NFL continues to see Texans as not worthy of prime time
Philadelphia won the NFC (L)East with a 9-7 record. The Eagles’ strongest competition was a severely disappointing Dallas Cowboys team that should soon be searching for Jason Garrett’s replacement.
Philly received a better playoff platform than the Texans.
Tennessee also went 9-7, fell to the Texans at home when the AFC South was still up for grabs, and needed a Week 17 win against backups just to make the postseason.
The Titans received a better playoff stage than the back-toback AFC South champs.
When it comes to national TV eyes and publicly promoting the multibillion-dollar worth of the shield, the National Football League still does not value nor respect the Texans.
Somewhere, Rodney Dangerfield is smiling.
When the Texans make the playoffs — six times this decade, four out of the last five years — you immediately know what is coming next.
Saturday afternoon.
The earliest wild-card game. The first playoff contest in a long road that eventually ends with one team capturing the Super Bowl trophy.
The Texans have won their division four times under sixthyear coach Bill O’Brien: 2015, ’16, ’18, ’19. All four banners have been rewarded with the lowly Saturday afternoon slot.
When the Texans played their wild-card games under Gary Kubiak in 2011 and ’12? You guessed it: Saturday afternoon.
“It’s definitely accelerated. But at this point in the season, where you’ve had hundreds of meetings and hundreds of practices, I think guys know what to expect relative to what we’re going to try to get done this week,” O’Brien said Monday inside NRG Stadium, as the final week of the regular season transitioned into wild-card week.
Of course, what time/day a professional football team plays on your glossy flat-screen television means absolutely nothing once the ball is kicked. The better team normally wins. The best teams keep winning, stretching the joy of January into the franchise-altering awe of February.
But Buffalo-Texans at 3:35 p.m. Saturday inside NRG Stadium is a symbol and a reminder.
Respect is earned, not given, in the NFL.
“We know our fans are thirsting for a winner,” O’Brien said. “We understand that.”
The Texans are led by Deshaun Watson, one of the most thrilling young quarterbacks in a sport dedicated to explosive offenses. DeAndre Hopkins, Watson’s favorite target, is one of the most electric receivers in the league. J.J. Watt has been a national name for almost a decade.
But even with their recent run of AFC South banners, the Texans still must prove they deserve the next level of spotlights.
To a local fanbase that has grown numb to divisional titles followed by severe playoff letdowns. To a football nation currently zeroed in on Baltimore, San Francisco, Green Bay, New Orleans, Kansas City, New England and Seattle.
Even in the great state of Texas, where endless overanalysis of the Cowboys’ daily drama consistently takes over your TV the moment you click on a national sports network.
Dangerfield could’ve been the Texans’ coach: “I don’t get no respect.”
O’Brien suddenly became defensive behind a podium Sunday, even when his 2019 team’s run of impressive victories was mentioned.
“We’ve had some pretty good wins here, and we’ve won the division two years in a row, four out of five. I think that’s OK,” said O’Brien, who bristled when his team’s inconsistency was mentioned. “But we’re going to try our best to do better in the playoffs, because I think that’s really important.”
Beat Buffalo and the local buzz will begin. But it will take a major divisional-round upset of either Baltimore or Kansas City for local fans to truly buy in, the state to take serious notice and the nation to finally take the Texans seriously.
That would lead to the franchise’s first AFC championship game.
And then the Texans would be playing on Sunday, on a national platform almost two decades in the making.