as many as 250 yards against them all year. Jacksonville would give up fewer passing yards than any team. Only two surrendered fewer touchdowns through the air and only one had more interceptions than the Jaguars’ 21. A season earlier, they had the fewest in the league, managing but seven.
Bouye accounted for a teamhigh six by his lonesome in 2017, and his coverage skills provided opportunities for others. Ramsey and safeties
Barry Church and Tashaun Gipson contributed four apiece (Only Andre Hal had as many as three for the Texans). The Jaguars have intercepted three more passes in their two playoff victories.
Tom Brady got the best of Bouye and the Texans in last season’s divisional round
game, a 34-16 romp by the Patriots, but Bouye should return to Foxborough in Jaguars colors brimming with confidence. Aside from forcing a Patriots fumble, he intercepted Brady in New England territory early in the second quarter, setting up a field goal that gave the Texans hope … until Brock Osweiler started rifling picks left and right in the second half.
Texans still chasing
O’Brien was hired to replace Gary Kubiak in large part because he’d seemingly been an essential cog in the mighty Patriots’ machine from 2007 through 2011, ultimately being promoted to offensive coordinator. But his former insider status there has done nothing to close the yawning gap between the franchises. O’Brien is 0-4 against his old boss, Bill Belichick. His final game under Bill Belichick became another upset loss to the Giants in the Super Bowl and, in the six seasons since he originally left to take over at Penn State, New England has advanced to the AFC Championship Game each year.
It wouldn’t be fair, or accurate, to suggest the Patriots improved because O’Brien left, but they have hardly needed to mourn his departure. And given the inauspicious credentials of the other three Championship Sunday survivors — Brady has more Super Bowl victories (five) than Bortles, Foles and Keenum combined have playoff wins (four) — it’s hard to picture New England not collecting a sixth Lombardi Trophy on Feb. 4 in Minneapolis.
But in the silver-linings department, Deshaun Watson’s oversized presence compensates for plenty, makes the current circumstances tolerable. The Texans’ rookie quarterback proved over the course of six tantalizing starts, before he tore an ACL in practice, that he and O’Brien have the makings of a fruitful partnership. That goes a long way toward explaining why the coach’s contract got extended after a 4-12 stumble and renders his failure to fully grasp what he had in Keenum moot.
Case of resilience
Truth to tell, Keenum never showed enough as a Texan, beyond his moxie and resilience anyway, to prove he was worthy of being given the reigns to O’Brien’s offense. The first snap he took in O’Brien’s inaugural preseason — after he’d gone 0-8 as an emergency starter for Kubiak and Wade Phillips in the disastrous 2-14 free fall that cost both their jobs 2013 — resulted in a delay-of-game penalty. The last one preceded an interception. In between, Keenum directed three drives of 50-plus yards but never led the Texans into the end zone.
So he got cut. Most of us were sad about it. No one was shocked. But, when O’Brien ran out of quarterbacks that December, Keenum was summoned back — from a deer blind in Missouri, the story goes — and he led the Texans to a pair of victories, if not quite into the playoffs.
“One thing that stands out to me with Case is he’s really bright,” O’Brien said following the first win, 25-13 over a Ravens team that, ironically, had Kubiak, Keenum’s original NFL advocate, as the offensive coordinator. “Here’s a guy that hasn’t been here in four months and comes right back
into the fold and really has a good recall of what we were doing back when he was here. I really think that’s impressive. That’s very impressive.”
Keenum’s numbers were pedestrian at best. He misfired on 22 of his 42 passes against the Ravens while throwing for only 185 yards with an interception and no touchdowns, producing a passer rating of 50.2. A far better game against the Jaguars followed — 25-for35 for 250 yards, two touchdowns, a lone pick and a 98.5 rating — but O’Brien moved on to Brian Hoyer anyway
Keenum, the ex-Cougar, wanted to remain a Texan. After five years at UH and parts of three more with the Texans, Houston had become home. Devoutly religious then as now, he spoke of God’s “plan” for him, saying: “It’s a perfect plan and it’s a plan for me to prosper.”
In the end, it just didn’t include Houston or the Texans.
Thirty-seven months later, Keenum became the first quarterback to win an NFL playoff game with a touchdown pass as time ran out in the fourth quarter. Now, his Vikings team, perfectly sculpted for his skill set — a No. 1-ranked defense, a stout running game and a protective offensive line would be a dream mix for the greatest of quarterbacks — is favored to prevail in Philadelphia, then go home for the Super Bowl. Oh, the football gods …